“I’d have left the farm,” Adrien said. “I’m not as boring as all that.”

“I didn’t say you were boring. I’m saying you’re a simple man.”

Adrien closed his eyes, remembering the joy he took in the garden, in the way the light moved down the tunnel of the nest, and he nodded. He didn’t want all of this angst and hurtful suspicion. He wanted his peace back.

“Have you called him?”

He shrugged. “I let his old nurse Simon know we were safe.”

“So Heath Clearwater knows where you are?”

Adrien sighed. “No. I thought he might try to come get us. I said we’d arrange a visit soon.”

“He’s got to be out of his mind worried about you both.” Lance sipped from his bottle and then went on, the tart scent of apple drifting to Adrien on his breath. “Alphas get that way. He’s got his own parental instincts, too, you know. He needs his baby near him. And his omega. He’s probably going gray from the anxiety.”

Adrien’s gut wrenched imagining Heath in pain. “Thanks for supporting me in my difficult-as-hell situation, Lance,” Adrien barked, shoving that softness down. “Glad to know you think this is all so fucking easy, and this is all in my crazy, messed up head.”

“Whoa.” Lance put his hands up. “Calm down. It’s gonna be okay.”

Michael farted again and started to fuss. Adrien picked him up and checked his diaper. His little bottom was a bit red, but he was still clean. He decided to change him anyway and moved over to the changing area he’d set

up. He had hand sanitizer, but he wished there was a sink in the room.

Lance clucked his tongue.

“You think I’ve made a mistake?”

“I think you are letting that baby sleep in a cardboard box.”

“You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“Look. You can’t stay here. This place isn’t for babies, and it isn’t for you. If you won’t go back to him, then come home with me. My new apartment has a guest room with a bathroom attached. And a kitchen. And I’ll borrow a crib from my parents’ house. No one’s pregnant right now, thank God.”

“Wait, so when you say omega step-parents, you mean you have more than one right now?”

“Polyamory. Look it up.”

As Adrien changed Michael’s diaper, he made up his mind.

Lance was right. He needed to go back to Heath, work things out. Not only because he loved Heath and the dream of the future he’d nursed while pregnant in the nest, but also for Michael’s sake. A baby deserved both of his parents, and his father’s mistake made out of confusion and misguided love shouldn’t prevent him from having that. Trust would need to be earned again, but that was still possible. There would be time.

Michael was all greased up below and in a new diaper when a mighty thump fell on the door. Both of them jumped. Lance’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit,” he gasped, looking around like he wanted to find a place to hide the pints. “You didn’t think he’d come looking for you here? It’s not like he didn’t know where you used to live.”

Another thump, and then Heath’s voice. “I just need to see Michael.”

Then another loud thump. “Please, Adrien. I know you’re in there. I can hear you.”

Adrien grabbed Michael to his chest, opened the door, and found Heath looking haggard as hell. His beard was wild and his eyes bright. He took in the sight of Adrien and sagged in relief against the door. “And Michael?” he asked.

“Right here,” Adrien said, indicating the baby in his arms.

Heath reached out and touched the baby’s cheek. Then he nodded. “Okay.

All right. Can I talk to you or should I go?”

“Stay,” Adrien said before he’d fully made up his mind that was even

what he wanted. “Come in. See Michael.”

A small crowd had gathered in the hallway. The resident assistant called out, “Everything okay, Adrien?”

“We’re fine.”

The RA gave a thumbs-up. “Just shout if you need help.”

“We’re okay.”

Lance was standing with both pints behind his back, like Heath was their father and they were drinking underage. “I’m gonna just—” He nodded at the door. “You cool?”

“I’m cool.” Adrien was surprised it was true. Somehow just seeing Heath, all rumpled and exhausted, soothed him. Made him feel strong enough to handle this.

Lance cleared his throat but nodded. “Okay. Remember what I said about that baby.”

“He’s too pretty for the box. I know.”

Lance slinked around Heath like he was afraid Heath might throw a punch, and maybe that would have been a risk if Heath didn’t look like he’d gone a few rounds with himself already and had no strength to do anything but stare with wide, miserable, hungry eyes at Adrien and the baby.

“Can I hold him?” Heath asked, reaching out for Michael as soon as the door was shut behind Lance.

Adrien passed him over, his heart aching in all kinds of ways as Heath pressed kisses to the top of the baby’s head and his fat cheeks. “He’s okay, see?”

Heath breathed the baby in, and then he turned to Adrien. “And you? Are you okay?”

Adrien huffed. “No. I miss you. I haven’t even gone to class or my office in the art department because I don’t know what to do with Michael, and I don’t know what I’m even doing here.”

“And I don’t know what I’m doing without you. Adrien, I made a terrible mistake. I’m so sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

Heath took a sharp breath. “Excuse me?”

“You said you made a terrible mistake and apologized. I forgive you.”

“Just like that?”

“No, there’s more I’ll need from you over time, but, Heath…” Adrien

took off his glasses, rubbed at his eyes, and put them back on again. “I see you clearly now. You chose me at the auction, and this time I choose you.”

Heath stared at him. “Why?”

Adrien bit into his lower lip and stepped closer, his hands itching to touch. He let them rest on Heath’s hips. “You loved Nathan so much you bought me to try to have a piece of him back. If you love me even half as much—”

“More. I love you more.”

Adrien shook his head. “No, you don’t. Not yet. And that’s okay. You will love me more. Because I’m going to be everything Nathan wasn’t. I’m going to be the man who you come home to, the man who raises your children, and the man who holds your hand in old age. I’m going to have you in every mood, every season. I will get to have every minute he gave up while he was out on his adventures, being ‘free.’ And you’re going to prove that we were right to trust you, my omega parent and me.”

“How?”

“You’re going to love me forever.”

“Yes. I promise.” Heath reached out to him, hands trembling, and gray eyes soft with want. “Come home.”

“To the nest?”

“To wherever. We don’t have to live there,” he said pleadingly. “I’ll make a home wherever you want. Build any house you want, designed just for you, anywhere in the fifteen nations. I just want to be with you.”

“What if I want us to stay here? In the dorm?” Adrien didn’t want that at all, but he wanted to push just to see what Heath would do.

Heath’s eyes darted to the cardboard box crib. “We should aim a little higher than here. But otherwise, anywhere.”

Adrien laughed, and it shocked him that he could. “Lance wasn’t impressed with my setup either.”

“Who’s Lance?”

“My friend. The guy who just left?”

“Oh. Him. Right.” Heath kissed Michael some more before closing his eyes and reaching out for Adrien again, almost like he couldn’t bear to watch Adrien reject him. His sigh when Adrien stepped into his arms was more like a sob.

“I’ve always wanted to see the beach,” Adrien whispered.

“We can live there if that’s what you want,” Heath said, voice straining with emotion.

“I was already going to come home, you know.”

Heath shook in his arms, saying nothing.

“I’m not like Nathan. I hated being away from you.”

Heath clung to him hard, and Michael squirmed between them.