Is this Raphael?" The voice on the other end of the phone sounded vaguely familiar, but Raphael's tired brain struggled to place it.

"Yeah," he said as he stifled a yawn and slowly sat up. His bedroom was still dark thanks to the heavy curtains over the windows, but the clock on his night stand informed him that it was already past ten. Good thing he didn't have work today or Pearl would've shown up on his doorstep and dragged him out of bed.

"I'm sorry to wake you. This is Lupita from the soup kitchen."

"It's fine. What can I do for you?" Raphael rubbed the back his head and groggily tried to focus on the conversation.

"I'm in need of some volunteers to help with preparations for tomorrow. There's a lot that needs to be done and I could use a few more hands. Since you put your name on the list I thought I would see if you were available." Lupita sounded authoritative and cheerful as she spoke, but there was a hint of tiredness in her voice that gave Raphael the impression that she had probably been making phone calls all morning.

Raphael glanced around his room. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing.

"Yeah. I'll help," he said as he got out of bed and padded down the hallway. "I can be there in an hour if that works for you."

"That's wonderful, thank you so much." Lupita sounded relieved. "We'll see you in an hour." She hung up without waiting for a reply.

Raphael looked around the living room. He couldn't shake the heavy, emptiness that had settled over him. The blankets on the couch were neatly folded. The dirty couch cushion was clean. The front curtains were open and daylight filled the room.

Marcos was gone. The alpha had probably slipped out earlier in the morning. Was that the reason for this strange feeling that clung to him? Or was it something else? He pressed the palm of his hand to his belly. Whatever the reason, there was nothing he could do about it right now. Hopefully helping Lupita out would keep him busy enough to forget about it for a little while.

He turned to head back to the bedroom, but stopped short as he reached the bathroom door. Memories of the hot, steamy shower they had taken together flooded back into his thoughts. He had felt safe and surrounded by the affections of someone that wanted to get closer to him. But it had been a mistake.

Everything had been perfectly fine when he got up yesterday morning. None of these worries had plagued him. Now he found himself equal parts heartbroken and afraid of what the future held. Why had that big dumb alpha been so insistent about pursuing him? Why couldn't he have just backed down when Raphael had pushed the first time?

Of course the blame wasn't entirely Marcos'. Some, most, of it lay with Raphael. Maybe he should have made it clear from the beginning that kids weren't in the cards for him.

At least, kids had never been in the cards for him before now. The way Marcos had talked about it had made him question himself more than just a little. He had allowed the alpha to erode away some of his misgivings about his parents. His aversion to alphas had originally been born out of the way his dad had treated his papa.

After knowing each other for just a short while, Marcos had managed to overcome one of the biggest walls that Raphael had erected around himself. It wasn’t love, but knowing that this alpha had managed to defy all of Raphael’s expectations was enough to make him regret pushing him away.

Could Marcos have been right? Raphael considered himself well adjusted and intelligent. He had a shining example of exactly what not to do when raising kids. Was there a possibility that he could overcome the nightmares of his own childhood? Did he want to?

Shoving those thoughts aside, Raphael quickly dressed and grabbed a quick breakfast. There was still plenty of time before he was supposed to be at the soup kitchen, but that didn't mean he didn't have to hurry. Especially because he wasn't entirely familiar with the route he planned to take to get there.

The fastest path would have been to follow the road down the hill until it hit Main Street and then cut over to the street the soup kitchen was located on. However, Marcos lived on Main Street. Raphael had no idea whether the alpha would be there or not, but he figured his chances of running into him were higher if he went that way. The only logical solution was to use the longer back route that threaded through the residential areas of La Bonita.

Raphael bicycled along the side streets at a steady pace. The sun was shining, but today was anything but calm. People hurried back and forth. Storm shutters were being secured over windows. Loose yard decorations were gathered up and shoved into sheds. The houses in this neighborhood were supposed to remain above the flood level, but wind damage was still a significant threat.

Many people were out trimming weak limbs from trees to try and lessen the potential damage. Raphael's neighbors had ordered a tree trimming service to come through and groom their entire street in preparation for the storm. They hadn't even asked him to chip in for it.

Everywhere Raphael went, people were preparing for the storm. Children had been kept home from school in order to help. Some families were preparing to take the ferry and visit the US for a couple of days. He envied their ability to flee ahead of the coming storm. If he could have brought himself to set foot on the ferry without having a panic attack he would have left the island a long time ago. Then again, if he wasn't so terrified of water then he probably would have been content to remain.

