It was my first time picking people up with a car and I felt all grown up. It didn’t matter it was completely inefficient. Honestly, I’d like to have collected all of my friends myself, but they wouldn’t fit in the car. Besides, Liam’s fraternity was only a block away from Sally and Simone’s sorority house, so it made much more sense for them to carpool.

I picked Jerry up first. He lived in a makeshift apartment in the attic of an elderly landlady and was already sitting outside waiting for me when I arrived. He had trimmed his beard and did something to his hair so it wasn't all fluffy anymore.

“Hey Don Juan, the party at the sorority house is next week. Or are you planning on seducing me on my birthday?” I joked.

“Um.. I'm practicing?” He stuttered, his cheeks heating up. “Does it look bad?”

“Nah, you look great. I'd totally do you.” That last part was obviously a lie, but Jerry knew that, and it succedeed in getting the guy to relax a bit more. Although he did check himself out in the mirror on the sun visor seconds after he got into the car.

Ha. My car has that. I smiled.  

Kelly was next. She still lived with her overprotective parents, and we had to come in for inspection before they even let her go with us. Their brash attitude did soften a bit when they saw my collar, yet they still eyed Jerry suspiciously. Her alpha mum even intimidated him with her pheromones, but Jerry didn’t seem to have a clue that that was why he was suddenly feeling all uncomfortable.

“Please stop that, dad.” Kelly said. Which confused me a bit, since the alpha she was addressing was clearly a woman. “Jerry is a nice guy, don’t bug him like that. Besides, it’s David’s birthday party I’m going to. He’s an omega like me and Simone will be there too. There will be no booze, no hanky-panky and no alphas. I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure baby? There may be alpha men at the bowling alley.” The tiny round omega woman that had introduced herself as Shannon said, in a high pitched voice riddled with nervousness.

“Mum, I’m not Cassie okay? Chill out.”

The mother looked at her spouse for confirmation. I was a little shocked. Is this how omegas should behave in a marriage? The tall woman growled a bit, but then softened her expression. “Okay, but be safe. Text us every hour and call us if something happens okay?”

Kelly rolled her eyes and sighed. Then hugged both her parents and followed us to the car.

“Sorry you had to see that.” She said.

“Are they always so um…”

“Overprotective? Yeah. But I do get it. I’m the youngest of six omega girls and the only one left that’s unbonded. My parents act like this because two of my older sisters got themselves raped and claimed by an alpha, while out partying. Janine eventually eloped with the abusive bastard that did it, and Cassie killed herself. So I get why they’re like that.”

“Holy shit! I didn’t know that!” I was completely shocked. I knew Kelly had omega sisters and was especially skittish around male alphas, but I had no idea that this was the reason.

“I don’t like to talk about it. But it was ten years ago, so I’m at peace with it now.”

I drove to the bowling alley as fast as I could legally and responsibly do, then jumped out of the car and hugged Kelly. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that…”

“It’s all in the past. Besides, it’s your birthday. I don’t want it to be about me right now. Let’s go bowl.” She said, softly pushing me away.

Liam, Sally and Simone were already inside. They greeted us with excitement, and we went on to pick a lane. Simone stuck to Kelly like glue for the entire evening, which got me realising that Simone probably knew about Kelly’s family. Being in the loop now, I had an eye out for incoming alpha males. But the only ones that showed up were actually on a double date with their omegas and presented no threat whatsoever.

I sucked at bowling. But it wasn’t that bad, since Liam and Sally completely kicked all our asses anyway. As they were throwing strikes and spares in competition for the win, Simone and I were having a raging battle for 5th place. I did win that one, eventually. Which made Simone blurt out an elaborate string of curse words in French.

We laughed and joked, all talking in a fake French accent to mock her a bit. Simone crossed her arms and pouted, but you could see she wasn’t truly offended.

Jerry kept up the accent for a bit longer than us, though. And Simone dealt with it by switching to fast-paced French whenever she talked to him, which no-one could really follow. Then Jerry said something in Spanish to her, but that didn’t have the intended effect. Because even though he was the only one with Spanish as his mother's tongue, most of the group could understand exactly what he was saying. Simone did too, and just stared at him wide-eyed.

“What did he say?” Liam whispered to Sally in the awkward silence that followed.

“Okay people, let’s go karaoke!” I explained with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, and pulled Jerry away by his hand, trying to diffuse the situation.

We exited the door first and as soon as we were outside Jerry started hyperventilating. “Oh my god she speaks Spanish.”

I raised an eyebrow at the panicking mess my friend had become and sighed. “She’s gonna be a translator. Of course she speaks Spanish.”

Jerry sighed. “And you?”

“Not much, but I’m quite sure you told her that if she kept talking in the language of love, you were going to kiss her. I must say, bold move Martinez. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Jerry blushed fiercely. “I’m so dead.”

