I shivered when I remembered the joke I’d made to Oliver in one of our recent classes. I’d joked that I was pregnant because I was feeling ill.

But now I couldn’t shake the sense that I really was pregnant.

I was starting to feel ill in the mornings, and my sense of smell had been heightened. Smells that hadn’t bothered me before were putting me off, and my nipples felt tender.

It could have been nothing—maybe I was really coming down with something—but I felt like, deep down, I knew I was pregnant.

There was only one way to be sure. I called Oliver, hoping he would pick up. I didn’t have anyone else I felt comfortable calling, since my younger omega friends would hardly be mature enough to handle this situation.

“Hello? Danny?” came the voice on the other end of the line.

“Oliver!” I cried out in relief. “I, uh, I need some big brotherly guidance.”

“Shoot.”

“I think I’m pregnant.”

“Have you taken a pregnancy test?” asked Oliver, immediately going into parental mode. I was glad someone had the situation under control. My heart was pounding, and my hands were shaking.

“N-no,” I said. “I think I might have one here somewhere…”

Even though taking a test was the obvious solution, I was so rattled that it hadn’t occurred to me. I needed someone calm to guide me through this.

“Okay, go ahead and look for the test. I’ll stay on the line with you.”

“I’m sorry for calling you randomly like this,” I said as I walked to my bathroom and started rifling through the drawers. “I’m sure you’re busy with Amy or something…”

“Nah, she’s actually napping right now,” said Oliver. “You got me in a rare moment of free time.”

That actually made me feel a little worse, but I ignored the feeling and focused on finding the pregnancy test that I knew was in there somewhere.

“Aha!” I said, holding it up. It was a three pack, unopened, and I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder and hastily tore the box open, sliding a plastic-wrapped stick out.

“You know how to use it, right?” asked Oliver.

“Yeah, you just pee on it, right?”

“It’s best if you pee a little first to clear the pipes,” said Oliver.

“I’m uh, going to put myself on mute real quick,” I said. I didn’t know Oliver so well that I’d want him to hear me peeing. Hell, no one needed to hear that.

“No problem,” said Oliver, his voice still calm and even.

After putting the phone down, I followed his instructions, then set the test on a paper towel on the counter and washed my hands.

“Okay,” I said, getting back to the conversation. “I’m waiting.”

“I’ll be right here with you,” said Oliver.

It was a nerve-wracking wait, but it wasn’t as long as the instructions on the box had implied. Pretty quickly, two lines showed up in the window.

“It’s uh… it’s two lines,” I said softly, almost whispering.

“Well… I do believe that means you’re pregnant,” said Oliver. “How do you feel about it?”

“Um… I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I certainly didn’t want to get pregnant, but I would really like to have a baby… I think I’m going to have to sit on this for a bit. And call the father. Oh, god…”

The thought of telling Archer this was mortifying. I’d been the one to put up boundaries, pushing for a friends with benefits relationship rather than a committed one, and now I was pregnant. That was a commitment unlike any other. And what if Archer didn’t want me to terminate the pregnancy? It was so much more difficult when there was another person’s opinions to deal with.

“You haven’t told me about the father,” said Oliver. “I hope he’s a good guy.”

“He is,” I said quickly, realizing that it hadn’t taken me long to say it. It was obvious to me Archer was a decent man. “I just… Bah. I guess I should call him.”

“You do that,” said Oliver. “And text me if you want to talk, okay? I know it can be scary.”

“Thank you, Oliver,” I said. “This means a lot to me.”

I could practically hear him smiling over the line. “It’s no problem. Take care, Danny.”

We said goodbye and hung up, leaving me alone in the bathroom with the positive pregnancy test. I couldn’t stop staring at it, as if it would change its result if I stared hard enough.

I supposed I had to call Archer. I left the test where it was, unwilling to throw it away just yet, and headed back to my bedroom, flopping onto my bed, phone in hand.

My finger hovered over his name in my contacts list as I wondered whether I really should call him. I could just quietly terminate the pregnancy and pretend this never happened. I could break things off with him, stop going to the bar.

But that little voice in my head told me that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted Archer, and I wanted this baby.

I just didn’t know if he’d want me.

But I wouldn’t know unless I called him. It was a terrifying prospect, but I hadn’t gotten this far without taking risks.

I pressed the button. The phone rang and rang.

An automated message told me I had to leave a voicemail and a beep sounded.

I hadn’t expected that result—I thought Archer would have picked up. I supposed he was busy. I didn’t know what to say for a message, so I clumsily said, “Hey, it’s Danny, call me back, okay?” and hung up, fumbling with the phone in my clammy hands.

Well, that was anticlimactic.

I got another shock when the phone started ringing—Archer was calling me back! How awkward.

I picked up.

“You called?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I, uh, can you come over?”

“Sure…” he said. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Um…” I hesitated. Should I tell him now? Over the phone? That way, if he wanted to walk out of my life forever, I wouldn’t even have to see him again.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’m coming over.”

Well, then. “See you soon,” I said. “I’ll text you my address.”

The next hour was one of the longest waits I’d ever had in my life, and I cursed myself for picking an apartment so far from the city center. I figured Archer was driving, but it was still a long way to go.

But soon enough, I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs leading to my apartment, and there was a knock on the door. When I went to open it, I almost couldn’t believe Archer was standing there.

He was here.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his brows knitted in concern. “You sounded unsettled.”

“Unsettled” was the understatement of the year. “Come in,” I said.

