Kade was on me almost the moment I walked back in through the front door. “Nick? Are you back?”

I could hardly hear him over the sound of the crying baby in his arms. He was rocking his daughter as he stepped out of the kitchen to greet me.

“What's her problem?” I asked, hoping to distract him.

“Nothing, really. Mary woke her from her nap. She doesn't appreciate that. Shhh, it's all right, baby girl, go back to sleep.”

“Damn.”

“What's wrong?” Kade shot me a glance as he continued trying to soothe his daughter.

“I forgot getting Mary a souvenir.”

And as if the girl sensed that she was being talked about, she appeared on the stairs. “Uncle Nick! What did you get me?” She ran down the stairs and glomped my leg, staring up at me.

“I uh... I have this really cool book that—”

“You're not giving her that book,” Kade cut in.

Trying to bribe children with romance novels—reason number three I would make an awful parent. “C'mon, it's not like she can read, can she?”

“She's learning.” Kade snatched the book out of my hand. At least he'd finally quieted his baby.

“Niiiick,” Mary tried to get my attention again. “What did you bring me?”

“I... brought the Queen of England for tea.” Biting my lower lip, I gestured at the front door. “Don't you see her? She's really looking forward to meeting you and Mrs. Panda.”

Mary looked where I was pointing and then her eyes grew impossibly wide. “It's the queen!” she shrieked. She raced back up the stairs. “Niiick!” she called after me when she reached the top. “Do my naaails! I have to be pretty!”

My eyes darted between Kade and my cousin's daughter. “Guess I better go to her.” At least this got me out of telling Kade about my meeting with Zander.

“I guess so. We can talk later. Enjoy tea-time with Mary. She likes to drink hers slowly.” Kade's grin rivaled the Cheshire cat's.

“Yeah, well, I like to savor my tea too! Especially when the queen's around.” Paying no more attention to my friend, I went up the stairs and into Mary's room. She sat on her bed with a bottle of red nail polish she was trying to unscrew.

“That's very pretty nail polish,” I said, reaching for it to help her.

“Daddy gave it to me,” she said proudly. “Because I'm a princess.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, this is definitely the kind of nail polish a princess would wear.” I unscrewed the bottle and got a whiff of acetone as I pulled the small brush out. “I don't know if I'm any good at doing nails, but I'll try, okay?”

“Okay.” She held her hand out. “I want to be pretty for the queen.”

“You're already the prettiest little girl I know,” I assured her while I applied the red polish to her nails. She beamed at me and I felt my own lips curl up in response. Maybe parenting wasn't totally bad.

But then I painted over her nail.

“Niiick!” she whined.

“Sorry! I'll be more careful.” I really needed to focus more, but my thoughts still swirled around the conversation I'd had with Zander. He didn't want to be set up by his parents. Of course he didn't. But did that mean he wasn't interested in any kind of relationship at all? No. I was reading too much into it and I needed to stop.

Besides, why should I care whether Zander wanted to be in a relationship or not? I didn't want to be in a relationship. For some reason though, I was glad that he was single too. Seeing him with another omega would have sucked in ways I didn't even want to think about. Zander's relationship status shouldn't matter to me, but I couldn't help it.

“There, all done,” I told Mary when I was done with her left hand.

She eyed her nails critically. “Kade does it better.”

“I'm sorry.” Kade probably did many things better than me when it came to handling children. Raising kids just wasn't my thing. Funny, considering I'd been born omega. But then, I wasn't a typical omega in many ways. I didn't want to be either.

“It's okay.” Mary hopped off the bed. “Time for tea now!” she declared.

“Can't wait.”

* * *

About an hour into tea time with Mary, Mrs. Panda (a stuffed toy with a pink ribbon tied around its panda head), and the Queen of England, my cell phone rang. I'd never been more glad to hear the beats of Omega's Got Moves boom throughout the room.

“I gotta take this,” I said, setting down my tiny tea cup and standing up from the tiny chair I'd been sitting in. Damn, stretching felt good. But I was in such a hurry to get out of the room that I stepped on a Lego on my way out.

Words came out of my mouth. Bad words. If Mary repeated any of them, Shane was going to have my hide.

Reason number four I should never be a parent.

“Hello?” I answered my phone. In my rush, I hadn't even looked at the caller ID.

“Hey.”

