“It’s early,” Colin said. “Four weeks early. So I want to get checked. That’s all.”
“I’m coming now. I’ll grab Ryland’s car.”
“Sorry, love. I know how busy you are at work these days.”
“Daddy, please. That doesn’t matter…” Stephen’s voice had gone low and careful. “Have you got your bag packed? The one you do up for emergencies?”
“It’s by the door.”
“Good. That’s good. You’re probably not going to need it, but it’s good to have. Now, you sit down somewhere cool, all right? Don’t open the front door for anyone. I’ll be there in forty minutes, and I’ll text when I’m pulling up so you don’t have to come down till I’m there.”
“All right, love. Promise me you’ll drive carefully. No rushing.”
Stephen hung up without making the promise.
? ? ?
Stephenwas at the door in thirty-six minutes, which meant he’d done a speed run on the Westway. Colin would have words with him about it later, when he could string a sentence together.
His baby had come up the stairs two at a time. Colin heard him before he saw him, heard the quick heavy tread on the concrete, and then Stephen was at the door with Ryland’s car keys in one fist and the other already reaching out before Colin had finished turning the latch.
“Daddy.”
“I’m all right, love.”
“You’re not. Come here.”
Stephen got an arm round him before Colin could decide whether to protest. The size of his son still caught him out, even after a decade of him being grown. Colin let himself be tucked into his side because the alternative was standing on his own feet, which wasn’t going as well as he’d have liked.
“Bag’s by the door.”
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it, daddy, just lean on me.”
The stairwell smelled of someone’s frying breakfast, and Colin kept his head down as Stephen took him out of the building and into the car. Stephen’s hand stayed at the small of his back the whole way.
The clinic was on a stretch of road between a bookies and a halal butcher, with a blue NHS sign over the door. Stephen parked on a double yellow and was round on Colin’s side of the car before Colin had got the seatbelt off.
“I can walk, love.”
“I know you can.” Stephen’s hand came under Colin’s elbow anyway.
The waiting room was full. The automatic doors slid open, and Colin immediately clocked the two alphas in the row ofplastic chairs by the window whose heads popped up before he’d cleared the threshold.
Colin’s stomach turned over.
It didn’t matter that he was forty, or that there was more grey threading through the brown hair at his temples. He was a male omega in pre-heat in a public room, and his body was going about its business of advertising the fact to anyone in the postcode with a nose. He kept his eyes on the floor.
It was almost funny. He hadn’t been touched in twenty-six years. The NHS had stitched him up neat after the twins, and the midwife herself had said so in a cheerful Midlands burble he could still hear.All sutured up nicely, my love.He was, by any measure that mattered to an alpha, near enough untouched. He’d probably still feel good around a cock. The thought arrived and made him want to put his head through the nearest window.
Stephen had gone very still beside him. His hand had tightened on Colin’s elbow, and the other had come up to Colin’s face, palm cupping his cheek and turning him away from the room.
“Look at me, daddy.”
Colin looked at his son. Stephen’s thumb stroked along his cheekbone, and then his fingers were smoothing the hair back from Colin’s temple with a tenderness that was going to undo Colin entirely if he let it.
“I’m all right,” Colin said.
“I know you are.” His baby kept his hand where it was, his body angled between Colin and the rest of the waiting room.
