Page 15 of Omega's Forbidden Heat
His mother is thinking, he can tell by the way her eyes flick from side to side and her thumbs twirl over one another.
“Jack, sit down will you?” He hesitates, then does as she says, sliding the chair noisily along the lino flooring. He leans right back in his chair, conveying with every part of his body how uninterested he is in this conversation.
“I think it’s about time we talked about your dad. Talked about whether,” she swallows, unable to meet his eye, “you’d like to meet him?”
What? What the fuck? Meet his dad. It never once occurred to him that was possible. He assumed his dad was long gone, unreachable, uncontactable, dead.
“I can meet him?” The words tumble from his lips in a whisper.
“If you want to.” She scrubs her hand over her face. “I don’t know if it will help or make everything worse.”
He stares at her for several long minutes. It is silent in the kitchen. It is always silent in this house. This house with just the two of them. No sound of traffic. No voices from some other room. It is just quiet.
“You told me he was dead.”
“No, I didn’t — that’s just what people assumed when we moved into the village and I let them believe it. Being a single Omega, unclaimed, unbonded, with a child, they would never have accepted me.”
He stares at her. “But you never toldmethe truth.”
“No,” she says quietly.
“I don’t want to meet him,” he says slowly and with emphasis, curling his tongue forcefully around every syllable. “I don’t ever want to meet him. Ever. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a dad.” He scrapes back his chair.
“Jack!” His mum leans back as he lurches to his feet. “Jack, I am sorry I never told you before—”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He steps towards the door.
“Jack,” his mum calls after him.
“Mum, shut up!”
“Jack,” she follows him to the bottom of the stairs. “I think we should at least talk about this.”
He spins on the bottom step to face her. “Why? What would be the point?”
Her pale eyes search his and concern etches across her features. “Aren’t you curious?”
His shoulders sag and he puffs out his frustration through his nose. “You never thought it was worth telling me before. I mean, for fuck’s sake Mum, you never even mentioned him before. All these years.”
“I know,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“By who?” He growls. “You? Him?”
“By you, Jack. Always you.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve done fine without a dad all this time. I don’t need some dickhead now.” Another adult lecturing him, disapproving of him, seeking to control him. He spins on his heels and begins to trudge up the stairs, the violence of his footsteps vibrating the staircase. “Like I already told you,” he mutters, “I don’t want to talk about this ever again.”
Chapter Seven
The house is all packed up, just the furniture and his own bits and pieces left, everything else sealed into boxes that fill the lounge. He loads as many as he can into his car and makes the drive down to Chichester, weaving up over the Downs and then down towards the sea.
The town hasn’t changed, the seagulls still a menace in the sky, squawking loudly at the people below, and the smell of salt blowing in from the sea. There are no spaces near the high street, so he’s forced to cart boxes through the streets, trying to ignore the sense of uncertainty, the feeling that he is betraying her, giving her away. He shoves it down into the dark recesses of his mind and keeps on walking.
The pile of his mum’s things grows bigger and bigger at the rear of the charity shop, and the old lady at the cash register mutters under her breath that he should have called ahead. When he places the last box down, he can’t look at the tower. Is this it? All it comes down to in the end. Just some shabby boxes in a dark tatty shop.
He strides quickly to his car, pausing halfway there, unsure where to go. He could stroll around the cathedral or down by the harbour, watch the boats bobbing in the water. He doesn’t have to go back to the house. But here in the busy town, with shoppers bustling along the streets, he is even more alone.
When he returns to the house, he thinks his decision was a mistake. There are still the boxes in the lounge that he couldn’t fit into the car and they stare at him accusingly. He turns straight around and his legs take him into the village. He remembers he needs more bread.
