Page 122 of Use Me Up

I nod slowly. “Okay. What’s that mean, then? Why do packs need omegas?”

“You’re the center of everything.”

I groan. “Okay, can I not be the center?”

She laughs.

I lean in and tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear, my voice gentling. “Anyway, Hannah, I think maybe you’re the center. You’re the thing that brought us all together. I don’t think we would have worked without you.”

She beams at me. “Well, that could be true, but I think it’s true for all of us, in a way? I don’t think we would work without you, Ellis, or without Kane, or without Gatlin. All of us are important.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “I can see that.”

“So, will you help me convince Gatlin that we should start trying for a baby sooner rather than later?” she says.

I grin widely. “Oh, I can absolutely help with that.”

Joni, Hannah’s mom, and I are always very carefully polite with each other these days. She respects that I am doing better than I have been, and she has made peace with the fact that Hannah and I are not breaking up. She’s even seemed to make peace with the fact I’ve dragged her daughter into a pack, and now Hannah is with three men. Or maybe she’s jealous, who knows?

Anyway, I come along for the lunch date at a restaurant that Hannah is having with her mom for moral support, because Hannah is really nervous about having this conversation with her mom, and since Joni and I don’t entirely hate each other now, I can be there without making everything worse.

We sit at a table outside, because it’s not too cold to do that yet. There’s an umbrella over the table, black metal chairs with intricate designs on the backs of them to sit on. We have lemonade with lavender sprigs and mint tea as we wait for our sandwiches to arrive.

Hannah blurts it all out because she’s nervous. “I know you won’t like this, Mom, but I want to have babies.”

Joni turns to look at me with really wide eyes.

I clear my throat. “Not mine. I mean, we thought we’d try one, and Gatlin really wants to be a dad, so it seems to make more sense for that, but if Hannah doesn’t mind, maybe someday.”

Joni turns back to Hannah. “Gatlin? Who I’ve met once? You want to let him impregnate you? Isn’t he ten years older than you?”

“Six,” says Hannah. “Five now. He doesn’t turn thirty-one for months.”

Joni rubs her forehead.

“I know,” says Hannah, cringing. “I know it’s not what you want for me. But you have to realize, with Callie running all over the place talking about nothing but babies, it’s been a lot.”

“Callie is older than you.”

“By three years,” says Hannah.

Joni takes a deep breath. “Callie is married. And she and Andrew have been together for a decade, essentially.”

“Yeah, but she had to get a paternity test,” says Hannah. She looks at me. “Maybe I would have to… how would we…?”

I drink my lavender lemonade and nope out of talking about that in front of her mom.

How do I feel about Hannah being bred by Gatlin? Very, very aroused.

Uh. I guess I shouldn’t think about it that way, though? Maybe I should think about what it would be like for the whole undertaking, which is a lot. It’ll be hard on Hannah’s body, and we’ll all have to help her and take care of things, and then there will be a baby, and we’ll have a lot of responsibility. But Calliope and I had younger siblings that we did a lot with, and I’m comfortable with kids.

(We have both tried to reach out to the other children, the ones we left behind, but they won’t speak to us, not since we left the Polloi.)

I don’t currently have a job or anything, and I think I could be a great stay-at-home caregiver. It would give me something meaningful to do, which my therapist is always harping on. I like the idea of pregnant Hannah, with a growing sexy pregnant belly, and I like all of it, really. It makes me feel lots of warm fuzzy feelings. I want it, want all of us together, want a pack. I never thought I’d have something like that.

Joni huffs. “I don’t know why I’m saying anything at all. You’re going to do whatever you’re going to do, and you’ve made that entirely clear, Hannah.”

Hannah cringes again. “This will be your grandchild, so I was kind of hoping you’d be a little bit excited.”