Page 15 of The Omega's Surprise Baby
Wait till you realize that your parents had sex to make you.
“Okay, that's the last of them,” I announced, interrupting my son's conversation while taping another poster to a street lamp. “Now we gotta hurry home to get to the restaurant in time. Hope you're hungry.”
“I'm hungry!” Jake announced.
“Good, then, chop-chop.”
Jake turned to Conner. “Race you there!”
“You're not—”...supposed to run in your suit.But he took off before I could get the words out, and Conner ran after him. I sighed, and then I tried to keep up.
At least we wouldn't be late to the dinner.
* * *
As it turned out, we made it to the restaurant just in time. Everyone but us had already taken seats around the table, but it looked like dinner had only been served a few minutes ago. Mostly seafood, but that was no surprise. This restaurant had only opened a few months ago, in a prime location near the shore. ‘The Great Wave’ it called itself, and upscale seafood was its main attraction.
Jake rushed off to sit with his parents, while I looked for Nick in the crowd, because I'd left Mary with him. I found the two of them close to the wedding couple, so Conner and I took seats between Nick and Dean.
“I was a little worried you weren't going to make it,” Dean remarked as I sat down.
“And leave you hanging without your best man? C'mon, man, I'd never do that. I had very important business to take care of, that’s all.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I heard all about the cat. Never knew you were such a good Samaritan.”
“Don't mock him,” Griff said from his place by Dean's side. He turned to me with a smile. “I think you did a good thing.”
“Thank you. I did it for Conner, really.” And maybe just a little bit because I wanted to impress an omega I had no business wanting to impress. It could be worse, though. All the most stupid things I'd ever done, I'd done because I wanted to impress an omega. When I'd first met Ron, I streaked through the forest on a school trip and jumped into a lake buck-naked, hoping he would notice me.
That adventure had gotten me a suspension.
And a date.
“Shane? Are you with me?” Dean snapped his fingers in front of my face. I must have zoned out.
“Sorry, just...lost in thought.” I ran a hand through my hair and focused back on the here and now. This wedding thing was difficult, but I didn't want to make my cousin regret asking me to be his best man. He'd given me so much support after Ron died, going so far as to ditch his job and move here to help me with the kids. His wedding deserved my full attention.
Easier said than done, though, because the next minute, the music started playing. Kade sat several feet away from the table on the other side of the room from me. He'd brought his guitar, and he was right; acoustic guitar really did provide nice background music. He wasn't singing now--he was going to be singing at the wedding tomorrow--but damn if I didn't want to hear his voice. It was all I could think about as I cut into the salmon on the plate in front of me.
I'd heard Kade sing on video, but I was sure in person his voice would be even more amazing.
Focus, Shane, don't stare at Kade.
Seriously, Conner was sitting next to me and the kid was already suspicious enough. I didn't want to give him any more reason to worry. Kade wasn't going to become a permanent fixture in our lives. He couldn't. People like him belonged in big cities like New York or L.A.. Performing at this wedding was probably nothing more than a low point in his career for him.
No, starting anything with him would be stupid.
After a moment, I noticed I wasn't the only one at the table staring at Kade. Several of the guests either stole glances at the omega with the guitar or ogled him openly. Nobody said anything, not out loud, but there were whispers. Naively, I believed they were discussing how nice the music was.
Beside me, my cousin Nick watched the other guests with concern. “I swear if any of them saysanything,” he muttered under his breath.
“What are you talking about?”
“I know they're all thinking of that stupid tape. I can see it on their faces.”
Tape? I let my eyes sweep the room, but I still had no idea what was bothering Nick.
“That musician you hired is lovely,” my sister said from the other end of the table.
