Page 16 of That Defining Moment

“Your face has gone strange,” Cassian observed.

Lysander looked up. Cassian was watching him with his head tilted, those pale eyes tracking across Lysander’s expression.

“My dad’s not well,” Lysander said. He hadn’t planned to say it, but it came out anyway. “He’s pregnant and he’s having a hard time, so they’ve put him on bed rest.”

Cassian’s mouth fell open. “Your father carries?”

“Yeah.” Lysander picked up his mobile and scrolled through his photos, tilting the screen towards Cassian. “He’s a male omega like us. That’s my dad. Colin. And that’s his alpha, Diwa.”

The photo was from Stephen’s birthday last year. Colin was in a blue jumper, leaning into Diwa’s side in the kitchen of their Notting Hill house, both of them laughing at something off-camera. Diwa’s arm was around Colin’s shoulders, his hand spread wide against the blue wool. Colin looked happy, but also tired. The shadows under his eyes were deeper than they should have been, and his smile, though genuine, sat on a face that was thinner than Lysander remembered.

He’d missed that. He’d been ten thousand kilometres away, sending wanking videos to his boyfriend and eating pad kra pao at midnight, so he’d missed that his father was getting thinner even as his belly grew.

“He’s beautiful,” Cassian breathed, leaning in so close that his chin nearly rested on Lysander’s shoulder. “And that’s his alpha? They look like they belong to each other.”

Lysander swiped to the next photo. Stephen and Ryland at a scan appointment, Stephen holding up the ultrasound printout with both hands, his face split into a grin so wide it distorted his features, while Ryland stood behind him with his arms wrapped around Stephen’s bump and his forehead pressed against the side of Stephen’s neck.

“That’s my twin brother,” Lysander said. “Stephen. And his alpha, Ryland. They’re having a boy.”

Cassian made a sound like someone had just told him that the sun rose in the west. He reached out and touched the screen with one fingertip, and his mouth dropped open in awe.

“Your family is blessed and fertile,” Cassian said, clearly awed. He looked up at Lysander with shining eyes. “Two pregnant carriers. Two bonded alphas. You’ve all found your mates.”

Lysander slid his mobile back into his pocket. “You will too, Cassian,” he said. “Eventually. You’ve just got to develop your arsehole filter first. Learn to tell the difference between an alpha who deserves you and one who doesn’t.” He took a sip. “And when you find the right one, you’ll see how being with an alpha is supposed to feel.”

The smile that broke across Cassian’s face was so bright and so sudden that it transformed him entirely.

Cassian leaned forward on his elbows, his chin in his hands. “Lysander, I’m going to get you a turnover. As a thank you for teaching me things.” He reached into the pocket of Hamish’s flannel and produced a crumpled twenty-dollar note, holding it up between two fingers like a winning lottery ticket. “I have money from Hamish. And I know how to order food now.”

Lysander smiled. “Go on, then.”

Cassian slid off his stool and padded towards the counter on his bare feet, clutching the twenty in both hands. Lysander watched him go, tracking the blond head as it moved through the café, clocking North Face jacket guy whose gaze followed Cassian’s progress across the room, and the barista whose eyes lingered a beat too long.

Cassian reached the counter, pressed both palms flat against it, and announced, “I would like as many turnovers as I can have with this much, please.” He held up the twenty-dollar note.

Lysander kept his eyes on him the whole time.

Chapter Nine

Hamish’s little worker’s cottage fell into a predictable rhythm over Lysander’s first couple of weeks in the country. Most mornings, after Cassian had finished screaming his declarations at the Melbourne sky and Hamish had left for his edit suite or a meeting, the two of them would wander the neighbourhood on foot or catch the tram into the city, Cassian barefoot until Lysander bought him a pair of thongs from a chemist on Lygon Street and stood over him until he put them on.

Cassian worked under the apparent conviction that Lysander was the world’s foremost authority on everything from tram etiquette to what, precisely, constituted a normal family. The Huxleys fascinated him beyond all reason. He wanted to know about Colin and Diwa, about Stephen and Ryland, about the pregnancies, and every last mundane detail that Lysander had never considered remotely interesting.

“Your daddy carried you and Stephen at the same time,” Cassian said, as they sat on a bench in Edinburgh Gardens watching a woman throw a tennis ball for a staffy that kept bringing back sticks instead. “Two babies. Two male omega babies.”

“He did.”

“And your twin’s alpha — Ryland — he loves Stephen?”

“Very much.”

Cassian hugged his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them, his eyes tracking the staffy as it trotted back with half a branch clamped in its jaws. “And now they’re both carrying. Your daddy and your brother. At the same time.”

“At the same time,” Lysander confirmed.

“It’s a Calyx’s highest calling,” Cassian breathed. His voice had gone reverent, his eyes shining. “To carry life within you. To open yourself so completely that the Universe can pass through you and become someone new. I can only hope to experience this joy myself one day.”

Lysander watched him for a moment, this strange, fierce, damaged boy curled up on a park bench in Brunswick East, dreaming about fatherhood. He didn’t say any of the things that occurred to him: that wanting a baby was one thing but understanding what a healthy relationship looked like was a prerequisite, and that the first step towards experiencing joy was probably getting some distance between yourself and a theology that had sold you to a fifty-one-year-old man.