Page 56 of Jake and Conner
"No, I'm fine," I waved them off. I was not paying for an ambulance when there was nothing wrong. Now that I was on my feet again, the world was slowly starting to come back into focus and I remembered fainting.
"You probably should have eaten something after all," Raph said, giving me a plausible explanation for what had happened that I quickly latched on to.
"Yeah, you're probably right."
"You eat too little as it is," Raph scolded me. "You get so caught up in your work and everything!"
"I know, I'm bad." I took a deep breath, steadying myself. I wasn't feeling so woozy anymore now, but my friend had a point when he said that I needed to eat more. "Want to hit a restaurant or something?" I suggested. "My treat. As long as you don't want to stop for more hotdogs."
"I'm on board with that idea." Raph picked up both my sign and his own, both of which had been discarded on the ground, and slowly, we made our way back to the car.
Before we got in, I shot my friend a pointed look. "We're not telling Jake about this."
Raph made a zipping motion with his hand in front of his mouth. "He won't hear it from me."
* * *
I wasa little nervous about whether or not I could lie to Jake when he asked me how my day went. All through our meal--I'd ordered spaghetti with meatballs and Raph was having a high-class version of mac and cheese--I kept glancing at my phone, wondering when it would ring.
It never did, though.
Jake was being really good about not pestering me, and suddenly, I felt really bad about trying to keep things from him.
Still, I knew he was only going to worry unnecessarily if I told him that I'd fainted in the midst of a demo. Better to keep that to myself, as long as it didn't happen again.
When we were done at the restaurant and walking back to the car, I called Jake. It took him a while to pick up the phone--another thing that surprised me.
"Hey," I said when I finally heard a crackling on the other end of the line.
"Sorry I didn't answer sooner," Jake greeted me. "Had to step out of the waiting room."
"Waiting room?"
"It's been an interesting day," he said with a hint of both disbelief and amusement in his voice.
"What happened?"
"My little cousin knocked up his first omega."
"You cousin did what?" I spoke so loudly Raph shot me a curious look.
"My cousin Bastian," Jake elaborated. "Got together with that runaway omega of yours. He's been helping him hide."
"You found Mark? Where did you find him? Is he okay?"
"He's okay. Calm down. Took a bit of convincing to get him out of his hiding place, though. I've taken him to an OB-GYN now for a check-up. Bastian tells me he's been complaining about cramps." Jake sighed. "I hope it's nothing."
I was so relieved to hear that Mark was safe that I couldn't even speak for a moment. "I'm coming home," I said, as if I hadn't already been planning to do so.
"Looking forward to it," Jake said. "I'll stick with the teens. When we're done here, Bastian will have to tell his parents. Mark needs a place to stay that isn't an abandoned house. I told the kids that if Griff and Dean turn them down for some reason, he can come stay with me."
"Really?" I'd known that Jake was generous, but even so, this unexpected act of kindness touched me.
"It was the only way I could get him to come out at all."
"You handled that very well. I'm proud of you."
"I just want them to be okay. I couldn't even imagine what I would do if I was in Bastian's shoes. Imagine I'd knocked you up when we were teens."
