Very well.
Toowell.
Clearing my throat, I reach down to adjust myself and return to helping a patron with their drink before my stomach rolls.
I’ve been fighting waves of nausea since this afternoon. It began as a flicker during sound check, a brief twist beneath my navel that I chalked up to the leftover spaghetti I’d eaten standing at the kitchen counter while Lorenzo pored over contracts.
By the time the doors opened, that flicker had settled into a low, throbbing hum, growing sharper every time a certain scent drifted my way. The Alpha at table six wore something so musky I had to cover my mouth with my elbow. Even the lime juice I was squeezing for margaritas sent a sour burn creeping up my throat. I swallowed it back three times in ten minutes.
That’s not really where it started, though. My nose has been betraying me for days. This morning, Lorenzo stepped out of the shower and instead of the familiar hug of rain and honey, his scent hit me like a tidal wave. A day before, Wilson’s usual coffee-and-leather aroma, the thing I love burying my face in, sent me running to the bathroom.
I poured a whiskey sour for the woman at station two fifteen minutes ago, and the faintest whiff of egg white made my vision blur. My fingers clenched the edge of the bar until the nausea crested and I forced myself to breathe through my nose until it passed.
The math hit me somewhere between a mojito and a gin and tonic. Nicholas knotted me two nights ago during the heat spike but two nights isn’t enough time for symptoms like this.
The nausea, the hyper-sensitive nose, the emotion that had me in tears over a dog-food commercial this morning while Wilson watched me from the kitchen table, toast suspended halfway to his mouth… if this is what I think it is, the timing doesn’t add up to those two nights.
The timing lines up with three weeks ago. The week before Wilson. When Nicholas was still just our security guy who picked up shifts on weekends and occasionally ended up in our bed afterward.
That Thursday night, Lorenzo was working late and Nicholas’ shift ended at midnight, and I pulled him upstairs with both hands on his belt, his laugh vibrating against my mouth. He knotted me that night too. A week later, Wilson sat in our booth and everything changed.
The nausea surges. I set down my tray, tell the other bartender I’m taking five, and cross the floor toward the stockroom. Wilson’s coming from the opposite direction, and he catches my expression as I pass.
“Oliver, what’s—”
“Stockroom. Now.”
He follows without argument, which tells me my face is communicating something beyond a normal bathroom break. The stockroom door closes behind us and I lean against the shelving unit, one hand pressed to my stomach, breathing slow through my nose.
“I think I’m pregnant.”
In two seconds I watch his face cycle, the widening of his eyes, the parting of his lips, his hand tightening into small fists at his side. Then something desperately tender breaks through before the shutters slam down, his jaw sets, and his eyes go flat. “Are you sure?”
“I’m nauseous. My scent sensitivity has been off the charts for just over two days. I cried at a dog food commercial this morning.”
“That commercial was sad.”
“Wilson.”
Wilson’s hands slip into his pockets and his posture straightens into that rigid line he takes when he’s processing something that scares him. “Timeline?”
I press my hand harder against my stomach. “But the symptoms started before that. Which means it could also be from three weeks ago. Before you. When Nicholas and I…” I trail off because Wilson’s expression shifts again.
“Three weeks ago.”
“Yeah.” My voice catches. “We weren’t being careful. Lorenzo and I don’t usually have to think about it because he’s a Beta, but Nicholas is an Alpha, and I wasn’t on suppressants because I’ve been off them for months trying to regulate my cycle, and we just didn’t—fuck, Wilson, we didn’t think.”
Wilson is quiet. His fists press into his pockets, knuckles digging into the denim of his jeans. He stares at me with an intensity that makes my chest ache. “We need Lorenzo,” he says.
I should have grabbed Lorenzo instead of Wilson to begin with but I wasn’t thinking. I just needed to blurt it out and now I might have ruined everything. Stuffing my face in my hands, I hear the door to the stockroom open and then close before opening again, Lorenzo taking one look at me before pulling me into his arms.
“Baby, talk to me. Wilson said—”
“I think I might be pregnant.” I force the words out again, smaller this time, crushed by their weight. “The timing overlaps with a few weeks ago when Nicholas knotted me. But maybe also with Wilson that first night when we… ” I pause, hearing Wilson gasp from the edge of the room. “Lorenzo, I didn’t plan this. I wasn’t trying to—”
“Hey.” His voice drops into that register that always stops me from spiraling. His thumbs trace gentle circles across my back as he tightens his hold around me. “Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. You’re not doing this alone. Do you hear me?”
My chin trembles against my will while Wilson stands by the door, arms crossed over his chest like a barrier. His jaw clenches rhythmically, eyes fixed on me with such intensity I can almost feel them burning into my skin. “There’s a test in the bathroom upstairs,” I whisper, voice threatening to shatter with each syllable. Lorenzo’s fingers squeeze mine as I add, “I keep one. In case.”
