“Auntie Chris is going to protect you, yes she will, yes she will little one.” Jessie was cooing at her new-born. Jessie being Jessie had immediately had her daughter tested, and it had turned out little Emily was going to be an omega like her mother.

For some reason that was beyond anything I could understand, she was extremely happy about it. Maybe it’s a mother-daughter thing, I have no idea. In my opinion, omegas had it worse than the other genders. Despite decades of emancipation, they were still stereotyped as weak and stupid by society at large. And even if that wasn’t completely true, most of them were annoyingly fragile.

Okay, there were exceptions. But wishing for your kid to be an omega… I can’t imagine why you’d do that.

Oh well, Jessie was happy. So was James, her alpha. Or he was just happy because his omega was happy. I get how that works now.

I had bought the baby a Team Rocket romper. I hadn’t known what that even was, before Jessie and James got together. But when they did, people around them had started making jokes about them. I had honestly thought the pair would’ve gotten fed up with the Pokémon references at some point. But they clearly liked it. When they moved in together, they got a cat and called it Meowth, at Jessie’s bachelorette party we all had to dress up as different Pokémon, and even now their baby girl was wearing a Bulbasaur onesie.

Fuck me, I even know what a Bulbasaur is now.

James didn’t like me, but he was getting me a pink cupcake and coffee all the same. He had to. Jessie was going to do nothing but sitting around and squeaking to her baby. Unless James would decide not to make me coffee, then she’d probably get up and whoop his ass.

“Do you want to hold her for a bit?” Jessie suddenly asked me, in between coos.

No. I wanted to say. But you don’t say that to your friend who’s so proud of the baby she tore from her body only 2 days ago, do you?

So, I smiled, nodded, and opened my arms to the squishy little thing with the huge eyes. Or, better put: little baby Emily. The second I cradled the little girl into my arms, James started growling. I looked at him and rolled my eyes.

Jessie however, got up from her mother’s throne and grabbed his chin. “No!” she said, looking almost two feet up at him. She sounded like someone scolding a dog, which was surprising by itself. But what was even more surprising, was that the tall, dark-haired alpha actually behaved like a scolded dog and immediately went outside. If he had a tail, it would’ve been between his legs.

“Sheesh Jess, you trained him well…” I laughed.

“Yeah, well. You have to train your alpha. Otherwise they’ll just start pissing on everything.” It came out like a joke that she’d told a thousand times. No, like a joke that millions of people had told a thousand times. But I had never heard it.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Oh shoot, sorry. It’s sort of an omega inside joke. I don’t mean it really… Obviously its just… Like it wouldn’t apply to you, you know…” Her voice trailed off and she started crying.

My first instinct was to hug her, but I was holding her baby. Confronted with that slight dilemma, I just told her: “Jess, don’t cry. I’m not mad. It’s a good joke, I get it.”

But instead of letting it go, she started sobbing loudly. I mean, really loud, as if she had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer loud. “No! I’m such a bad friend! I’m horrible. You are so perfect Chris! You are the best friend in the world and I just insulted you! You’ve been my best friend for fifteen years and you saved me, and here I go hurting your feelings! I’m such a bad person!”

She was sitting there bawling her eyes out, and I couldn’t even hug her. Also, with the way she was panicking, I was half expecting James to run back in and kill me. I did the only thing I could, and awkwardly handed her back her baby.

She immediately stopped crying, and looked at it like it was an angel that had just fallen out of the sky into her lap. Her face shone. All hurt from a second ago completely gone.

I was too stumped to continue my motion to hug her. My arms were awkwardly paused in mid-air, and I could only stare.

“Jess? Are you okay?” I said after a long silence that seemed only one-sidedly awkward.

“Oh, yes, that’s just baby blues. I cry a lot nowadays. Please don’t mind me… Oh yes you are so pretty… You’re gonna be the prettiest princess in the whole wide world, aren’t you?” she started cooing again to the baby, and seemed to have forgotten my entire presence in an instant.

I waited for a bit, but Jessie was completely preoccupied with her baby. Which was fair, of course, but it made me feel more awkward by the second.

“I’m gonna step out and smoke a cigarette, okay. I’ll be right back.” I said.

No reaction came, so I just got up and made my way towards the garden.

James was sitting outside on a porch swing. I walked over and sat down next to him. It would’ve felt rude not to.

I lit my cigarette and turned to him. “So, how are you holding up?”

“I don’t like you.” He growled.

“Yeah, well… What can you do?” I said, releasing a large plume of smoke into the air in front of me. Here I was trying to be nice, and all I got was tears and hostility.

“You’re disgusting.”

I didn’t even look at him. “Is the smoke bothering you? I can get up and smoke somewhere else.”

“It’s not the smoke. You are even disgusting without it.” He said. It didn’t even surprise me. I knew for a long time James hated my guts. He had no reason to, obviously. I hadn’t offended him in any way, other than being an alpha who was close to his omega. Guys like him were the reason I didn’t like alphas in general. Jealous possessive fucks, the lot of them.

I kissed my teeth and took another drag of my cigarette.

“Filthy half-breed.” He muttered under his breath.

“What?!” I exclaimed, getting up from the bench so fast, it almost flung James off with me. “The fuck did you call me?”

I wasn't sure what he was aiming at. I didn't think he was the inbred American patriot type to insult me for being from Italian descent, but I had no idea what he was adressing otherwise. 