Flying wasn't an option either. Not only was there no public airport, but when planes crashed they had a tendency to do it over water. He was well and truly trapped on Catalejo island. That realization was something he had come to terms with long ago. He would live the rest of his life in constant fear of the water that surrounded him and his home. So he did what he could to cope with his circumstances. Not that volunteering during one of the worst hurricanes this century helped much.

He reached the soup kitchen just as a car pulled up outside.

The small, blue-eyed, omega that he had seen teaching students in the soup kitchen dining room, hopped out of the passenger's seat. His clothes were nice and it was clear he had fashion sense, but nothing seemed to fit him quite right. For some reason that only seemed to add to his charm.

The front seat, driver's side door opened a moment later and a tall alpha with a five o'clock shadow climbed out. There was a police badge clipped to his belt and Raphael realized that he must be a detective.

"Just promise me you'll be careful?" the detective was saying to the charming omega. "Don't go lifting a bunch of stuff and hurt yourself or the baby, okay?"

Raphael's heart skipped a beat. He climbed off his bike and forced himself to walk it the rest of the way to the soup kitchen. His thoughts were reeling. That omega was pregnant, just like he probably was. The detective was probably his alpha. Judging by the way they looked at one another it was obvious that they were in a relationship.

"Honestly, I'm barely pregnant. The baby will be fine and so will I," the blonde omega protested. "You've got more important things to worry about than me."

"There's nothing more important than you," the detective said as he leaned down and kissed his omega possessively.

Raphael felt himself blush as he looked away from them and leaned his bicycle up against the side of the building. The two of them seemed so comfortable with one another that he couldn't help but feel a little jealous. Was there an alpha out there for an omega that didn't want kids? Somehow he doubted it.

Grumbling under his breath, Raphael climbed the front steps of the soup kitchen without looking back at the enraptured lovers.

"There you are. Raphael, wasn't it? Nice to see someone could make it. Did you see Logan out there when you came in?" Lupita was standing in the middle of the dining room unpacking a case of water bottles. A few other people seemed to be sorting through the contents of various boxes that had been stacked around the room.

"I'm sorry, who?" Raphael frowned. He had barely made it three feet inside the door before she had started questioning him.

"Blue-eyes, skinny, looks like a model and acts like he owns the place?" Lupita set out the last of the water bottles and chucked the empty box across the room where it landed among a pile of others.

"I think so?" Raphael wasn't completely certain that's who he had seen. "I think he was with a police detective?"

"That's him." Lupita exhaled sharply and shook her head. "I thought Ramos would be a good influence on him but lately they're almost impossible to pry away from each other. I'm betting they have five kids in no time."

"What do you need me to do?" asked Raphael. He was eager to turn the conversation away from other people's relationships and their potential future offspring.

"Right, well you can either join the kitchen crew prepping meals for tomorrow, or you can start rearranging the tables along the walls. We need to open up the dining area so we can set up cots for people to sleep on." Lupita leaned heavily against the table. She looked exhausted.

"I'll start moving the tables," offered Raphael. He wasn't comfortable with the idea of helping out in the kitchen. Which was probably dumb considering the fact that he had volunteered at a soup kitchen. He silently berated himself as he set to work. He really should have just sucked it up and gone to Pearl's house.

He had just finished moving the first table into place when the omega, Logan, sauntered into the dining room.

"I see you've finally decided to grace us with your presence." Lupita shot a look at the blue-eyed omega that would have melted steel.

"I told you I would be here." Logan approached and pulled her into a hug. The two of them seemed to go back a ways.

"You should have been here four hours ago," muttered Lupita as she extricated herself from his grip and huffed unhappily. "Go help Raphael. He's been struggling with that table for the last ten minutes."

Raphael winced at the sound of his name. He hadn't really been struggling, but moving all of the chairs and then shoving such a large table all by himself was a time consuming process. Apparently Lupita was more of a taskmaster than he'd thought.

"I guess you're Raphael," said Logan as he approached with his hand extended. "I'm sure she already told you, but I'm Logan."

They shook hands and set to work on the next table.

"I haven't seen you around here before," began Logan. Despite the fact that he was a good head shorter than Raphael he seemed to be in much better shape. "Why'd you want to help out at the soup kitchen?"

"I...I just thought I should do something to help out." Raphael didn't particularly want to tell everyone that he'd done it just to avoid hanging out with Pearl. "I'm not really the type of person that's going to be able to help out the coast guard, or the police."

