Page 18 of Jake and Conner
It looked like we had a visitor. Wonderful. Perfect timing.
I padded over to the door and opened it just a slit. If there was an alpha on the other side, I couldn't let them catch me in my current state.
Lucky for me, it wasn't an alpha, though. It was Raphael. I opened the door a little farther.
He looked me over with a surprised expression. "I'm going to guess you're not ready for our date."
"What date?" I strained my memory, but it was really hard to keep a clear head.
"We were gonna head into the city today, remember?"
Shoot. I'd totally forgotten about that. I hadn't called to cancel. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's not a good time." I couldnotleave the house today.
"Seriously?" Raph stepped into the house without waiting to be invited in. At least he closed the door behind himself, and he had the decency to pet my dog, who was looking at him expectantly. "Hey, Kitty. Aren't you a good girl? Yeah, you're a good girl. You're the best girl."
"I'm sorry," I repeated, watching Kitty slobber all over Raph. She was indeed the best girl.
"You really forgot?" Raph straightened. "Do you at least have coffee? I'll have a cup while you get ready and then we can hit the road. No worries."
I hadn't made coffee and I wasn't going to hit the road. But how to explain that to Raphael?
"It's okay," he took matters into his own hands when I hesitated. "I can make my own coffee." And with that, he walked into the kitchen and started working my coffee machine while I watched. "Good thing you never change where you keep things," he commented and I was reminded of the short time he'd lived here. Things hadconstantlychanged their location then.
"I'm really not up to going anywhere today," I said. Already, I could feel the effects of the shower fading. With one hand, I steadied myself on the door frame as my skin grew uncomfortably warm again. If I didn't get Raph to leave soon, he would know exactly what was going on and he would have questions. I'd never told anyone about this. At least, not anyone aside from Jake.
"Are you sick?"
I considered lying. I wasn't fast enough, though. It only took Raph another second to wrinkle his nose and sniff the air.
"What's that smell?"
"Air freshener?" I tried.
Raph wasn't fooled. He was an omega. Even if he hadn't experienced any heats in a few years, he'd been in my position. He sniffed again. "Dude, are you hiding any teen omegas in here? Are you allowed to bring them home from work?"
"I'm not hiding anyone." I sighed and walked into the kitchen to sit on one of the chairs in front of my small kitchen table. "This is all me."
"That's..." Raph stopped, started again. "Are you..."
"Yes, I am." I looked at Raph. The secret was out. Now how was he going to react?
"Really?" he asked. Abandoning my coffee machine, he plopped down in the chair opposite me, intrigue coloring his face. He eyed me as if I was an especially interesting animal, but one he felt sympathy for. "I've never heard of people our age going into heat. At least, not naturally."
"It doesn't happen very often." I studied the pattern of the tablecloth as I spoke--crisscrossing red and black triangles--because I needed to distract myself from the images flooding my mind. Images of Jake and me and naked skin. I traced the pattern with one of my fingers. "This isn't normal."
"No shit."
"It's a kind of disorder," I explained, trying very hard to keep my mind focused on the topic of conversation. It wasn't easy. I wondered what Jake was doing. If I called him, he would probably come over. He'd never minded helping me through these days.
"A disorder?" Raph's voice seemed to reach me from somewhere far away. Somewhere far away and foggy. "Conner? How long has this been going on?"
"Always." I made myself look at my friend. Raph was here. Not Jake. Only Raph. Raph was safe. "My heats are just like everyone else's, but everyone else's stop coming at some point and mine just... don't go away." It was amazing that I could still feel embarrassed and blush in this state but I could and I did. It was weird to talk about heats, even with another omega. It wasn't something you talked about. I knew that was stupid, and yet...
"Wow," Raph said. "How did I never know about this? We lived together!"
"I take medication. It's just not always effective." Especially not when I was doing stupid things such as kissing Jake. "I've been to a couple of doctors." Because I couldn't effectively get sick every other month and be confined to my house while I dealt with this. The medication didn't make the heats go away entirely, but they made the experience more bearable, and when I coupled it with some scent suppressors, the alphas around me didn't usually pick up on my condition.
Still, the whole thing was a pain in the ass. No adult omega should have to go through this.