“You never know. Maybe she likes you back?” I tried to sound hopeful. Although I had to admit that I didn’t really think he stood a chance.

“Like hell she does. Didn’t you see how she looked at me just now?”

“Well, maybe she just hadn’t thought of you in that way before. Hell, I hadn’t thought you liked her like that either.”

“Well I do. It’s just no use, I’m no alpha. She’s never gonna feel the same.”

“Who says omegas can only like alphas?”

“Statistics.” Jerry dryly replied.

“Well screw statistics. Just make another move, then she can either reject you for real or you could win the evening.”

“No fucking way. I’ll just pretend it was a joke.”

“Yeah Jerry, I think it’s a bit too late to pretend that was a joke. Literally no one would buy it. You’ve accidentally showed your hand, now you should play it out.”

“So, what do you suggest I do?” he asked in a serious tone.

“Sing Lady Marmalade for her?”

“Dude, that is seriously the worst idea ever.” Jerry laughed.

“Yeah it is, but at least you’re laughing again.”

The others came outside too and together we walked to the karaoke bar. The atmosphere was still a little tense, but Sally did quite a good job of distracting everyone from the situation by suggesting all kinds of silly things we could sing. 

When we entered the bar, the six of us were already laughing together and it got worse throughout the evening when it turned out neither Sally, nor Liam, nor me could keep a tune if our lives depended on it. We were quite enthusiastic nevertheless, and our version of ‘Born to be wild’ was as bad as it was legendary.

We completely took over the bar, even picking songs at random to which we didn’t even know the words and laughing our asses off. Kelly and Simone were totally amazing together, sounding like proper angels. And at some point, we even got Jerry to sing. It turned out he wasn’t half bad, which surprised everyone. As the evening went on, he even did a duet with Kelly that had the entire bar break out in spontaneous applause.

Next up were Simone and Sally and when the song started, my head immediately snapped to Jerry, who was frozen with a shocked expression on his face. Liam shot me a wink and gave our Mexican friend a shoulder bump, which almost made him fall over.

As the ladies on stage were clearly putting on a show for my male friends, I scooted over to Kelly, who was facepalming and rolling her eyes. “Well this is just vulgar…” she sighed. But I couldn’t stop smiling. Way to go Jerry. I thought to myself as Sally and Simone were shaking their asses, singing ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi’.

When we finally called it a night, Kelly took the passenger seat as Jerry crashed into the backseat.

“Dios mío…” he sighed in bliss.

“So, are you an item now?” Kelly said, her annoyance audible in her voice.

“I have no idea.” Jerry sighed. Which really surprised me.

“What? You’ve been making out with her for at least half an hour! Didn’t you ask her out?!”

“Well I didn’t want to ruin the moment, okay?! Besides, I’m still not an alpha. Maybe she’s just fooling around a bit until she finds a proper mate.”

His words did make sense, but I was really shipping my friends after Simone’s unexpected move. So I tried to convince him that it was going to be alright, and that I’d help him get his girl. But the fact that Kelly wasn’t joining in was at least a bit worrisome, and Jerry must have noticed that too.

To dissolve the uncomfortable silence that followed, I asked Kelly something that had been on my mind before, but had escaped me when she told us about her sisters. 

“Hey Kelly. Why do you call your alpha mum dad?”

“Because she IS my dad, of course! You don't call your father dad because he's a man, right? You call him dad because its his sperm that got your mum pregnant. So yeah, Selena is my dad.”

I was a little stumped. I hadn't thought about it that way. 

“If you'd give birth to a child, you'd be his mum too, even when you're a guy, wouldn't you?” she added.

I thought about that for a while. However weird it sounded, it did make sense.

“Ha!” Jerry chuckled from the backseat. “In a way this means you are at an advantage David. I can only be a dad, and Kelly can only be a mum, but you could technically be both.”

He had a point. Even if it was extremely unlikely that a male omega would get someone else pregnant, it would biologically be possible. I didn't want to think about that right now, though, so I turned back to Jerry. “Okay amigo, don't get ahead of yourself. You focus on getting laid first, then worry about being a dad later, okay?”

We dropped Kelly off first, than talked a bit more on the drive back to Jerry’s place. With Kelly gone, Jerry elaborated on how perfect Simone was, and how their kiss had been the best moment of his life. Then tailspinned into his insecurities about the whole thing.

“I must have been SO bad at kissing! I had no idea what I was doing! You hadn’t prepared me AT ALL for this! What if she hated it and never wants to kiss me again?”

“If you were that bad, she wouldn’t have kept at it for half an hour.” I said, trying to comfort him a little bit.

It seemed to work and when I dropped Jerry off, he was smiling again. I wished him sweet dreams, upon which he blushed fiercely. It was extremely funny.

Driving back, I thought about tomorrow and couldn’t get home fast enough. Today had been great, with a lot of unexpected but very pleasant surprises. But tomorrow…

Tomorrow was the big day.