Alex

Some time over the last four hours I’d gone from silently panicking at the idea of Jeremy being pregnant, to one-hundred-percent determined that we were going to keep it. I felt in my bones that this baby was meant to be, and I was going to do everything I could to make sure I had the means to provide for my new family.

I knew it was going to be difficult. I was committed to helping my dads and my brother and his kids, at least through the rest of the summer and fall, and I honestly didn’t know where I was going to find time to help Jeremy’s parents.

But they needed the money from the timber, and I knew that money would help with the costs of raising our child, since they would be able to keep the land where Jeremy’s trailer sat. And even though it was small, the trailer would be a fine place to start out with our baby. Eventually, we’d have to find a bigger house, but for now, I could see the three of us together in this cozy little space.

Even though I didn’t actually live with Jeremy yet, I suddenly felt scattered between three different places. The room I rented in the house and Portville, my parents home where I crashed sporadically, and now, Jeremy’s trailer. And as the afternoon grew later I realized the only place I really wanted to be was Jeremy’s.

But I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me if I wanted to make any of this happen. I was going to have to work even longer days, and most likely seven days a week, in order to make sure my family’s landscaping business ran smoothly, as well as help Jeremy’s family cut down as many trees as possible before their taxes were due. And before Jeremy needed any new items for his pregnancy or the baby.

I figured we could skate by on food and bills until then, but I was definitely going to have to give up my room in Portville. That was a major money sink every single month.

But on top of everything I had to worry about there was Jeremy’s attitude. Even if I could convince him to keep the baby, I knew he was going to be a handful. But that was one of the things I was growing to love about him. He didn’t seem afraid to speak his mind or tell me how he was feeling, even if his opinions were pretty much the opposite of mine.

I still couldn’t get over the fact that I was now deeply involved with a redneck. I’d always thought of them as complete numbskulls with no brains and nothing interesting to say. Guys with nothing better to do than start fights and rev their engines to look cool. But after meeting Jeremy’s dads I started to think that maybe his family wasn’t that different from mine. They kept to themselves and stayed with their own people, and that’s pretty much what my family did too. But if and when our two families came together, it was sure as hell going to be interesting.

“I should probably get going,” I said when we got back to Jeremy’s trailer. “I can call a car to come out here and get me.”

“Oh, hell, no. Those guys charge you for the whole trip out here and back into town. That would be at least forty bucks. I can take you anytime you need to go, but …”

“But, what?”

“Well, I thought maybe you’d want to stay,” Jeremy said, looking insanely adorable as his face turned a little red. Here was this big, burly guy standing in front of me and blushing. It was so cute. Every single time this guy opened his mouth he surprised me and made me like him a little more. Okay, a lot more.

“I do want to stay,” I said, lifting Jeremy’s chin up so that his eyes met mine. “But I have to get going really early, and I don’t want to have to wake you up and have you drive me home in the morning. But I’d like to come back here tomorrow evening if that’s okay with you. I’d like to talk about everything that’s going on.”

“You mean the baby?”

“Yeah, that, and the work your dads talked about.”

“You’re not really thinking about asking your family to cut down these trees, are you? I told you, my dads don’t have the money to pay anyone. If they did, the trees would already have been sold to the local timber company. I don’t even know why they brought it up.”

“I’m not thinking about asking my family, so you can rest your mind about that. I haven’t thought it out completely, that’s why I wanted to talk to you tomorrow, but if you want, I can run my idea past you. Can I tell you about it now?”

“Sure,” Jeremy growled, looking like he wasn’t going to be happy with anything I said. I couldn’t believe how stubborn he was.

“Well, since I do have experience climbing trees and bringing them down, I figure one person in the trees and one or two on the ground should work. If you and one of your dads can stay on the ground and help, then I think we could get maybe an hour or two in each night after I get done with the landscaping job. And we could do a full day on Saturday and Sunday every weekend. If we did that we could slowly chip away at some of the bigger trees. It doesn’t all have to be done at once. A little at a time would work.”

“Yeah, I don’t know.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Jeremy, if you and your dads want to get that timber cut down and sold, this is pretty much your only option. You’re not going to find too many guys willing to wait weeks or months to be paid for this kind of job.”

