Page 62 of Jake and Conner
This wasn't a platonic message.
Conner stared at the cake for almost a full minute while my heart was beating so ridiculously fast it felt more like an hour to me. I didn't want to rush him, but I needed some sort of response.Anyresponse. "I want to spend my whole life with you," I blurted out before I even knew I was going to speak.
Conner blinked, as if confused by my outburst, and then, slowly, he smiled. It was a genuine smile. The kind I didn't usually get out of him on Omega Day. If I'd thought my heart was beating a little fast before, it wasthunderingin my chest now.
"I love you too," Conner said--and I knew he didn't mean that in a platonic way either.
~
"I felt like the luckiest alpha in the world that day," I said to Conner, the memory painting a smile on my face even now.
"Yeah?" Conner grinned. "I tried to eat the whole cake and ended up with stomach pains. But aside from that, I felt pretty lucky too."
I laughed. "You never told me about that."
"I didn't want to make you feel bad. It was really nice of you to make that cake."
"I had some help with it."
"It was still really nice. So I kind of thought I’d reciprocate." Conner motioned at the box on the table and I realized only now that it bore a striking resemblance to the one I'd handed him all those years ago. "That’s my gift to you."
I eyed the box. Had Conner made me cake? As far as I knew, he had only the most basic kitchen skills he needed to make himself coffee and get by.
"I had some help with it," he mimicked my earlier words, reading the suspicion on my face.
"Dean?"
He nodded, and then he nudged the box toward me, seeming a little bit nervous all of a sudden. "Open it."
"Okay," I said, even while I was wondering what he had to be nervous about. He was plotting something, wasn't he?
Once I took the lid off the box, though, everything became clear. Before me was a square-shaped strawberry cake with white cream on top and a line of writing in red icing.
You're going to be a Dad.
I stared at the cake.
I was going to be a dad?
I stopped focusing on the cake and looked at Conner instead. "Are you serious? But how? We didn't--"
"Do I really have to explain the birds and the bees to you?"
"But we used condoms!"
"Condoms are great but they're not perfect. Obviously."
"But..." I trailed off because I didn't even know what I wanted to say. Conner was pregnant. Conner was having my baby.
That thought was so momentous it took up all the space in my brain.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Not yet.
But I'dwantedit to happen, if I was being honest. I'd wanted it foryears.
And now it was happening.
Joy bubbled up in me, so intense I couldn't speak around it, couldn'tthinkaround it.
