Fated Desire Read online

  The middle ground where it works, where everything’s just right, is pretty big. But it can hide. I’ll know it when I find it, if I ever do.

  For now, I’ll need a copy of the local paper, the good old Salt Flats Weekly Sun. It seems less likely I’ll run into anyone if I stop at a big coffee franchise. Luckily, there’s one on every corner, even in this tiny town.

  With a tiny lemon cake and my coffee, I take a seat outside and open up the Sun. A six-page weekly notice that offers a combination news blotter, classified want-ads, for-sale and auction announcements, not to mention a Farmer’s Almanac. There’s no horoscope, but they do keep track of the moon’s phases. A lot more convenient for me now than it was ten years ago.

  FIRST DAY OF SPRING, reads a huge banner headline, and I realize that’s correct. What a funny day to show up out of the blue.

  I’m delighted to see the Sun’s still being printed on that same thin newsprint, and by the same old couple that’s been putting it out every week since before I was born.

  In an oil boom, which we’re currently in, the rents in Salt Flats quadruple. It’s just as expensive as back in L.A., even for a hotel room. Workers flood in from all over the world to work the oil fields. In only a few months out here, under the sun, you can make enough to live on for a year. Even support a family.

  I suppose if I’d thought about it, I’d have realized the internet wouldn’t be wildly helpful for finding lodgings in Salt Flats. Especially the kind of low-key, informal arrangement that means money under the table. I hadn’t thought about the Sun in so long that it comes as a happy surprise. Another smell that brings me back.

  A big full-page feature catches my eye. Vivid color’s certainly a technological advancement. The eye-popping garden pictures look like something out of a magazine. It’s such a cozy smell and familiar sensation that I can’t help but read the whole thing.

  Instructions for Planting the Second-Chance Garden

  Farmers have had the wisdom of crop rotation as long as there have been farmers. But did you know your home garden can benefit just as much from this wisdom?

  This spring think about what it would be like to have your own fresh fruits and vegetables year-round. You’ll lose less moisture and spend a lot less time on weeding. It’s all just a matter of planning. With the right know-how and a steady supply of seeds and transplants ready to go, you can stagger your plantings for a longer harvest.

  Plant a few spinach seeds every week, starting around August when the heat breaks, and you’ll have a continuous supply all the way into late fall. Mustards, kale, chard and spinach also thrive in the fall depending on your climate.

  Think about other favorite cool-season crops. Lettuce, carrots, beets, and cabbage. Garlic is planted in the fall and harvested early next summer. Onions planted in fall give a very sweet crop early next spring.

  And don’t forget the flowers! Many seeds and bulbs love being planted in the fall, and when they magically appear next spring, they’ll attract pollinators to service your whole garden.

  When summer comes to an end and the days grow nicer, you’ll enjoy being out in the garden more than ever. Start planning a second-chance garden now!

  Even when I was a kid more interested in video games and soccer matches than running around getting dirty, something about the ancient almanac writers’ enthusiasm always made me wish I had a green thumb. I can’t help but smile as I picture myself now, out in the garden on my hands and knees. Getting my khakis muddy, scuffing up the leather of my Italian shoes. Still, it’s a nice thought.

  There are families all around me. Kids, dads, moms. Boyfriends. Old friends grabbing coffee. Job interviews underway, writers furiously tapping at their laptops. The buzzing sound is familiar and calming, even romantic.

  It’s become easy, during these ten years, to imagine myself living every kind of life. Trying them on for size. Apartments, lofts, mansions. Friends. Jobs.

  Men, too.

  I’m exactly the kind of guy you’ve always wanted. As soon as I figure out what that is.

  Sporty, quiet, loud, funny, tough, mean, needy, respectful, lustful. Whatever you want. Just don’t leave.

  And so, I can’t help but picture this, too. Feeling at home here. Walking over to this very coffee shop every morning. Saying hello, hearing the gossip. Or, say, meeting some nice boring guy here for a date.

