“It’s a lot better when he isn’t around,” Susan says, tucking wavy auburn hair behind her ear. “And you’ve been marked, which helps you avoid harassment. All you have to do is renew the scenting.”
Felix cringes. He’s forgotten about that little bonus, after last night with Kade. It always feels like he’s lost his privacy when people can smell who he’s slept with. “Really? Is Rick that bad?”
“Sometimes.” Susan purses her lips. “I’m not an omega, though. It might be a different case with you—it’s just been me and that slacker kid here for a while.”
Felix sighs. That figures. At least omegas get treated better in Highton, where employers don’t demand that he have an alpha partner. Here... he’ll figure things out somehow. He doesn’t want to depend on Kade or anyone else. Even if he’s spent most of his time here with Kade. “Have you been working here long?”
“A few years,” Susan says, glancing along the low shelves lining the store, filled with muffins, pretzels, notebooks, campfire starters. “I’d like to move out of this place, though. Better opportunities out in Highton.”
Of course there are. Felix sighs, hugging himself. “Same here.”
Mostly, though, he just wants to leave Meadowfall. It’s a place of mistakes: Kade, and Felix’s dad. Why couldn’t you not be an asshole for once, Father? If you weren’t, then maybe I could have stayed here. He picks at the folds of his shirt, touching his belly. Please don’t let me be pregnant. I can’t face Kade if I am.
“New here?” Susan asks.
“I’ve been away for a while,” Felix says, looking up as the doors slide open. A man walks in, covered in road dust and smelling like burnt bark. He glances at Felix, looking him over. Felix sighs, touching his stomach again. You’ll need to eat an extra egg, orange, and a glass of milk to feed the baby, a pregnancy website said. It’ll cost an extra dollar a day. “I have to go. See you tomorrow?”
“See you,” Susan says, her gaze drifting over to the gas station customer. She gives a small wave. “Take care, okay?”
“I’ll try,” Felix says.
A week later, he finds out he’s pregnant.
Sitting on the toilet, Felix tries not to glance at his phone clock. His heart thuds with dread. He tries playing a game, making a mustached man jump over little red birds. He tries crossword games. He tries connecting jewels in a row, but his stomach twists, and his gaze flickers over and over to the three sticks sitting on the tiled counter, drops of urine scattered between them.
When the timer goes off, jangling and vibrating the phone, he jumps. The phone clatters across the floor. Damn it, Felix thinks. Do something right, for once.
He swipes his hands on his shorts, gulping, before scooping the phone up, its warm weight comforting in his hands. Then he closes his eyes, trying not to look at the tests while he approaches the counter, letting his hand trail along cool tile to guide him.
I won’t be pregnant. I’ll open my eyes and it’ll just be a hallucination. I can still be honest if I bump into Kade.
But deep down, in his gut, he knows his new alertness isn’t normal. That his body’s new sensitivity to sounds, to heat and light, aren’t happening because he ate something bad.
Felix presses his hand to his belly and opens his eyes.
On all three test kits—white, pastel green, egg-yellow—the results are the same. Two crossed lines replicated across three oval windows. Plus. Plus. Plus. Congratulations, you’re pregnant.
His fingers dig into his abdomen. He staggers to the wall, glancing down at his belly, disbelieving even now. “No,” Felix says. “I’m not.”
He gathers the sticks, drops them in the trash, and ties the bag up. Walks out to rid it in the dumpster.
He can’t be pregnant. He doesn’t even have money to feed himself. He wants to throw up, to hide, to crawl along Kade’s body and beg him for a pity fuck.
Felix squashes the thoughts down. It should be easy enough to forget. He’s been forgetting everything else. But the same sick dread wells up in his throat like bile, and he doesn’t know how he should feel.
A baby brings untold joy to a family, the TV ads jangle in his mind. Felix closes his eyes, thinking about faded posters in the Meadowfall shops, the cheerful advertisements along the town hall. You’ll never regret having yours.
“I don’t have a family,” Felix whispers. He has his brother, who flies out of town without notice, and his father, who frowns and wears smiling masks for his business partners. And Kade... he can’t tell Kade. How can Kade possibly grin at this news, when Felix had slapped that ring from his hand five years ago?
He wanders into the empty living room, weaving between stacks of cardboard boxes. Felix squeezes himself between a wall and a pile of boxes labeled “dishes”. This isn’t happening.
He stares at the empty corners of the house, at the dirty cream carpet, and touches his belly again. It doesn’t feel any different. It’s still flat, solid with muscle. There won’t be a second pulse beating in him. He’ll continue living life as normal, and nothing has changed.
After a while, the pretense fades. Felix sucks in a deep breath, then another. He cradles his phone in his hand, unlocking the screen.
Taylor answers on the second ring, his voice tinted with worry. “Felix?”
“Hey,” Felix says, feeling as though all his energy has been wrung out of his body. “Are you busy?”
A pause. If Taylor’s answering, then he has time to talk right now. Felix imagines his brother in a safehouse, eyes on the closed doors and curtained windows, leaning back against a wall. Taylor has always been the one their father favors. He does so much more than Felix can, and he’s so
