Page 11 of Mating of Convenience
I gaped at her. She’d kicked her daughter out but I was the dramatic one? My grandmother chuckled. A sound I’d never heard come out of her mouth before. “I seem to have shocked you.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Your use of language is something that we’ll have to work on, young man.”
I simply stared at my grandmother. The situation was too surreal for me to come up with a scathing remark. Idly, I wondered if she had any idea how often I’d inked bad words into people’s skins.
“I’d like to see you succeed in life, dear,” my grandmother said. “You could stop worrying about your siblings and maybe even start up a business of your own.” She eyed my tattoo again. “Provided you agree to my conditions, of course.”
And there was the catch. “What conditions?”
“Oh, don’t worry, dear. It’s in your best interest to follow my conditions. I’d simply like you to lead a respectable life.”
“A respectable life by whose conditions? Yours? Fuck that.” I got up from my chair. This whole conversation was insane. There wasn’t enough money in the world to make me agree to live my life by my grandmother’s rules.
“Don’t dismiss my kindness so easily,” my grandmother said in a sharp tone of voice. “You’re a young omega in need of guidance and I’m willing to provide it to you. You don’t need to throw a fit over that.”
“I’m throwing a fit over the fact that you think you can tell me what to do when you were never there for us before.”
“I’m reaching out to you now because I think there’s still hope for you, and frankly, because somebody has to.”
“What do you even want me to do?” I asked, eyes blazing. “What’s a good life for an omega in your eyes? Let me guess. You want me to get married, don’t you? Pop out ten children? Or no, maybe not, after all you kicked mom out for having a child.”
“Your mother could have had all the money she wanted if she’d agreed to lead a respectful life in spite of the mistake she’d made.”
“I bet Mom loved your conditions just as much as I do.”
“Your mom could never see past her own needs. Just think of all the things she could have provided you and your siblings if she hadn’t been so poor.”
My hands balled into fists. “How dare you—”
“Are you smarter than your mother, Raphael?” The old hag cut me off. “Are you willing to do what it takes to make sure your siblings have a roof over their heads?”
I stared at my grandmother but I had no words. There was so much rage clouding my thoughts that I couldn’t form an eloquent response no matter how hard I tried. Who the hell did she think she was that she could dangle my family’s safety over my head to control me?
“I’m not asking for much,” she continued to speak while I still struggled for words. “There must be an alpha in your life that you like. Get married.Remainmarried for at least a year. You can get a divorce after, if you’d like to, but I’m willing to bet you won’t.”
“I’m leaving,” I announced, since I still couldn’t come up with a good response to grade-A bullshit like that.
“You’ll be back,” she said, as if this was a fact.
I left the house before I succumbed to the urge to strangle the old lady. There were a lot of things I would do to help out my family, but this… This was just ridiculous, wasn’t it?
7
Nathan
Be a teacher, people told me. It’ll be fun, they said.
What a load of crap.
I gotta admit, there weresomefun days, but they were usually overshadowed by days like today. Days like today when the kids just wouldn’t listen when I told them tobe carefularound the Bunsen burners. Now fifteen year old Tory Mansen had singed half her hair while leaning over to talk to a friend at another table. There was no point trying to continue my class as usual. Not while my voice was being drowned out by Tory’s wailing and the giggles of her classmates. To top it all off, the whole room smelled like sulfur.
Abandoning my experiment--we were going to make caramel--I tried to soothe Tory in the hopes that I wouldn’t be getting calls from angry parents later. The girl had had such beautifully long brown hair. It was a shame to see it singed, really.
I loved chemistry. Hell, I even liked kids, but putting the two of them together too often resulted in disaster.
“It’ll grow back,” I tried.