  It’s a safe, public place. My hopes aren’t high. He’s clever but nothing special to look at, and I wonder how that will reflect on me.

  But then after just a few minutes of talking and laughing with him, I start to realize that he’s actually pretty handsome. Then beautiful. Then out of the blue, bam, that one day you wait for. He looks exactly the same, and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, too.

  Fast-forward to me and my omega, with a million cubs hanging all over us. Chanting daddy and papa, dragging us all over creation. Everybody here, at this very coffee shop, looking over at us. Kind of annoyed by our kids’ hollering, kind of happy to see anyone so in love. Kind of jealous beyond all reason, maybe. Or super turned on by the sight of us standing together with our secrets. Imagining how hungry our kisses become when we’re alone.

  Or take this guy, for example, who has the advantage of being real.

  This fitness bro with the baby strapped to his chest, stretching his hamstrings. Squinting up at the shop’s offerings like he’s never ordered coffee before. Chuckling rapturously at the baby’s babbling, her funny faces. That’s the kind of guy I’m thinking of.

  Hot, fit, even-tempered, great dad. Great mate. One of those guys that always has time to spare for anybody, because he keeps such a regimented schedule. Great advice you’ll never follow, because it sounds like a bumper sticker.

  He says “mindfulness” without irony and probably does yoga, I think. That’s what his flexible hips and muscled arms tell me.

  But the incredible bulk of him, that’s weightlifting. It’s got to be. Yoked back, a yard at least from shoulder to shoulder. Thick thighs flexing in his running shorts.

  I’m staring. I need to look away. But there’s something about his smile, gleaming at his little girl like she’s the only one in the world. The solid confidence of his stance, his wicked grin. Kind and friendly with the barista, who clearly has a little crush.

  Deep tiredness behind his eyes, though. The greedy, guilty way he gulps his coffee.

  The crinkle in his eyes when he smacks his lips at the baby and cracks up when she smacks her lips right back at him. He’s exhausted, but he still has time for that. To be kind to this checkout girl, and sweet to this funny, babbling baby. Holding it together.

  Sexy, a voice in my head says, and I have to laugh. My standards. But there’s something to that, too.

  I wouldn’t have noticed the barista blushing if it were me. Certainly wouldn’t have thrown her a smile. I can’t picture myself lugging a kid or jogging around town, either.

  But it’s the kind of person I want to be. A grownup, with connections and a home he wants to go back to at the end of the day.

  Looking at this guy, short, curly brown hair shining, insanely blue eyes. The easy way he seems to live his life. It makes me feel like it’s possible.

  I can’t picture anyone I know doing any of that back in L.A. That seems impossible. Or at least you’d be doing it for a reason. To prove something or to get someone’s attention. To win.

  And if they ever heard me saying any of this, or how it looks like heaven right here in a franchise coffee shop, they’d laugh me out of town. I wouldn’t have had to run, they’d carry me out on their shoulders.

  So maybe it’s best I came here on my own. Sheer dumb luck I’m sitting at this particular table on this specific morning. Looking at this specific ass, in these particular gym shorts. Thinking for one second, like the sun coming out, it’s possible to find happiness in this life.

  There’s never been a time I didn’t believe, quietly in the back of my mind, that love, and marriage and all tho
se things were for other people. Grownups. Like there’s something uniquely special disqualifying me from anything so mundane, so sweet and boring, and normal. And for a long time, I even thought that was a good thing.

  But now I want it. I admit that I’ve wanted it for a long time.

  I just can’t quite kick that voice that says, you’re fooling yourself. You wasted too much time. You fell too far.

  It was in your rear-view mirror and you didn’t even know you’d passed it.

  And generally, when that voice starts up is when I either get roaring drunk, or see what drugs are around. Go swiping through my phone for numbers and messages from men I know would drop everything for the chance to come and service me.

  But I’m trying something new here.

  I’ve started scanning the crowd lately, whenever I’m out in the world. Even in Salt Flats, which I chose precisely so I’d be safe, I can’t stop.