“Look, Alex. I appreciate you wanting to help, but I just don’t think it’s going to work. I’m not even sure how I’m going to be able to pay for food now, since I’m not planning on going back to work at the steel mill. The money I made helped my dads out a lot and now that’s gone. I don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to pay you.”

“I’m not asking for anyone to pay me. In fact, I’d be into the idea of doing some trading. Maybe some vegetables from your dad’s garden or milk or chicken eggs. Or if you have any roosters that you don’t want to have to kill. My family would love that. You could even trade skills. Is there anything you can think of, a skill or something you like to do, that you could offer?”

“Yeah, well, there is something I like to do, and sometimes offer trades for with my family, but I doubt it would be helpful.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Nothing important. I don’t want to talk about it right now. Maybe I should just take you home.”

“Okay.” I didn’t want to press Jeremy any further, so I just let him take me home and promised I’d see him soon.

The next week was insanely grueling. I got up at five o’clock every morning and met my pop at the site. We worked all day and I generally didn’t get back to my parent’s house until six or seven at night. We would eat dinner, then I would head over to Jeremy’s place with the leftovers. By some stroke of luck, I convinced Jeremy to let me at least try cutting down trees for a week to see what kind of money his dads could get.

We usually got a couple trees down before sunset, then the two of us would curl up in his bed. I loved the way it felt to wrap my arms around Jeremy and have lazy spoon sex before we fell asleep. It wasn’t anything intense like our first time, but being inside him always made my long days completely worth it.

There were times throughout the day that I would suddenly get a surge of energy and I would not be able to stop thinking about Jeremy. I would swear to myself that the second I got back to his place I would completely ravage his body, but after I ate and cut down a couple trees, all I really wanted was cuddling, quick sex, and sleep.

“This is crazy, Alex,” Jeremy said to me as I fell into bed on Sunday night. After a full week of working two very demanding jobs I still had all my clothes on and I didn’t even have the energy to remove them. I felt Jeremy untie my boots and yank them off, then slowly pull my jeans down. That should’ve been enough to get me hard, but there wasn’t even a twitch. “You’re gonna kill yourself working this hard. It’s only been one week and you can barely keep your eyes open. I’m afraid you’re gonna fall out of one of those trees and really hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine,” I mumbled. “I just need to sleep.”

That was the first night since we met that we didn’t have sex and I had to admit, even as tired as I was, it worried me a little.

The next day I didn’t feel any better, in fact, I felt like complete hell. Like I had hit a wall that even my alpha stubbornness couldn’t push through. I didn’t know what I was going to do, though. I couldn’t let either my family or Jeremy down. I had responsibilities for two families now, and more than half of the summer was still ahead of me. I went in to the landscaping job on Monday morning hoping I could pull off another day, but my dad could see how exhausted I was too.

“What’s been going on with you, son? You look like you’ve been put through the ringer.”

“I’m fine, pop. I’ve just got a lot going on right now.”

“Is it this new guy you’re seeing?”

“How did you know about that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Well, you haven’t been spending the night at home at all lately, and I know what alphas can be like. I remember what I was like at your age when I met your father. There was nothing that could stop me from making sure that he was provided for and protected. Even now, when I don’t have anywhere near as much energy, I still spend a lot of my time thinking about how I can make things easier for him. Alpha hormones are a blessing and a curse.”

I looked down at my hands. I knew I couldn’t tell my pop a lie, even if I knew he wouldn’t like the truth. “Well, you’re right. It’s a guy. I was really stupid, pop. I found him at the drive-in. He was in heat and there were a lot of other alphas hanging around him. I swear, I intended to get him home safely, then leave, but …“

“But you didn’t leave.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“And he’s pregnant.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the whole story. He lives on the same property as his parents—over fifty acres on the outskirts of Newtown—and they need a bunch of trees felled so they can pay property taxes or they’ll lose everything.”

“Isn’t this omega of yours working?”

“Well, that’s another complication I don’t wanna go into right now. But, no, he’s not able to work. But my friend helps out on his dad’s farm, and he helps me in the evenings and on the weekends with taking some of the trees down.”

“So that’s what’s gotten you so tired you can barely keep your eyes open. You’re moonlighting. Working two physically demanding jobs at the same time. You’re going to drive yourself into the ground if you keep working this hard, Alexandro. No alpha—no matter how strong he is—can work that hard seven days a week.”