“Rhys?” My mouth stood open. Yeah, he'd said he would call, but I never thought he'd actually do it without another reminder.

“You wanted to talk, didn't you?”

“Yeah, I did. I'm just surprised. Hang on.” I went into the guest room where I could speak without being overheard.

“To be honest,” Rhys spoke on, “I was kind of worried you'd do something reckless if I didn't call.”

You might be too late, brother. “Something reckless? Me? Please.”

“Let's just say I know you.”

I scoffed. “I thought I knew you too, and then you married a Vinist. Turns out, people can surprise you.”

“I guess.” All humor left my brother's voice. I couldn't tell whether that was because of my remark or because he regretted what he'd done. “I'm only calling to let you know that I'm okay.”

“Oh, okay, I'm totally convinced.”

“Nick...”

“I know what I felt last night, bro, and that was not okay. You won't even tell me what happened. Hell, I still don't even know what you're doing in a Vinist community in the first place. You were the smart one, Rhys! You were supposed to be smarter than this.” Did I feel let down? Yeah, a bit, but most of all, I was worried. Nothing about what my brother was doing was making sense to me.

And then he asked a question that took the wind out of my sails.

“Have you ever fallen in love, Nick?”

“That's... How does that matter?” And why was I thinking of Zander? I didn't know too much about love, but I was pretty sure that our pre-teen relationship didn't count.

“If you had, you wouldn't have to ask.”

“How could you fall in love with an asshole?” Why were we so different? I could hardly get myself interested in the good guys and my brother fell for a Vinist?

“He's not an asshole, he just grew up with a different belief system. You could stand to be a little more tolerant.”

“Riiight. You know what? I'm feeling super tolerant. In fact, I'm feeling so tolerant that I want to learn everything about your community. I'm going to come visit. Is next month good for you?”

“What are you talking about? You know you can't visit.”

“You said an unmated omega couldn't visit. Guess what?”

“Please tell me you're not serious.”

“I am! I'm super serious! You see I totally know what it's like to fall in love because I have! Head over heels, I'm telling you.” I knew my brother wasn't going to believe a word I was saying, but he couldn't prove me wrong either.

“You would have told me if you were getting married.”

“Really? After you didn't even invite me to your wedding? You didn't even send me a card! Maybe this is payback, bro.”

Rhys sighed. “There's nothing I can do to stop you, is there?”

“You can stop me about as much as I could stop you.”

He fell quiet.

“Could you at least pretend to be happy to see me soon?”

“I do want to see you. I'm just worried.”

“I guess that makes two of us then. We really need to talk in person.”

“Yeah,” Rhys finally agreed after some hesitation. “Maybe you're right.”

“I know I am. How does the second week of December sound to you?” That would give all of us a little time to prepare.

“I can work with that.”

“Cool. I'll let you know when I have a more exact date for when my mate and I can make it to Connecticut.”

“Sure.” He paused. “Who did you mate?”

“You remember Zander Kerner?”

Rhys laughed. The sound was so loud and so sudden that I nearly flinched. When had I last heard my brother laugh like that? It must have been a long time. And what was so funny?

Finally, Rhys calmed down enough to explain his hysteria. “Did you know I had a bet going with Dean and Lara about whether or not you two would end up married some day? I thought I lost when we moved, but now I guess they both owe me five bucks.”

I had most certainly not been aware of that. “You were betting on me?”

“Only a little bit.” Rhys still sounded amused. He sounded so much more like himself than he had over the past year. It was so good to hear—and it strengthened my resolution to go through with this fake couple shtick and go see my brother. Especially since he actually seemed to believe me now. If I could convince him, I could convince anyone.

“Well, you won the bet. We're married. I hope you're happy now.”

“You know what? I actually am.” His smile was apparent in his voice. “I'm happy you found someone and that it's him. You two always got along so well.”

“Yeah, when we met again, we picked right up where we left off,” I lied.

“I can totally picture that. You'll have to tell me the story when you're here.”

“Love to.” Two weeks was enough time to make something up. I should ask Zander to think of something. He'd always been good at coming up with stories. I had to go over to the store tomorrow anyway, to help him with this research he wanted to do. Whatever that was.

I ended the call with my brother and put the phone back in my pocket. That had gone better than anticipated. I really hadn't expected Rhys to believe me, but he seemed to have no problem with the image of Zander and me as a married couple.

In hindsight, that really should have made me think.