Things were weird enough back at the farm, with the odd way Dean had been acting all day, without us now finding ourselves alone in this special honeymoon suite.

And what was with him looking at me all day as if he didn’t know me? I wasn’t sure how to take any of it. But then, maybe he didn’t know how to deal with it either? Like his grandmother had said, this was a new chapter in our relationship. And whether the marriage was real or not, it was definitely going to be different for us.

We’d tried to turn down the honeymoon suite, but the proprietors had been insistent that Dot and Libby had paid for the best they had, and this was it. I’d finally quit arguing when Dean had discretely nudged me and tipped his chin toward a photo that hung on the wall.

Of course, it was a photo of the B&B owners and Judge Anderson. Why wouldn’t these people be friends with the one person who I needed to convince that I’d meant it when he’d performed our wedding today?

I huffed out a breath as I looked around the room while Dean closed the door behind us and carried our luggage over to the closet. The king-sized bed was covered with a mound of pillows and positioned directly beneath a large mirror on the ceiling. Rose petals led from the door to the bed, and candles had been lit in votive cups and sconces.

A bottle of champagne chilled in a bucket of ice on a small table set for two. Beside it stood a bowl of whipped cream, and a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries that looked to be about the size of my fist.

We stood there awkwardly for a moment, both of us taking in the romantic room, until Dean finally snorted out an awkward laugh.

“Look, dude. It’s cool. We’ve spent so many nights in tents together as kids, or sharing sleepovers in one or the other of our houses. We can do this, right? I mean, this is only a grown-up sleepover. It doesn’t have to be weird unless we make it that way.”

“Good point,” I agreed. “I mean, we could always do the pillow thing we did in junior high? Just stick a few pillows between us in the no-man’s land zone?”

“Sounds like a plan. Listen, umm... do you want the bathroom first? I mean, I can change while you’re in there, and then brush my teeth when you’re done?”

I politely agreed and moved over to my suitcase. I was ridiculously happy to see that whoever had packed it had been kind enough to include sleep pants. I’d been nervous about that, not that I’d said anything. I snagged the pj’s and my toothbrush, then disappeared into the bathroom.

When I came back out a few minutes later, Dean had put out the candles, and was wearing a pair of his own flannel pajama pants. His chest was bare, which wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before... yet it somehow seemed a little more intimate in this private room than it ever had in the past. It was strange to be alone with Dean while both of us were shirtless.

I blushed when I saw him glance curiously at my baby bump, and quickly went to climb into bed. I stuffed a row of pillows in the center of the bed, and turned on my side with my back to the pillow line as Dean turned off the lights and joined me a moment later.

As we lay there in the dark, I realized that I was being weird. I could tell by his breathing that he was still wide awake as I spoke.

“Hey, um... listen. Thanks for helping me save the kids from the outlaws. I promise not to make things creepy or expect anything from you more than normal. And when we get home from the surprise honeymoon that we’re apparently going on this week, I will personally set the marriage license on fire, okay?”

Dean sounded oddly hesitant when he responded after a few moments of awkward silence. “Laurie, you know that won’t be necessary. I trust you more than anyone in the world, maybe even my brothers. Hell, after that whole suitcase fiasco, maybe I should say especially more than my brothers. Besides, I’m happy to do whatever it takes to save the kids from your evil outlaws. Those kids belong with you, any fool can see that. Screw them for trying to take your babies from you.”

The bed moved right before the light clicked back on. I looked over my shoulder to see Dean sitting up and chewing his lip as he watched me.

“Can we maybe talk, since we both seem to be wide awake?” He asked a moment later.

I nodded my head, almost a bit too eagerly. Dean smiled shyly as he held up a bottle of lotion.

“Hey, how about I rub your feet while we talk?”

“I don’t know… I guess, umm, that’s okay?” I wasn’t sure what was happening, but not about to stop it. “But, can I ask why? Do you have a foot fetish that you’ve kept hidden until after I fake-married your ass?”

Dean blushed a little as he moved further down on the bed and got comfortable before pulling back the duvet and taking my feet into his lap.

“I don’t know. I mean, isn’t this something alphas are supposed to do for their pregnant spouses?” Dean didn’t look at me as he spoke so shyly I almost missed his words.

“You know what? I honestly don’t know, Dean.” I stopped to think for a moment, then smiled gently as I explained. “Don’t feel feel sorry for me or anything, because that’s not why I’m telling you this, okay? It’s just that, well, Tristan never did anything special for me while I was pregnant, not that he’s a shining example of alpha behavior, but yeah... I really wouldn’t know what alphas are supposed to do or not do for pregnant omegas.”

“Just lay back and enjoy it then. Let me do this for you. Your ankles look swollen. Is this from being on your feet all day, or is foot swelling something you have all the time?”

“It comes and goes, depending on how much I’m on my feet. It’s part of being pregnant, you know?”

Dean shook his head. “No, I really don’t. I’ve never really been around anyone throughout their pregnancy. This is all new for me. So tell me... you said that Tristan didn’t do anything special for you, and he sounds like a jerk from all accounts. Tell me one good thing about him... I mean, there must have been something that made you marry him.”

I thought for a moment while I tried to come up with an answer better than saying it was because I was knocked up. Then, remembering that Dean was my best friend and wouldn’t judge me, I went with the truth.

