When Wyatt realized the toll their relationship would take, would he leave Raph, just like he’d hidden away for so many years?
Raph didn’t know. Mom had no answers for him, either. He swallowed, trying to push away the unease in his chest.
“Take care of him,” Mom said when he turned for the door, a crinkle on her forehead.
“I will,” Raph said.
He wanted to.
18
Wyatt
“I told Mom,” Raph said when Wyatt opened the front door.
Wyatt’s stomach dropped. “What?”
“Relax. It wasn’t bad.” Raph stepped in, pressing a plastic carrier into Wyatt’s hands. Then he shut the door, locked it, and scooped Wyatt close, pressing a firm, deep kiss to his lips.
But all Wyatt could think was Mom knows.
He turned away from the kiss, his heart pattering nervously. “What did she say?”
“She already knew.” Raph wound his fingers into Wyatt’s hair and held him, his breath tickling Wyatt’s ear. “She asked when the baby’s due.”
“Oh, fuck.” Wyatt groaned. Mom knew? He’d been taking pains to hide their relationship, to keep Hazel distracted during their visits, so she didn’t accidentally mention Raph. “I thought... Hazel’s been doing so well, too.”
Raph huffed. “Mom knows what pregnancy smells like too, you know.”
But of course she did. Wyatt wanted to hide himself in Raph, and never emerge. How could he look Mom in the eye again? She knew he’d been keeping secrets. “Kill me now. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She knows it’s yours?”
“She didn’t throw a fit, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Oh, gods.” Wyatt’s guts twisted. Mom knew. He’d disappointed her, and she knew. He hid his face in Raph’s chest, clinging on to him, wanting to crawl out of his skin. “Does she hate me?”
“No, she loves you.” Raph pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “She says she wants to see the baby when it’s born.”
Wyatt quailed. Would she really? Her own sons were having a baby, and to her, it should be terrible news.
“You didn’t let Mom and Dad see Hazel for three years?” Raph asked, his arm tightening around Wyatt’s waist.
There was that, too. Wyatt sighed into his shoulder, slipping his hand under Raph’s shirt. Raph’s skin was warm against his palm. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why? Was it... because she’s Max’s?”
The name set his stomach turning. Wyatt sucked in a shaky breath, pressing his face into Raph’s shoulder. “Yeah.”
It wasn’t just that, though. Growing up, Wyatt had heard their father talking about solved cases, about alphas abandoning omegas, and omegas who were single parents. For someone as high-ranking as Chief Fleming, having a single-parent omega son would be shameful; it would ruin the public’s perception of him as a leader.
So Wyatt had hidden himself away from his parents, sending them cards so they wouldn’t try to search him out. Then he’d worked part-time jobs while Sam and Penny babysat Hazel, borrowing money, moving from room to rented room when his landlords grew tired of a baby’s cries.
Mom had tried to coax him home when Hazel was one. When she was three, Wyatt had finally yielded, and Grandma had been there his very first visit. She’d curled her lip and looked down her nose at them, and Wyatt had resolved never to let Grandma hurt his daughter.
“I didn’t want to ruin Dad’s reputation,” Wyatt said. “No one will question a three-year-old, but everyone will want to know about a single dad and an infant.”
Raph hugged him tight, his teak scent enveloping Wyatt. “Gods, I should’ve been there. I won’t abandon you.”
Wyatt leaned into him, knowing that Raph would never hurt him, not like Max had.
It had been almost ten years. Wyatt still remembered those cold green eyes, so light that their pupils were pinpricks against their irises.
At eighteen, Wyatt had met Max at a bar downtown, and moved in with him. He hadn’t known better then, not when Max had shoved him around, told him to cook, to clean the floors with rags. Wyatt had stayed only two months. But in those months, Max had grabbed him by the hair, slapped him, told him he was worth nothing.
After Grandma’s fury, and with the disgust he felt at himself, Wyatt hadn’t thought he deserved better. Still didn’t. Especially not when he would cause his parents shame, maybe cause their lives to come apart. He’d broken his and Raph’s relationship with Penny, and he was keeping the baby, even if it meant Hazel might be caught in the backlash.
He was a terrible person, and maybe Grandma had been right all along.
Raph cupped his cheeks, tipping his face up to kiss him again.
“What if you slapped me?” Wyatt asked, Raph’s breath falling on his lips.
“What?”
“Slap me.”
Raph stared. “Are you serious?”
Raph’s eyes were blue-gray in the lamplight. He watched Wyatt uncertainly, as though he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. And maybe he was the exact kind of person Wyatt needed. Not someone who truly wanted to hurt him, but someone who would try just because Wyatt asked.
“I never feel worthy, Raph,” he said, looking at the worn couches, the color pencil marks on the coffee table. “I think I need some kind of punishment. For all the things I’ve done.”
Raph glared. “You don’t need punishment.”
Wyatt sighed. “That’s what my brain tells me. My heart still wants it.”
“You know I can’t hit you.”
“Which means you’re the person I’m looking for,” Wyatt said. His smile probably came out lopsided. “Will you think about it?”
Raph looked at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “I don’t know what it does for you,” he said at length. “But I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you.”
Raph sighed, nodding at the carrier Wyatt was still holding. “The ice cream’s probably melting.”
“Oh! Damn it.”
Wyatt glanced down at the plastic bag, his mouth watering. He’d left the drive-in at 9 PM, like he’d promised Raph. Then he’d gotten an insatiable craving for sardines on mint ice cream, that he’d only forgotten because Raph had dropped the bombshell on him—Mom knew about them, and the pregnancy.
He shoved that thought aside, making
