“This one?” Perry picked up the bottle of silver glitter. “Here, hold out your hand. I’ll do one nail, and you can tell me if you like it.”
Jesse held his breath. The other omegas had turned to watch, but Perry paid them no mind, instead brushing bits of silver and blue glitter onto Jesse’s thumbnail. It really was shiny. Jesse stared, mesmerized. And he felt a little ashamed for liking it this much.
“It looks good, doesn’t it?” Perry grinned. “I think it’s my new favorite. Would you like that on the rest of your nails?”
“Might be too much,” Jesse said, still looking at his thumbnail.
“I could do just a thin coat,” Perry offered. “It won’t be as shiny, though.”
And maybe Jesse just wanted to know what it’d look like. He’d wipe it off later. “Please?”
“Sure.”
Deftly, Perry adjusted Jesse’s fingers and painted the rest of his nails. And now all of Jesse’s nails were shiny, sparkling in the sunlight. The bits of blue looked really good.
“Let them dry before you do anything else,” Perry said. “They’re fine when they’re not tacky anymore.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Jesse sat with him, kind of wanting to show Dom, except he wasn’t sure what Dom would think of this. Dom had nudged him over here, but what if he decided he didn’t like this side of Jesse?
Then Dom stepped over, and Jesse stopped breathing. He curled his fingers in, thinking maybe he didn’t want to show Dom, after all.
Dom squeezed Jesse’s shoulder, leaning in. “How does it look?”
Jesse froze up. Perry nudged him. “Go on,” Perry said. “They look really good.”
Dom seemed expectant. Reluctantly, Jesse held up his hands. Would this make Dom regret giving Jesse the bonding marks?
“They do look good.” Dom held Jesse’s fingers, tilting them this way and that, so his nails caught in the sunlight. “Want to grab a bottle later? So you can do them at home. Or I could help you paint them, but I doubt I’d be good at it.”
Relief seeped into Jesse’s chest. “You don’t mind? Even as—you know. My deputy.”
“Nah.” Dom kissed his temple. “You’re perfectly capable, sparkly nails or not.”
Joy bubbled in Jesse’s chest. This still took some getting used to, Dom accepting even the parts of himself that Jesse hated.
Dom met his eyes. “You don’t have to doubt yourself, you know. This isn’t a measure of you as a person.”
“I guess.” Jesse still wanted to be the perfect alpha, worthy of being Dom’s.
Dom stared at him for a moment, looking thoughtful. Then he patted Jesse on the back. “Looks like it’s time to go.”
Jesse had just gotten to his feet, when something moved faintly in his abdomen. He sat back down, looking at it.
“Felt something?” Dom asked.
Jesse pressed his hand against his baby bump, but the feeling had disappeared. “Thought I did.”
Perry and the other omegas were all watching him now. Then Flores said, “Oh,” and promptly clapped his hand over his mouth.
Dom glanced at him. “Gareth told you something?”
Flores looked sheepish. “Um, maybe?”
But he was looking at Jesse’s abdomen, in a curious sort of way that said he knew.
It wasn’t a secret Jesse could keep for much longer, anyway. So he blurted, “Twenty weeks.” Expecting omegas seemed to like sharing that information.
Every omega at the picnic bench perked up, looking excitedly at him.
“Are you going to show them?” Dom asked.
The omegas only looked more curious. In a way, Jesse felt comforted by that. No one had said he was strange at all. “I haven’t told the team yet. So...”
Self-conscious, he pulled his shirt up over his scarred abdomen. The stitches had come out by now, and the new incision had scarred into a silver line. The stab wound, too. But his abdomen had grown in the past few weeks, rounder than it was before.
Perry sucked in a sharp breath. Flores winced. Ben had a pensive look on his face, but Jesse figured he might—Ben had scars, too. He just kept them hidden most times.
“Ouch,” Flores said.
“Why’re you all staring at Jesse’s stomach?” York stopped by the picnic bench. Then he looked at Jesse, and his eyebrows shot up. “Wow, you’ve been drinking a lot.”
Perry—York’s husband—groaned. Flores went into a coughing fit. Ben hid his smile, and Jesse looked at Dom, unsure how he should respond.
“We’re going to see a doctor about that,” Dom said, wrapping his arm around Jesse’s shoulders.
“A doctor?” York frowned. “You mean, like, plastic surgery?”
The omegas fell into a fit of giggles. Jesse wanted to cringe. Then he figured he’d give York a clue. If York didn’t understand, he’d have to wait until Jesse told everyone else. “Ultrasound,” Jesse said.
York’s forehead furrowed deeper. Jesse almost felt sorry for him, but Jesse’s dad had taken a while, too. And that was with Jesse telling him directly. He waved, getting to his feet.
A kid almost rolled into him. Caleb’s glasses were skewed, and he was giggling, lying on the floor wrapped in a green fabric tube.
“What’re you doing?” Jesse asked.
“I’m being a snake!” Caleb grinned, rolling away from Jesse. “Ssss!”
He bumped into another kid, Izzy, who was also in a fabric tube—red this time. The two of them burst out laughing, and began to wriggle their way across the pavilion floor, their faces smudged with dirt.
Jesse stared. “Won’t you have to give them a bath when you get home?”
Perry shrugged. “Probably. York hoses Caleb down in the tub. It’s not so bad.”
As he watched the pair roll off the pavilion floor and onto the grass, Jesse thought he kind of understood what Dom saw in children. They were innocent. And funny. They made him think about stuff in a whole new way.
Then he looked at his baby bump, and wondered what this baby would be like. Whether it would make him smile, too.
Dom tugged Jesse away from the pavilion, toward the parking lot. “Our baby won’t mind any of your scars, you know,” Dom said. “Or painted nails, or whatever. You’ll just be Dad to them.”
Jesse liked the
