Had Harris really worried about him?
Harris stepped away, his eyes warm. Then he turned to the door and raised his eyebrows.
Valen was leaning against the doorjamb, watching them. Sam froze. What did this look like to Valen? Sam wasn’t trying to steal Harris away, or anything like that.
“I thought you were gonna kiss,” Valen said, pushing his lower lip out. Then he grinned. “Maybe later.”
Sam relaxed.
“Class first, Valen,” Harris said, giving Sam an apologetic smile. His gaze dipped, as though he was considering Sam’s mouth.
Sam couldn’t help glancing at Harris’ lips. They looked soft. Harris had kissed him when they’d all first had sex. Then Harris had stopped kissing him, and maybe Sam wanted to know what it would feel like, now that they knew each other better.
If you really got to know me, would you still want to be my baby’s dad?
Sam tucked the question away in his chest, following Harris and Valen out of the library. At the door, he turned off the lights, wondering if anyone would see him that vulnerable again.
14
Harris
He’d gone and asked the question. Through the whole lesson, Harris couldn’t help thinking back to that moment in the library, when he’d gone and blurted the one question on his mind.
So maybe he did want a baby. He wanted Valen’s child, the growing life in Sam’s belly.
Harris remembered being an only child, remembered his mom and dad taking him on hikes in the forest, back when Meadowfall was a nothing town, with only a few houses and farms and a small grocery store.
His dad had been a lumberjack. His mom, the cashier at the store. Then people had begun to move out of the nearby city, Highton, bringing the lumberjack trade to Meadowfall. Shops and builders had come, and someone had built schools and houses, and the town flourished.
Harris’ parents had taught him to appreciate the beauty in people, the quiet in the forests, the darting fish in the burbling creeks.
He’d been looking forward to that baby with Nicholas, so he could bring his child hiking, show his baby the birds and butterflies and rainbows. Watch the delight on his baby’s face, swing his baby up high into the air.
“—Harris?” Sam asked.
Harris blinked, looking down at his cutting board. There was an onion in front of him. “Yeah?”
“We’re learning to cut onions,” Sam said, peering at him from across the island counter. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
Valen was frowning, too, one eyebrow raised. “You spaced out for a bit there.”
“I’m fine,” Harris said. Looked down at the onion, remembering Sam’s demonstration. “I’ll dice it up now.”
It looked easy, back when Sam showed him the steps. Cut the thing in half, set it flat on the cutting board, slice parallel strips close to the roots, but not through them. It wasn’t difficult, even if his cuts turned out crooked and uneven.
“That’s it,” Sam said, his lips curving into a smile. He was beautiful. Maybe Harris should tell him that at some point. But maybe not right now, with the onions stinging his eyes, making them water.
Oh, hell, now he was crying.
“Damn it,” Harris said.
Next to him, Valen laughed, sniffling. “Your turn, Big H.”
“It’s a part of cooking,” Sam said, a grin in his voice. Harris could see his blurred outlines, the splotches of his shirt and jeans, but that was it. “Some people try dicing their onions in water, but a sharp knife tends to help—you break fewer onion cells that way.”
“Let me guess,” Valen said. “Our knives aren’t sharp.”
With his eyes squeezed shut, Harris listened to the melodic tinkle of Sam’s laughter, the delighted rasp of it.
Easy to see how Valen had fallen for that omega—Harris wanted to protect Sam from harm, too.
“That’s next week’s lesson,” Sam said. “Sharpening knives. But I guess it doesn’t matter as much to you, since you’ve got your strength to make up for the bluntness... not that it’s particularly safe.”
Harris wiped his eyes on his sleeves, squinting at Valen and Sam. Sam was done with his demo onion, and Valen had chopped up his own. They were waiting for him.
With a grimace, Harris diced the rest of his onion, before looking up at his instructor.
“Very good,” Sam said, brightening.
Sam took them through slicing peppers next. By himself, Harris had fought with bell peppers, spearing around the stalks with a fruit knife, before pulling out the peppers’ guts. Sam set his pepper down on its side, rocked his knife into it, and sawed the pepper’s flesh off.
“Whoa,” Valen said. “Do that again. That was unreal.”
Sam laughed, setting another pepper in front of himself. “What I’m doing is taking off all the insides of the peppers, like this.”
They watched as he repeated the cuts, slowing down so they understood.
“It takes practice,” Sam said. “Just like everything in life.”
“You sound very practiced.” Valen wriggled his eyebrows. Sam blushed.
Harris rolled his eyes. Slowly, he sliced into his own green pepper, eyebrows rising when the pepper’s flesh came away easily in his hands. “Huh, never knew this.”
Valen looked at Harris’ cutting board. Then he buckled down himself, as though he wanted to win against Harris, or impress Sam. Either way, the challenge worked.
Sam taught them to julienne the peppers. Then he pulled three chicken carcasses out of the sink, setting one each in front of them.
“I don’t even know what to do with this,” Valen said, eyeing his chicken suspiciously. “It’s supposed to come ready-cut in trays.”
Sam grinned. “You split it up! It’s really easy once you get the hang of it. All you need is a sharp knife.”
“And you’re the only one with a sharp knife,” Harris said.
“I was cooking last week. Had to sharpen one.” Sam looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll let you borrow mine when I’m done.”
“What about me?” Valen pouted.
“You can borrow it, too.”
Valen cheered up.
“To separate