He got up to and stared me down. In a low growl he rumbled: “You know what I mean. You disgusting hermaphrodite.”

As much as I was ready to fight the bastard, which I would’ve kept solely verbal have for Jessie’s sake, I was now completely stumped. He did really go there.

I knew a lot of men had negative thoughts about alpha women’s genitals. I knew first-hand how men looked at you when they saw an alpha woman aroused for the first time. Hell, I am even married to a man that still completely ignores that part of me. And I understand.

I understood because Patrick, like the men I dated before him, is a straight guy. And even when they know you’re an alpha, for some reason they’re still shocked that when you’re getting hot and heavy, your private parts don’t completely look like a beta woman’s. They should’ve known though. We learned that in primary school. Along with the fact that omega men have a womb up their ass, but no one is ever disgusted by that.

Yet, Jessies 28-year old husband not only thinks I’m disgusting, just because of my gender, he actually said it out loud…

I repeated a mantra in my head. It went as follows: ‘This bastard is good to her, don’t fight him for Jess… This bastard is good to her, don’t fight him for Jess… This bastard is good to her, don’t fight him for Jess…’

And I did nothing.

Okay, maybe I breathed smoke in his face and lit another cigarette just to be able to blow more smoke in his face. But otherwise, I behaved.

He did too. Guess he was too much under Jessies thumb to actually try and hurt me with more than words. I pretended his words didn’t hurt me either. They shouldn’t have, but to be honest, they did.

I went back in chatted a bit to Jessie, but she hardly responded since she was completely immersed in her firstborn. So after 20 minutes I left. I was still a little on edge and I felt the need to vent to someone, so I called Patrick.

“Hey baby! How was the baby? Did they like the gift?” he answered the phone with full enthusiasm.

“Yeah they did. Jessie was doing great, but she was a little preoccupied with her baby. She did let me hold her.”

“Oh, you must have loved that.” He commented sarcastically.

“Right I did. She started sobbing almost instantly, so I gave it back.”

“Jeez, that must have been hell for you.”

“Yeah, and then James started picking a fight…”

“Aw, he’s just jealous Jessie loves you so much.”

I wanted to say something about what was actually bothering me, but I didn’t. A part of me was scares shitless that Patrick would defend him in some way.

“Yeah, that’s probably it. He’s a dick though.” I said.

“Most alpha men are. Pretentious arrogant pricks like your dad. Don’t mind them. You’ve got your nice beta husband who has been making spanakopita for you. See you at home honey.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in 20.” I answered.

I hung up, then loudly screamed in my car. I screamed to let out the anger, because I was still pissed-off. Pissed-off at James, for obvious reasons. Pissed-off at Patrick, because my mind already concluded he’d understand his point of view, and pissed-off at myself for believing that.

On a whim I called David, then hung up after one ring, because I realised I had no idea what to say to him. I couldn’t vent, because well, I couldn’t possibly discuss this issue with him. And I had nothing else to say either.

Unfortunately, he called back.

I answered immediately, then my mind justified that reaction because it would be rude not to.

“Christina Ferrera speaking.”

“Hey, it’s David. You called me?”

“Yeah well, that was accidental, sorry.”

“Oh, okay… Um… Are you alright?”

“Yeah, sure!” I tried to sound as confident as ever.

“You’re lying, something is wrong.” He said, sounding thoughtful. Does this twink have a built-in lie-detector?

“Nah, I’m okay. Just a little distracted, that’s why I accidentally misdialled.”

He was silent for a but, but just as I thought of a good sentence to hand up on, he started talking again.

“Hey Chris, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Well, it’s by birthday on Friday, and I would really like to celebrate it with you as well, so can we have our outing this Saturday, instead of next Saturday? I’d like to play laser tag with you.”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. I had wanted to keep this call emotionless, but I suddenly felt so happy, it couldn’t help but come out. I’m not sure if it was the idea of seeing David again this weekend, or of it was the fact that we’d be playing laser tag. A game that I hadn’t played in years, but I had been a big fan of when I was a teenager. Whatever it was, I was now filled to the brim with excitement and energy.

“Yeah, sure! I’ll play laser tag with you, no problem. I used to be very good at it, so we’ll blast them all to hell!”

David chuckled. “Glad you like it.”

“I do. But, since this is your birthday… What would you like for a gift?”

“It’s a surprise. I’ll tell you when you get here.” 

My mind went all kinds of places. None of which Patrick would like.

“No, please tell me. If it’s a reasonable request, I’ll get it for you.”

“No, we need to get it together. And I’m not telling you what it is beforehand. Please pick me up Saturday at 10am.”

“10am?”

“Yeah. We need time. But you’ll be home before dinner.”

“You bet your ass, Pat’s gonna kill me if I’m not.”

“I know. Now are you really sure there isn’t something you need to get off your chest?”

There wasn’t. Where I was lying before, I now felt completely at ease. I didn’t care about James’ comments anymore. I didn’t care about whether Patrick secretly minded that his wife was an alpha or not. I was just looking forward to playing laser tag with David next Saturday.

“No, I’m good. See you Saturday!”

“I’m looking forward to it!”

“Me too, ciao!”

“Bye Chris!”

I hung up and spotted my huge smile in the rear-view mirror.

Laser tag. Yay….