“Um, Ray?” Alec asked softly.

Ray looked up from the computer where he was checking the spreadsheet he kept of the household expenses. He’d known Alec was there, of course, but that didn’t necessarily mean Alec wanted his attention. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind if I cut Maria’s hair?”

Ray blinked at him. “No, I was thinking about it, but I thought maybe Gabriel wouldn’t want to...”

Alec smiled. “He is a little vain about his hair,” he admitted fondly. He took a seat on the armchair without asking—which Ray counted as a win. “But he’s tired of her crying, and I promised it’d grow stronger if we cut her baby hair.”

“Huh,” Ray said, intrigued. Was this what had made Alec open up lately? “Did you... I mean, when did this happen?”

Alec’s face turned serious and he straightened from his easy posture. “Me and...?”

Ray hesitated, but then forged ahead. He didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, but they couldn’t have a relationship if he did that by never talking to the guy. “Yeah. I mean, he said he trusted you when... when we started this pack. But you guys never used to talk. I thought you were afraid of him, really.”

Alec scoffed. “More like ashamed,” he said quietly. “He... I met him in a club in Durham when I was at uni, he didn’t even realize we were from the same pack but it was almost the full moon, so...”

“Wait, are you saying...?” Ray stared at him. “There’s no way you guys have been together all this time!”

“What? No, that’s not... we haven’t. We were for a while, sort of, except... I presented.”

“Oh, fuck,” Ray exhaled. For all that Sergi and Iesu had pretended otherwise, alphas weren’t really meant to do anything with each other except get each other off when they were moon-high and there were no omegas or betas available. “Did he...? Was he a dick about it?”

Gabriel was doing much better lately—likely due to Alec’s influence—but kind as he could be, he was too set in doing to really consider other people’s feelings first.

But Alec shook his head, and sighed. “No, actually, I was.”

“You?” Ray asked, and maybe it was a little offensive to assume that Alec couldn’t be a dick. It wasn’t even true; he’d been so worried about Ray that he’d often not been able to hear what Ray had told him he needed.

The alpha shrugged. “Thanks, I guess, but I think most people are dicks because they are scared, so I’m pretty good at it. I thought he wouldn’t want to... keep going, so I just stopped answering his calls.”

Ray thought back to his own presentation. He’d have definitely stopped answering calls if it had been an option. “Can’t blame you. So when did it start again?”

Alec didn’t answer for a long moment, but then he seemed to think of something because his face cleared. “He came to me to find out why we didn’t need you,” he said very carefully. He couldn’t keep his gaze on Ray but kept glancing at him for a reaction.

“That’s... nice of him, I guess.”

“He cares about you,” Alec said, sounding reproachful.

“I know, I know, it’s just... I’m still a little angry about him leaving the babies. Can you get that?” Alec nodded. “So anyway, you didn’t know why, so what happened?”

“We... Well, I needed to talk to other omegas, get an idea of how it really worked, so he got them to talk to me. And then he also asked if I could measure babies.”

“So it’s been like... a month?” Ray guessed.

Alec glanced at him, vacillating, but finally he said, “A month since we kissed, about two months since we started investigating.”

“Oh, so...” Ray licked his lips, looking at the screen in front of him and noticing it had gone black to save energy. “You figured it out pretty fast.”

“Not fast enough,” Alec said at once.

Ray looked up and put the laptop on the low table. He wanted to comfort Alec, but he wasn’t very sure he wanted to touch him. “You had no way to do it faster,” he reminded him firmly. “And I’m grateful you figured it out when you did, that you... that you gave me a choice about it.”

Alec didn’t look up from his own hands clenched between his knees and Ray couldn’t resist any longer, he leaned forwards and squeezed them. Alec startled and nearly pulled away. But he exhaled and stayed put—not looking at Ray but allowing him in his space.

“Dammit,” Ray muttered. “I didn’t want to freak you out. I was just trying to gossip.”

Alec let out a half muffled laugh. “Gossip? Really?”

Ray raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, do you call it ‘gathering data’, doctor?”

Alec gaped at him, eyes bright. “You—”

“I just can’t imagine how you get on with him, he’s so...”

Alec’s face fell. “Ray, he’s really trying. He only—”

“No!” Ray said at once. “I mean in bed, he’s very... well, alpha about it. And you are an alpha too, so...”

That seemed to shut Alec up. He crossed his arms across his own chest, pulling his hands away from Ray’s touch. “I’m not. In bed.”

It took Ray a moment to put that together in a sentence that made sense. “You are not very alpha in bed?” he asked quietly. He’d suddenly remembered Josh’s comments about soundproofing Gabriel’s bedroom... And that they were in the living room. He concentrated on the sounds coming from the house, but there was no one moving around. It was just after lunch on a Tuesday so the babies were napping and Marisa was probably watching Shameless with her headphones on while she kept an eye on them.

He heard Alec swallow, but he nearly missed it when he spoke, “No.”

“Um, okay. That’s... good,” he tried. “If you guys...”

Alec shot him a look, exasperated. “I always thought I would be an omega.”

Was he jealous of Ray? The idea nearly made him laugh. Nobody who had been watching his life could imagine it was a better one than that of an alpha. “Well,” he replied. “You dodged that bullet.”

His mate looked away again, seemingly at a loss for words. “I know I hurt you, when I... I know you didn’t want to... to submit.” Ray didn’t confirm it. He thought it had become obvious to all of them by now. “But I... I didn’t want to dominate you.”

