Page 4 of Single Omega Dad
I grabbed him around the waist and hefted him into a more comfortable position. He peered up at me with big, ocean-blue eyes, his blond curls catching the light and turning slightly pink against his forehead.
“Luke called me a meega again. You said you didn’t like it. So he shouldn’t say it.”
Out the corner of my eye, I saw Luke, the Alpha twin, peer around the threshold of the door, but I pretended he wasn’t there. Little Tybor was the Omega twin, and he was only just learning what that label meant to him and to the outside world. I didn’t like to think that life would be harder for him, and I was trying to teach both my boys that labels didn’t make us who we were inside, that we were all of value and our little family needed to be loyal always and support one another. But the real world did not usually reflect my idealistic notions.
“The word is Omega, honey,” I said softly to him. “And you’re right, he shouldn’t call you that. He should use your name. Tybor.”
“But we’re the same,” Tybor said. “We look exactly alike. Why isn’t he om meega, too?”
I put my chin down so it touched his head and drew in his scent. Chocolate and oranges. My beautiful baby Omega was so sweet. “Because that’s just the way you were made. Some of us are made Omega and some Alpha.”
“I choose Alpha,” said Tybor.
“Sometimes we don’t get a choice in some things.”
He thumped his little fist against my thigh and pouted. “I could pretend.”
“Why, sweetheart?”
“I want to be like Luke ineveryway.”
“You’re beautiful just the way you are.”
One side of Tybor’s mouth curved up, suppressing a grin.
Just then Luke stepped into the room. His lips pressed tight with worry. His cheeks were puffed a little as if he wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say.
I held out my arm to him. He came forward and let me embrace him around the shoulders. His head was down. He smelled of fire and the sea.
“And Luke, too, is beautiful just the way he is.”
Tybor pressed his cheek against my chest. I felt him nod.
Luke twisted in my hold and bent his head back, catching my gaze. “Daddy, why can’t I say Omega if it’s not telling a lie?”
“Because you both have perfectly good names. And it is respectful to another to use his name.”
“What do spectful mean?” asked Tybor.
“Respectful means you treat another person the way you wish to be treated. It means you think about your words hard before you speak them. It means if you don’t have anything nice to say, it might be better not to speak at all.”
My little speech was probably going to be forgotten in ten minutes. My sons would continue to play and fight, laugh and yell and tease each other. Of course that was healthy, but I was determined to raise them as good men, as equals regardless of what the world thought about gender differences.
“But is Omega a bad word?” asked Luke.
“No. But if you use the word to point out your differences like you’re trying to put him down or make fun of him, then it can be.”
“I wasn’t, Daddy,” Luke tried to argue.
“But Tybor got upset, right?” I hugged Luke tighter.
“I don’t know.”
“I think he did.”
Tybor pushed away from my chest so he could look at Luke. “I broke his fire truck.”
“You did?” I asked.
