Page 71 of The Omega's Secret Baby
“You don’t have to, sweetie. Not if you don’t want to.”
“The sledding was awesome, though.”
“That’s good.” I kissed his hair. “I’m glad you had some fun.”
For a moment, we sat in silence, my arm still around Jake. After a minute or so, Jake looked up at me with a serious expression. “Is Matt going to leave again?”
“You heard us fight, didn’t you?” I might have raised my voice a little too, on my tirade.
Jake shrugged.
“We only fought alittle,” I said.
“Was it because of me?”
“Hey, whatever happens between Matt and me is not your fault, okay?”
He nodded, even though he didn’t seem entirely convinced. Holy hell. I’dknownthis relationship might be tough on him, and yet I’d thrown caution to the wind when Matt kissed me. I just couldn’t help myself around him. Even when I was mad at him, I still loved that stupid alpha like there was some sort of magnetic force pulling us together. All these years, and that hadn’t changed. It should have changed. I should have grown up.
“Are you and Matt going to make up?” Jake asked.
What to say? I didn’t know. Maybe I had screwed up too hard by not telling Matt about Jake eight years ago. Or maybe our worlds were just too different. “I hope so,” I said, brushing some hair back from my son’s face. “But you know, whatever happens, he’ll still come to see you. I know he loves you.” Even if he didn’t always make the smartest parental decisions.
Matt was right; I should never have kept him away from Jake in the first place. But it was too late to fix that mistake.
* * *
That day, after I’d put Jake to bed, Griff and I spent the remainder of the evening eating ice cream and watching mindless television shows. It was great to have a brother like him in times of crisis. Actually, it was great to have a brother like him, full stop.
“Thanks for staying up with me,” I told him, licking some chocolate ice cream off my spoon.
“Don’t worry about it.” He passed the rest of his ice cream to me. “I’m done with that, if you want it.”
“You? Done with ice cream before me?”
“I don’t know, man, you seem to be really into that stuff tonight.”
I looked at the tub of ice cream I’d nearly completely annihilated and couldn’t disagree with him. Usually Griff had a much bigger sweet tooth than I did. The man ate chocolate bars for breakfast, for god’s sake. The only time I’d ever out-snacked him was…
Oh dear God.
Griff and I looked at each other and I could tell by the look on his face that he was having the same horrifying thought.
My brother spoke first. “Tell me, is it at all possible that you…”
“We used protection.” I’d made sure of that! Nobody wanted to repeat past mistakes.
“Did you really?”
“Yeah, man, I keep condoms by my bed.”
“How long have you kept them there? Because, no offense, but you don’t bring a lot of guys back here.”
Hearing my brother’s words, a horrible suspicion dawned on me. I stormed up to my room and got the pack of condoms out of my bedside drawer. Then I fumbled with it until I found the expiration date.
It was two years in the past.
Fuck.
