I’m trying to decide on the baby’s name, Dale had said. What do you think?
I don’t know, Greg had told him. Why don’t you come up with a list?
There are superstitions that given names will influence personalities, Dale had answered. That makes it such a heavy decision.
Names are what you make of them, Greg had said, tapping him on the nose. What matters more is how we raise the baby.
Through the times they lay in bed, Dale would shift Greg’s hand from his hip to his belly, his eyes warm. At five weeks, he wasn’t showing yet. But Greg liked cradling his omega’s belly, liked touching where their baby grew. It pleased Dale greatly. Several times, they’d spooned in bed, Greg holding Dale’s abdomen as they slept. Dale had purred in his arms, snuggling closer.
So it hadn’t made sense when Dale flinched from him this morning, his eyes glittering like fragile glass. It couldn’t have been the proposal, or Sam Brentwood finding out about them last week. It couldn’t have been Bernard Hastings—Greg’s father didn’t email anyone at 10 PM. Bernard adhered rigidly to office hours, as he did with everything else in his life.
Greg had gone to sleep with Dale at nine, and Dale had smiled when Greg showed him a picture of a bunny onesie, asking if he liked it.
If Dale was distraught... maybe it was something else he’d seen. Or maybe it was the baby.
Uncertainty slithered up Greg’s spine. Why hadn’t Dale told him if there was something wrong? Was the baby in danger?
He glanced at June, wondering what Dale had confided in her. But she didn’t seem overly worried. Instead, Penny was the one looking distraught, and Greg almost felt sorry for her. She glanced at June, then her own notes, tapping into her phone. Not something Greg could solve, probably.
The minutes crawled by, until Greg tested his nanoparticles for fluorescence. Then he keyed in his results on a spreadsheet, forwarding it to June.
“I’m done with this,” Greg said, washing up his apparatus. “Results okay?”
June scanned through the document he’d sent. “Yeah, this looks fine. Thanks for helping.”
Greg shrugged. He’d come to the lab because it was the only place Dale couldn’t avoid him. For an excuse to stay, he’d volunteered to help June with her project.
Then Dale had shown up, looking worse than he’d done all day, and Greg had hated that he was stuck on the damn experiment, instead of bringing Dale home to rest.
And now he was finally free to leave.
“Are you including my name on the paper?” Greg asked, grabbing his backpack.
“Yours might be the last name.” June grinned. “Dale’s name will be first, of course.”
He waved, pulling open the lab door. As it closed behind him, he heard Penny say, “Maybe I should talk to Professor Kinney about this.”
June would stop her—Greg trusted June now, when she’d backed off on Dale, not marking him. Over the last few weeks, Greg had been the one to mark Dale, leaving his scent on his omega. June respected that. And Greg had slowly let go of his resentment, chatting casually with her when he showed up for lab class.
He strode to Dale’s office, his unease settling when the lock clicked open. Dale was asleep, and even though the college seemed safe, Greg liked that his omega was secure. That Dale trusted Greg with his office key.
Greg switched the lights on, stepping into the office. Dale had curled up on the couch, his arms wrapped around a pillow, his glasses folded on the side table. The shadows under his eyes had faded slightly, and Greg was glad that he was getting some rest.
He eased onto the couch, sitting in the half-circle of space between Dale’s knees and his face.
Asleep, Dale looked so much more relaxed than he’d done all day. Greg was hesitant to wake him—Dale needed all the rest he could get, with his body still adjusting to the pregnancy. So Greg leaned in, pressing a kiss to Dale’s cheek. Dale stirred lightly, then settled.
Carefully, Greg slid his arms beneath Dale’s back and knees, to turn him into a manageable position. If he could get Dale to the car without waking him somehow...
Dale sucked in a sharp breath, his eyelids fluttering open. “Greg?” he mumbled, his gaze forest-green and unfocused. “What’re you doing here?”
“Getting you home,” Greg said.
Dale nestled against him, slipping his arms around Greg’s waist. “Missed you.”
Greg’s heart fluttered. After a whole day of Dale avoiding him, he was relieved that Dale still wanted him on a subconscious level. “Feel better?”
“A little.” Dale squirmed closer, settling his cheek in Greg’s lap. “I’m still tired.”
“C’mon, let’s get you home,” Greg said, stroking his hand down Dale’s side. “Get you a shower. Then you can sleep in bed.”
“I should be doing more,” Dale mumbled, burying his face in Greg’s abs. His breath puffed through Greg’s shirt, and Greg ran his fingers through Dale’s hair, just touching him. “The lab...”
“You’re pregnant. Gotta get more rest.”
“I’m...” Dale breathed in deeply, his fingers curling into Greg’s shirt. “The baby.”
Something shifted in his body then. Dale tensed, his breaths growing short and sharp. “The—the baby,” he said, and his voice grew strained. “I—I can’t...”
A sliver of ice shot down Greg’s spine. “What about the baby?”
“I... looked up the risks last night.” Dale blinked himself awake, the corners of his lips pulling down. And that same dismay slipped into his eyes again. “The risks are awful. Fifty percent.”
Greg froze. He must’ve heard wrong. “Fifty?”
Dale nodded, huddling into himself. “Anytime during the pregnancy, the risks of losing the child are one-in-two. I don’t—don’t expect you to stay if I lose it. I can’t—I don’t know—”
His face crumpled, and Greg’s heart squeezed. This couldn’t happen to Dale. Not when he’d waited so long to carry a child. Greg gathered Dale up in his arms. “C’mon, don’t... don’t think about