“But I don’t know what else to do, pop. You need help with the summer workload, they need the trees cut down, and we all need the money. I don’t see any other way around it.”

“Well, Mateo has worked with me before, and he’s mentioned that he’s like to start up again part time. I could cut you down to maybe three days a week, and Mateo could take three days. Your dad can look after Nina and Ralph, and you could take at least one day off. But I would feel better if you took two. Do you think that would work for you and your … friend?”

“It might. I also need to talk to my roommate in Portville. I need to stop paying rent there. That’s where a lot of my money is going right now, and I’m not even living there anymore.”

“Yes, definitely give up that room. I never liked that you were so far away. You’ve always had a home with us, and it sounds like you found a new one with this fellow. And don’t forget, you need to save your money up for the baby now.”

“I haven’t forgotten, pop. It’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about.”

“Well, don’t wear yourself out with worry, son. Everything’s going to work out fine, I know it will. But you can’t take this all on yourself. There are many people involved that can help out in some way. We just have to let all of the pieces fall into place.”

“You’re such an optimist, pop. Sometimes it’s hard for me to see things that way.”

“Maybe, when you have your own children you’ll start to see things that way too. Now, I want you to take the rest of the day off. There’s not too much heavy lifting at this job today. Mostly cutting grass and cleaning up the flowerbeds. I can take care of it myself.”

“But, pop!”

“No arguments. I want you to go and get some sleep. No fooling around, no watching TV. I want you to get into bed and go to sleep. You look like you could sleep for the next two days straight.”

“Yeah, that’s about how I feel. Okay, pop, but I’ll be ready to start again tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about tomorrow right now. I’ll talk to your brother tonight and give you a call in the morning.”

“Okay pop. Thanks.”

I felt like a total failure. I wanted to keep going, but my body was betraying me. My pop was right, though. All I could think about was falling into bed and sleeping the rest of the day away.

On my way to my truck I got a call from one of my roommates in Portville. “Shane, how’s it going? I was just thinking about you guys.”

“I’m all right. I really need to talk to you. Can we meet at the coffee shop?”

“I can’t, man. I’m exhausted. I’ve been working two jobs and I’m dead on my feet. Can we meet later?”

“I don’t know. I’m kind of freaking out right now. I really need your advice.”

“What’s going on?” I said as I hopped into my truck.

“I’m pregnant.”

“You gotta be kidding. It seems like that’s been going around lately.”

“The thing is, I don’t know if I can keep it, Alex. I’m afraid it’s going to ruin everything.”

“Like what?”

“My whole career. I can’t really finish college and raise a baby at the same time. And besides that, I’m not really sure how the father is going to take the news.”

“You haven’t told him yet? Who is this guy?”

“You don’t know him.”

“Come on, Shane. Who is he?”

“He’s a professor at my school. And please Alex don’t tell me I shouldn’t have gotten involved with my college professor. I already know that. I don’t know what I was thinking. He could get fired and I could get kicked out of school if anyone finds out. But that’s part of the reason why I don’t know what to do. I’m gonna go to that clinic that the neighbor works at and just see what my options are.”

“Options meaning …”

“I really don’t want to get rid of it, Alex, but I don’t know what else to do. I need your help.”

I couldn’t believe what Shane was telling me. He was one of my best friends and my alpha hormones were screaming at me to take care of him like he was my family too. But what I really needed to do right now was take care of myself. “Look, Shane, all I need is a few hours of sleep. Then I’ll come out there and we can talk. I need to take care of some stuff at the house anyway. Can you wait until tonight?”

“Sure. And thanks Alex. You’ve always been like a big brother to me. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. See you later.”

I hung up the phone and closed my eyes. I was so tired and all I wanted to do was head home and be with Jeremy. Then I smiled when I realized what I was thinking. That Jeremy’s cute little single-wide in the middle of the woods was now my home.

I just hoped he would change his mind about keeping the baby. The subject hadn’t come up all week and I wondered if maybe I could get both Jeremy and Shane to talk to someone at The Sunnyside Clinic. Someone that would help them both see how having a baby might not be such a bad thing after all.