“Oh,” Ray exhaled. He remembered that Alec, who was second oldest, had been the last one to... “Did you... did the wolf...?”

Alec shrugged. “Mostly, yeah. I mean, you are... You are beautiful, of course I’m attracted to you.”

“But you didn’t want to fuck me,” Ray said evenly. The idea didn’t upset him, but it did confuse him. Maybe it was stupid. He hadn’t wanted to get fucked. “But then why did you join the pack?”

“I told you; I’m gay. I wanted...” He met Ray’s eyes for a moment but couldn’t hold his gaze. “I wanted a family and I wanted a partner, and the chance of another male omega presenting in my lifetime...”

Ray swallowed. “Do you regret it?”

“What?” Alec seemed perfectly shocked. “No! I—”

“I guess you have Gabriel now,” Ray allowed.

Alec’s hand closed over his forearm and he looked up in surprise. Alec’s jaw was tense with the effort of facing him but he didn’t look away as he spoke, “I do not regret becoming your mate.”

It was true. It just didn’t make a lot of sense. “But if you don’t...”

“Ray,” Alec said quietly. He didn’t speak until Ray stopped trying to. “I love you, okay? And I want to take care of you. And if you wanted to, I’d enjoy making you feel good.”

Ray swallowed, not quite able to look away from Alec’s golden eyes. “I’m trying to get better,” he admitted suddenly. “Before...” He glanced down at himself.

Alec nodded. “That’s good. Do you...”

Ray shrugged, thinking of kissing Josh. And of Sergi letting him take the lead. It’d felt good, to know he could, and to be able to be in his body instead of constantly flinching from it.

Of course he hadn’t known just how fucked he was back then.

Alec’s grip turned into a caress, thumb rubbing against the delicate skin of Ray’s inner arm. Ray let him, drawing comfort from this single point of contact, this very controlled experiment. “Had you ever... been with a guy?”

Ray shook his head.

“Wanted to?” Alec asked next, failing to hide his apprehension.

Ray nodded, shrugging a little, not enough to dislodge Alec’s hand. “I’m... bi, I guess.”

It was weird to say it. He’d thought it before, he still remembered learning the word and making sense of it, making sense of how close he felt to Gabriel and Josh, and how his eyes wandered to the back of girls’ necks, the dip of their blouses... “I just figured... it was too much trouble. Guys.”

It hadn’t been guys, really, it had been a guy. Not like he hadn’t checked out kids at school or considered going a little crazy during the full moon run, but... He’d thought, if he was going to go there, it wasn’t going to be for a random grope.

“So do you... do you know what you like?” Alec asked.

Ray’s head snapped up at the question. He hadn’t expected...

Alec was blushing a little. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to—”

“No,” Ray cut in, it seemed easier to interrupt Alec than his other alphas. Maybe the wolf could tell Alec didn’t care? “I mean, I don’t really...”

“Do you want to be in charge?” Alec offered, keeping his eyes lowered. He had a lot of mannerisms improper for an alpha, which Ray had known, of course, but he wondered...

“I don’t know,” Ray admitted. “I mean, girls always... they kinda expect you to be in charge, I guess. And it’s fun, to lift them up and play the strong man and everything. But I didn’t... I didn’t like it that much if they just lay there or whatever. I wanted them to... to be into it, like, touch me back...”

“What do you want to do now?” Alec asked, redirecting his thoughts.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters,” Alec sounded upset but Ray couldn’t look at him to check. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me,” he hurried to assure him. “Just... maybe it’s something to think about. On your own, without any pressure from pheromones.”

“But I’m still an omega,” Ray pointed out.

"Yeah, but it’s not like the Moon is going to meddle in your thoughts, what would be the evolutionary purpose of that? You get turned on for alphas so you can have sex with them and conceive, and then so they will stay around and protect you. The rest of the time... you are just you.”

He said it so simply, like he had no idea that Ray had been wondering for over a year. “How do you know?”

Alec met his eyes, unsure, as if he understood how important the question was to Ray. “I was like this before, with... with Gabriel. And I was... I’m still like that. And I’m still... I still worry a lot, but the wolf doesn’t care. It wants to hunt and to run and to...” He lowered his eyes.

“I get it,” Ray said, putting him out of his misery. “But how do you know it’s not making you, I don’t know, care about me?”

Alec glanced up, frowning a little. “Right now, it doesn’t even want to mate with you, Ray. If you wanted the perfect way to check if my feelings for you are my own, this is it. You have my bite and you are pack, but anything else... It’s not the wolf.”

He sounded oddly calm, nothing like he’d sounded a few minutes ago explaining he didn’t really want to push Ray down and fuck him. And if he knew that... if he could tell the difference between his wolf’s instincts and his own desires... Maybe he was right; maybe Ray could tell.

“You can...” Alec started, then stopped until Ray gave him a curious look. “You can talk to me about... about Josh. Or boys. We can gossip all you want,” he joked.

“And kiss?” Ray asked on impulse. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, but he definitely liked the way Alec blushed, and it was fine anyway, Alec could hardly hold his hand without asking for permission. “Will... Gabriel mind?” he asked when the alpha didn’t respond right away.

Alec took his hand away so he could rub at his own knees. “I don’t think so,” he said distractedly, but he was frowning.

“It’s cool, I was just—”

“No, I want to, but...”

Ray leaned in close and pressed a peck to his cheek. “It’s fine, really, I was just trying to flirt. I’m not very good at it.”

This made Alec snort. “You or me?”

Ray shrugged, smiling easily now. “I guess we can both be bad at it. It would explain a lot, right?”