I closed the door after him and watched him as he took in his surroundings. My place wasn’t fancy, but it was cozy and neat, and I was proud of it.

“Have a seat,” I said, almost feeling like I was going to tell him someone had died.

We sat next to each other on the sofa and he looked at me expectantly. I wanted to reach out to him for comfort, take his hand or something, but it was probably better if I didn’t get even more attached to him. I was sure this was the end of our short-lived non-relationship.

“So… I’m pregnant,” I said, carefully watching his face for his reaction.

Archer’s mouth hung open slightly, and his eyes widened. He seemed surprised. Okay, that made sense. But were the corners of his mouth quirking up in… a smile?

Because he wasn’t saying anything—I could imagine he was just as shocked as I had been—I continued. “I just thought I should let you know,” I said. “I can terminate the pregnancy, of course. The hospitals in Stell provide services like that for free, I believe, so you don’t even have to worry about it.” I sighed.

“Terminate?” Archer blinked at me. I’d made him even more surprised, apparently.

“Yeah, I mean, we’re not together, right? So I imagine that’s the expected course of action…” I trailed off, watching as Archer’s expression morphed into one of concern.

“But… don’t you want the baby?” he asked.

“I mean… sure, but if you don’t, it doesn’t make sense for me to be a single dad… I couldn’t do it,” I said. “I really want to finish my schooling.”

“You wouldn’t be a single dad,” said Archer, as if in disbelief. He reached out and took my hands in both of his, and the warmth of his skin was like an immediate flood of relief and comfort.

“I wouldn’t?”

“No, I’d co-parent with you,” he said. “Unless… unless you wanted to try being parents together.”

“I don’t want you to feel obligated to be in a relationship just for this baby’s sake,” I said.

That was what had happened to my alpha father, more or less, and probably a large part of the reason he was so shitty to me. He didn’t want to be a dad, and he resented me and my omega father for it. I didn’t want my kid to grow up like I did, unwanted by one of his parents. I didn’t think Archer would be abusive, but then, I was sure my omega father hadn’t thought that either…

“That wouldn’t be the case,” said Archer, his eyes starting to sparkle. “The thing is, I’ve always wanted a family; I just thought it wasn’t in the cards for me. But this… this is an opportunity for both of us to build something together.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “I didn’t expect you to want the baby at all.”

“I do want this,” said Archer. “Whether we end up together or not… though I have to admit, I want you, too.”

“You—you do?” I blinked at him.

“Yeah. Listen, I was never totally happy with the friends with benefits thing, but I thought that was the only way I was going to enjoy your company,” he said, amazing me even further. “If we could try dating, for real, and if that relationship turned into us being parents together… it would make me the happiest alpha in the world.”

My heart was beating erratically, or so it seemed. I had been so prepared to call the hospital to arrange for an abortion as soon as Archer had left, in a huff, angry that I’d gotten pregnant.

But no, he wanted the baby, and he wanted me. No one had ever made me feel like that before.

“You’re really sure about this?” I asked. “I mean, a baby is a life-long commitment, you know.”

“You don’t think I know that?” said Archer. “Seriously, I feel like this is a rare opportunity for me to have the life I’ve always dreamed of. I don’t want to let it slip out of my grasp. I don’t want to let you go, like I did that first night.”

I felt tears prickling the corners of my eyes. Maybe it was just the pregnancy hormones, but I was incredibly touched. I had never felt so cherished, so accepted before. Plenty of alphas had desired me before, but none had cared for me this deeply.

A part of me was still skeptical. I couldn’t have had the experiences I’d had and come out of them unscathed. There was a little voice in my head telling me that I was making a mistake by trusting Archer.

But so far, Archer had been different from all the others. And I had a baby to think about now, too.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it. I’ll let you know when I schedule an appointment to see the doctor—for prenatal vitamins.” I smiled tentatively.

Archer reached out and enveloped me in his arms, making me feel safe and warm. I imagined our baby between us, in my belly, like we were cradling it in a nest. I pressed my face against his shoulder and took a deep breath of his scent, the tears starting to pool in my eyes and dampen his shirt.

He finally let me go and I pulled back only slightly, not wanting to end the contact.

“You’ll—you’ll even want to be—” I started, unable to finish my sentence because my voice was cracking. “On… on the birth certificate?”

“The birth certificate?” he asked. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? I mean, I am the baby’s father, right?”

I laughed a little, still crying, and wiped my face with my sleeve. “Yeah, yeah you are. It’s definitely yours.”

“Then yeah, of course my name’s going to be on there. I’m proud of our child already.”

I couldn’t help it. At those words, I melted into full-on bawling, and Archer held me close, stroking my hair and whispering soothing words I couldn’t quite make out.

It felt like all the pain of the past was being lanced, flooding out and leaving me exhausted but better off than I was before. I had never ever felt like this before in my life.

My alpha father’s name hadn’t been added to my birth certificate until a few years after I was born. I didn’t know how the paperwork worked, but the fact that he’d protested for so long… it had hurt me, when I’d found out.

What kind of dad didn’t want his son?

But Archer wasn’t going to be that kind of alpha. I already knew it, deep in my soul. I could trust him. He was going to be there for me no matter what. In his arms, held by his strength and compassion, I felt like I was inside my own fortress, where the rest of the world and my past couldn’t touch me.

And if this was where I got to live for the rest of my life…

Well, it almost seemed too good to be true.