“Well, I pretty much married Tristan because I was knocked up and scared to come home to Gramps with a child born out of wedlock. But if you want to know why I dated him in the first place? Hmm. I guess I’d say it’s because he made me laugh. You know I’d never been away from home before, so college was lonely for me until I met Tristan. As you also know, I was never one for the party scene, so you can imagine that I was a wet blanket to my college peers.”

“Tristan wasn’t a partier either? That surprises me, given how he died... no offense,” Dean commented.

His hands were doing magical things to the arch of my foot, and I almost moaned aloud from how good it felt to have my feet rubbed like that.

“No, he was definitely a party boy. I was assigned to be his tutor for poly sci, of all things, if you can believe it.” I chuckled at the memory of a politician’s son flunking political science. “But then one night he made a move and I was into it, I guess. Anyway, we were together after that. He said I mellowed him out, and I figured he helped me loosen up.”

Dean smiled with understanding while he continued to knead my foot with his magic thumbs. “Basically, you’re saying you balanced each other. That sounds like a promising start, it’s too bad it ended like it did.”

I sighed sadly. “Yeah, he changed a lot after he graduated and we moved back to his hometown so he could work for his father. I think it was the stress of their expectations and the job itself, but I tried to keep him happy. In the end, I just couldn’t. By that point, we were barely speaking.”

Dean shot a wry grin toward my baby bump. “Obviously you were still speaking on some levels. Three kids and one on the way? I mean...”

“Fuck off,” I laughed when his voice trailed off, heavy with innuendo. “Yeah, trust me when I say that I’m not at all trying to sound like I was this poor, woebegone house-omega. Obviously we had sex. But, that’s pretty much the only place we connected at that point. He didn’t even come home for dinner most nights. We were like the proverbial ships passing in the night. I feel guilty for the kids’ sake, you know? It’s not their fault, and yet they’re the ones who suffered when he never wanted to be home. And now I’ll have a fourth one that won’t even know their father.”

Dean shrugged. “I’m here, and I don’t have plans on going anywhere. Not because we’re fake-married. Whether we’re supposedly together or not, you’re still my best friend. Of course I’m gonna love your kids and want them in my life. Those kids are part of you, you know? And the new baby won’t ever feel left out like your older ones did, because I’ll be there to give them attention, whether we’re still fake-married or not.

I studied him for a moment. “Can I ask you something now?”

“Sure, this seems to be our night for sharing.”

“I’m just wondering... You said you wanted to help me because you didn’t want my kids to suffer like you did. What did you mean by that? I’ve never really asked you much about your parents. I know that they were divorced already, back when your dad moved to town to live with your grandmothers, right?”

Dean’s hands made their way to my ankles, carefully massaging the tender, swollen flesh as he slowly spoke.

“My mother didn’t ever like me, I think. I didn’t fit her idea of how an alpha boy should behave. You know how flashy Kade is, right? Imagine him as a child in dance classes, and too young to know when to rein in the inner diva.”

“Does he know how to do that now?” I asked jokingly.

“Fair point,” Dean laughed. “But yeah. Zeke was a good alpha boy who like to play baseball and get dirty. Me on the other hand? I wanted to take dance with Kade, and I liked to dress in pink. Mom had a problem with that. She made a big stink about how I was an alpha, not an omega or a gender-fluid freak, as she put it.”

I gasped in horror. “She actually said that to you?”

Dean nodded quietly. “To me, about me, and to anyone who would listen. Mom had firm ideas about sexuality and gender. And I failed to meet her criteria. Anyway... when Dad walked in and heard her giving me shit, he lost it. And when he found out it had been going on for awhile, that was it. The next thing I knew, they were divorced and I didn’t see my mom for a long time. She got remarried a few years after that, and that’s about all I know, except for the occasional card on my birthday or Christmas.”

His eyes held a sheen of tears as he smiled sadly. “To this day, I still don’t wear pink. I guess I felt guilty about causing my parents’ divorce, now that I think about it. I still dance though, as you know. But anyway, I know what it felt like to have a parent not want me, and I couldn’t imagine being taken away from the one who did. I don’t want that for your kids either, you know?”

I wanted to hug him right now, but made myself lay there while he continued to rub my ankles. “You know your parents’ divorce wasn’t really your fault, right? That blame lies fully on your mom being an emotionally abusive bigot. And the first chance I get, I’m buying you a damn pink shirt, and you’re going to wear it because you won’t want to hurt my feelings.”

Dean chuckled. “Yeah, in my head I know that it’s not my fault, but I still feel guilty, you know? The funny thing is that her perfectly masculine alpha son is the bisexual one, and the one who loved to dance never even kissed a guy before he found himself fake-marrying his best friend.”

His hands were working under my pajama legs now, slowly kneading my calves. I wasn’t sure if it was the almost taboo feeling of my straight best friend’s hands under my pants and rubbing my legs, or the memory of that kiss, but a jolt of longing shot through me and my dick began to harden in my pants until it was sticking out like a needle on a compass.

Shame washed over me when I realized that Dean was staring at my tented crotch. “Sorry,” I mumbled, shoving a pillow over my lap as I sat up and tried to downplay it. “I... I guess... I mean... I’m not used to getting massages, you know?”

Dean nodded abruptly and pulled his hands away. He quickly backed off the bed and fled into the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a soft click as the lock engaged.

I bit back a sigh and flopped backward onto the bed. Seriously. Of all the times for my dick to wake up, did it really have to do it right then? I sat up and looked over at the table. Those big ass strawberries were calling my name and I needed to answer… as soon as I could make myself move.