  At one point I had a security guy stationed outside my apartment in L.A., and he took a shine to me, taught me some tricks. I think he thought I was an actor, researching a part. He was shocked I caught on so fast. Obviously, it was thanks to my shifter senses, but I was still flattered.

  There’s only one thing out of the ordinary here. Across the street, outside an abandoned storefront, there’s an aimless man in a very expensive suit. He’s pacing, with wild silver hair like a Beethoven bust and an off-kilter gait. But old people are just weird sometimes. I’m safe for the moment.

  Free to stare at this hunky dad as long as I want, here behind my shades. Get a little hit off the fantasy. I break off tiny pieces of romance when I can, like sneaking chocolate on a diet. Just enough to taste, and then move on.

  Is he a shifter? There’s something in his movements. An animal grace, under the exhaustion and sadness. Maybe even that mix of comfort and deliberateness that defines an omega to an alpha like me.

  But that’s fantasy on a whole new level. The kind that hurts too much to be safe.

  Imagine this guy here, like sexy Davy the Pump jockey, growing up in a small town. A good old boy, or a sweet country fella, who doesn’t know exactly what sets him apart.

  Your mutation starts cropping up at the onset of puberty, with little flashes of heat, mindless desire and rage. Then one fateful month, as your adolescence is coming to an end, the moon is waxing and you’re getting crazier and crazier, until finally, boom. Just when you think you’re truly losing your mind, hair sprouting everywhere, bones cracking, muscles pulsing and bulging. The others come to find you, and spirit you away in the night.

  You’re confused, scared, lonely. Then a group of men, patient and kind, come right out of the night saying, this is not the end of the world. It’s the beginning.

  The phone rings, and this time I answer.

  “Nic, it’s Felix Armistead.”

  I have to laugh. It’s his standard greeting, left over from the days before cell phones. But it wouldn’t be Felix without his little ways, so I never want to give him too much hell about it.

  “I would have turned out normal, if it had happened here.”

  Felix is used to me starting conversations partway through.

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Nic,” he laughs, but not unkindly.

  I was the only alpha in our boarding school class, which meant I got a lot of attention my very first moon. After years of being ignored and bullied, coming of age in that context made me good at a lot of things. Hiding from admirers, defusing challengers when they wanted a piece of me. As an adult, it’s made me a dominating and, from what I’m told, skilled lover.

  But on the downside, and only ever privately, it extends to a deep, romantic need for an omega partner that can’t be satisfied by more casual arrangements. God knows I’ve tried, and there’s a long trail of men who wanted to be that for me, but in the end, it’s just not interesting enough to last.

  “How many houses do you have lined up?”

  Apartments. Rooms in houses, some of them.

  “Only one, so far. But I have…resources.”

  “Let me know, so I can come and see you!”

  I nod, happily. That’ll be good. It’ll be nice to see someone from before. Someone from anywhere but here, somebody who can remind me there was a whole portion of my life that had nothing to do with this place.

  I never found anyone who touched my heart like my first love. So, eventually I just gave up on that future for myself. That fulfillment. Too much of a hopeless romantic to actually fall in love. Or maybe too bruised.

  If I don’t remember the rest of the world, I’ll drown in it. And so, as he has since I was just a broken-hearted baby, Felix will remind me.

  “Nic, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen? What’s the most country store thing?”

  He loves this, his weird ideas about small towns and Texas are never quite as insulting as they could be. He grew up abroad, boarding schools and chalets and all kinds of ridiculous history. He isn’t being condescending, he thinks it’s exotic. It’s hard to wrap my head around.

  “Hmm. I’ll mail you a copy of the town newsletter, you’ll love it. I saw a bunch of cattle trailers on the way into town and there is a very hot dad with a kid strapped to his…”

  He finally notices me staring, so I smile and wave. For a moment, a split second, he looks terrified.

  Why should that be? He’s too gorgeous to be confused by flirting, and I know he was looking at me. So what’s left?

  “Felix, I have to call you back.”