"Yeah, but there are cushier places to work. The Forest hotel was looking for volunteers still last I heard and so was the high school. Both of those are in much better locations and are better supplied." Logan began folding up the chairs and stacking them against the table.

"Logan, shut your mouth!" snapped Lupita, waving her hand at him from across the room. Apparently she had the hearing of a bat. "Stop telling people stuff like that. I'm willing to bet it's because of you that most of our volunteers left."

"They did?" Raphael looked over at Logan for confirmation.

"A bunch of them started calling in yesterday evening and telling us that they were going to be volunteering elsewhere," explained Logan. "All that's left are our usual small group of kitchen staff and helpers then of course Lupita and myself."

"And me," added Raphael before he could stop himself. His answer caused Lupita's expression to brighten considerably and Logan grinned.

"Good to know you're on board for this then." Logan moved on to the next table. "We're expecting at least a hundred people tomorrow. We'll have cots set up both down here and upstairs. With any luck that'll be enough to accommodate everyone."

Raphael was half-way through folding the next chair when the front door opened again. Miguel, the son of Raphael's co-worker Maria, entered the room. He looked rushed. His hair was uncombed and his cheeks were flushed. A sleeping baby was tucked into a sling across his chest.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he apologized as he approached Lupita. "Valentina kept us up all night. We overslept our alarm. Someone misplaced the keys to the truck and it took forever to find them. I was going to have Dom drop me off, but he was worried he was going to miss meeting up with the rest of the coast guard. I'm too much of a chicken to drive the damn truck so we walked over from Guillermo's." His rambling apology came to an abrupt halt as Lupita laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Honestly, enough apologies. You're a parent now. Life happens. You work around it. I'm just glad you're here." She smiled at him. "Now, maybe you can help these two slowpokes finish moving these tables."

"Geez, Lupita, you're such a slave driver," complained Logan. "We're doing just fine."

Lupita ignored him as she went back to her own work. The expression on her face was much more relaxed now.

"Raphael, I didn't realize you were going to be helping out here," said Miguel as he joined them.

They had only met a couple of times, but Raphael had always thought Miguel was an all around decent guy. He was driven, helpful, and the kind of omega that could stand toe to toe with most alphas when it came to sheer determination.

"Yeah, I decided to see what I could do to help. I heard your mom mention the soup kitchen at work the other day and thought I should check it out," explained Raphael. It wasn't a complete lie.

"Nice to see you again," said Logan, nodding a greeting to Miguel. "If you could thank Dominic's abuelo for us again, I'd really appreciate it. The shellfish he donated helped a lot."

"Of course," said Miguel. "He was happy to help. He doesn't get out a lot, so Dom and I have been encouraging him to do more stuff out in the community. If it wasn't for the fact that he wanted to look after his daughter, he'd probably be out here volunteering alongside us."

Raphael went back to folding chairs.

"You said Dom's volunteering with the coast guard?" asked Logan as he continued moving the table he had been working on.

"Yeah, he used to volunteer before this little one came along. We've been so busy lately that he had to give it up. He's been wanting to start back up again though and figured now was as good a time as any." Miguel sounded proud as he talked about his alpha. Supporting his baby with one hand, he began to help Logan with the other.

An alpha in the coast guard. Raphael bit his lip to keep from groaning in frustration. He had hoped that volunteering would help him forget about Marcos. Instead he found himself confronted with babies and near constant reminders of the muscular, curly-haired, alpha.

"I know it hasn't been that long but how are things going between you and Ramos?" asked Miguel.

"He's still on forced leave because of what happened with his partner." Logan's voice had taken on a decidedly melancholy tone. "We've been taking our time to work through stuff and figure out what our relationship looks like."

"Which means you've just been having constant sex, right?" chuckled Miguel.

"Constantly," confirmed Logan. The two of them shared a laugh.

Raphael felt like an outsider. His ears burned as he listened to the two of them chatting about their alphas. They sounded almost blissful. It made him queasy as his mind kept replaying scenes from the night before in his head.

"What about you, Raphael?" asked Logan, abruptly turning towards him.

"Yeah, sorry. We weren't trying to exclude you. Last I heard from Pearl you were still single." Miguel leaned against the table they had just finished moving.

Nice to know that Pearl was gossiping about his relationship status. "Yup, still single," he forced a smile.

"Just so we're clear," began Logan, "is it by choice or are have you just not found the right guy yet? Because I know some really great alphas..."

Raphael's throat tightened as an image of Marcos flashed through his head. He forced it away.

"It's by choice."