Page 95 of Use Me Up

“That’s fine,” I say, backing up, making a hands-off gesture. “You need space, you take it.”

She wavers. “But say I wanted to wait to make a decision about the Plan B, then, I’d have… two more nights, maybe?”

“You should not wait,” I say. “But if you’re going to, then, um, maybe… let’s go on a date.”

“A date?”

“To, uh, to see how it feels?” I say. “I’ll text you. And it goes without saying that if you feel sure you want to take that Plan B, you take it. It is your decision, like you said.”

“A date,” she repeats. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I smile at her.

She smiles back.

Man, I really want to fucking kiss her.

I don’t.

kane

“So, I don’t get it,” I’m saying to Gatlin. “You asked her on a date?” We’re in the living room of Ellis’s house, and Ellis is currently coming in with laundry.

After Hannah ran off, Ellis started doing chores.

Gatlin has been trying to get him to engage in conversation, and I’ve been trying to do Ellis’s chores, and Ellis is shutting both of us down, which he’s very good at doing.

“I did,” says Gatlin.

I gesture at our omega, the omega that Gatlin is usually better with than me. “What the fuck, Gatlin? You know how upset he got because you had sex with her, and now you’re moving in on her?”

“I’m not trying to take her from Ellis,” says Gatlin to Ellis.

“I’m not territorial about her,” mutters Ellis.

“I think you are,” I say. “I heard you when you kicked her the fuck out in the middle of your heat. You were all wounded because she’d never had any other dick besides yours in her. Now, Gatlin wants to be daddy to your baby—”

“That’s not what I want to do,” says Gatlin.

“Well,” says Ellis, “maybe that would be good. I’d be bad at it, but you, Gatlin, you would be an amazing dad. So, if she’s going to have that baby, I want you part of it.”

“Do you want Hannah to give birth to your child, omega?” I demand. “Is that what you actually want?”

Ellis folds t-shirts and shakes his head. “Uh…”

“You don’t want that,” I say. “You can’t want that.”

Ellis looks at me, and then he looks at Gatlin. “When Callie told me I should get snipped to be with her, so that I could never knock her up, I felt resistance to it. I’m not saying I’m ready, but someday, I think...”

“Okay, well, that’s not a good reason to do it now,” I say.

“You heard Hannah,” says Gatlin. “It’s her decision. If she wants to stay pregnant—”

“She’s not pregnant,” I say. “That’s not how Plan B works.”

“You know what I mean,” says Gatlin. “If she’s pregnant with our omega’s child, we will be involved.”

I feel a strange, tight feeling in my chest, and I vaguely recognize it as terror. But Gatlin’s right. Ellis is our responsibility, and he can’t take care of himself, let alone a woman and a child, so if he knocked this woman up, and she wants to have the baby, we’ll be involved. I rub my neck, contemplating the future.