  “Okay! Tell me about your apartment viewing. I want to see pictures if possible!”

  The kid implies a mommy, if he’s human. Or an alpha, if he’s an omega after all, which could get ugly pretty fast.

  But if that were the case, I highly doubt he’d be walking over to me, through the coffee shop crowd. Taking off his shades, to pierce me with those bright blue eyes.

  Rubbing the back of his wavy dark mop of hair nervously. Flexing a bicep, showing just about every single one of his teeth. Mixed signals, which is usually my cue to leave.

  But he’s far too hot the closer he gets, for me to just walk away. With the heavy bulk of his back and shoulders, it feels like he’s blocking all the exits as he comes closer.

  I’ll meet-cute, greet the baby, flirt wildly. Why not? I’ve only got a couple of hours before my first apartment showing. I’d like to find some protein of some kind before then, and it’s a bit early in the day for a steak.

  Best case scenario, he gets my number, I’ve made a shifter friend and possible hookup. Worst case, he knows exactly who I am and what I did, and he’s here to punch my lights out.

  The man looks me dead in the eye with a gorgeous smile. He warmly sticks out a hand and calls me by name, already leaning in for an embrace.

  “My God, Dominic. Ten years!”

  For you, yes. For me, since I’ve never met you before, not exactly.

  But he does have that smile and I can tell, beneath the intoxicating scent of an omega shifter that he’s also getting very turned on. The baby’s even cuter up close.

  So why not? It’s the first day of spring.

  Creature Fought a Blueberry

  The twins are three this year. They’ve always risen with the sun, even as newborns, so for at least three years my day has started the same way. Wake up around four thirty so I can get a workout in, grab a bite and hope to finish my coffee before it all starts.

  Because once Rosemary and Huckleberry are awake, that’s half of the crew, it’s only a matter of time before their older brother comes downstairs, wiping sleepy eyes and grouching at me just like his father used to.

  If I don’t get a workout, my whole day feels off. I’m never sure if that’s because I’m in peak condition, or just scared of being who I was in high school. A string bean. Invisible. So I like to watch myself as I lift. There’s something sexy about it, watching my muscles swell with every pump, getting all sweaty and breathing hard.

  I’m not obsessed with it or we
ird about it. At least I don’t think so. But it’s nice to start the day with a reminder of what my body can do, and what it looks like. Still, it’s the closest thing to action I’ve gotten since…well, I guess about a year and a half, isn’t it?

  I wouldn’t ever say this out loud or allow anyone to say it in my presence, but privately, I do think the twins are a little weird. I love them, of course and I like them, too, they’re funny, sweet little people. I’m proud of who they’re becoming. But when people get funny around them I cut them a break.

  There was one day last month when they got it into their heads to just eat…anything. Every time I turned around they were eating something weird. It happened all day. Dog food, fish food, turtle food, chicken feed.

  Nothing poisonous, thank God. But nothing you’d generally think of as food either. When I finally asked them what was going on, they just looked at each other in that way they do, like they have a secret club without any other members. They smiled at me, turned back to whatever they were doing, and that was all I got.

  They’ve also learned to get out of their cribs when they’re bored, which is a whole other area of anxiety. I had a nanny cam for a while, but watching the footage freaked me out too much and I stopped using it. All night they get out of bed. Chatter at each other in their baby language. Have little meetings, switch cribs, take everything out of the closet and then put it back.

  I don’t find it chilling, exactly. Maybe I’m just jealous. I’ve seen them have an entire fight, make up, get irritated by something and head back into the fight, make up again, and never let go of each other’s hands. I haven’t been that close with anyone since my husband.

  No, it’s even closer than that. I haven’t been that close to anyone since Dominic Tarrant.

  The twins have a private name for everything and everyone. Not like a different word for things, more like everything has a nickname.

  I’m “Biddle,” my husband, Ernest, was “Gandy,” older brother Bodhi is “Strong,” and baby sister Poppy is “Creature,” they call each other “Human.”