Page 16 of Breeding Clinic

“No, sit! Please. I’m glad you came. We can figure this out. But not here. Come on. I live upstairs. We can talk there.” He sets his bar towel down and takes off his black apron. “James, take over for me.”

I lean back on my stool. “Wait, you live above the bar?”

“Yeah?”

Is he insane? “You can’t raise a baby in a bar!” In my shock, I’m too loud. The people around us stop their conversations and stare. I blush from their scrutiny.

“Good thing I don’t live inside the bar then.” He opens the hatch that separates the bar from the restaurant and comes around to grip my elbow. “Bring your ginger ale. I think I have some crackers. I read that helps.”

He’s too bossy, as alphas often are. But I’m eager to get away from his staring patrons. Liam brings me to the back of the pub to a door he unlocks with his key. Behind it, there’s a staircase leading up. I follow him. He unlocks another door at the top with the same key.

The apartment above the bar is nicer than I expected. The building is old, but it has a worn, vintage vibe to it that’s charming. Thick rugs pad the squeaky hardwood floors. The walls are painted a pretty sage green. Large windows let in light.

“It’s not as loud up here as I thought it would be,” I say, looking around.

He raps a knuckle on one wall. “The walls are plaster. Good for sound insulation.” Then he leaves me in his living room to rummage through his kitchen cupboards. “O’Donnell’s was my great-granddad’s. Patrick O’Donnell. He immigrated here from Dublin with his parents when he was two. That’s a photo of him there right after the pub opened.”

I look at the wall beside me, studying his family photos. Most are recent, but some are old. I’m most interested in the ones in black and white and sepia. The oldest is a photo of this bar, but from the 1930s, judging by the clothing and cars. A tall alpha in a brimmed hat lifts a beer up in celebration under the pub’s iconic sign. It’s a different sign than the one that hangs now, but the symbol carved into it is the same. The photo isn’t crisp, but the man has the same dimple as Liam.

“He built it?”

“Bought it near the end of prohibition. Got it for pennies on the dollar after prohibition drove the English-style pub that used to be here out of business. Renovated everything to the studs with his own two hands. Ran it as a social club for all the Irish immigrants until they legalized alcohol again. I’m still untangling his electrical work. Now I know why my dad and granddad never touched it. Can of fucking worms.”

I grimace. Bad wiring rises to the top of my concern list. But the other photos on the wall soon distract me. There’s Liam standing with two other men, all of them dressed in suits. One has pale skin covered in freckles and curly brown hair, and the other is taller with golden brown skin and perfect white teeth. They’re hugging each other and smiling at the camera. The image is too intimate for them to only be friends. His pack?

A cabinet slams shut, and I jolt out of my snooping. He hands me the crackers, and he’s right, they do help. I’ve been living off crackers, toast, and baked potatoes for weeks. I can’t wait for the first trimester nausea to subside.

“Thanks.” I pop one in my mouth and chew slowly. He looks so happy to have done something for me. I don’t have the heart to tell him they’re stale. A sip of ginger ale washes it down, and another gets the after taste out of my mouth. “Are these all photos of your family?”

He turns his attention to the wall of photos and I set the stale crackers down on an end table while he’s distracted. “Yes. That’s my grandfather. This one is him with his pack. That baby is my father. I’m the oldest of five. Those are my brothers and sisters there. And these are my mates, Matthew and Gabriel.”

From their height and builds, I’m guessing they’re betas. I recall him saying they didn’t have a breeding partner.

“How’d you meet?” I ask.

“Matthew and I went to the same college. We shared a math class and I’m terrible with algebra. He offered to tutor me. Not that it improved my grade much. After a few weeks of tutoring and hanging out we spent more time fucking around than studying. I still failed the class. By the end of the semester I didn’t care because I’d found my first packmate. Later, we met Gabriel at the FIFA world cup. The tickets were a Christmas present from Matthew’s parents. Make sure that in front ofGabriel you call it football, not soccer, or he’ll give you a long lecture about it.”

My heart twinges with old wounds. Josh plays soccer professionally for the USL. I sat and watched a lot of his games, but I never quite fit in with the other spouses.

“Are you into sports?” Liam asks.

“No.” I’m quick to change the subject. “So you own the bar? What do your packmates do?”

“Gabriel is a physician’s assistant. Matthew is a banker.”

Oh. Those are all very normal jobs. I’m not sure what I was hoping for. Some sign that this pack can’t take care of a baby. But a stable pack with triple employment versus a single mother… One who’s self-employed with a variable income… Even with my savings, I know which way a judge might lean. The lawyer was right. The stale cracker sits like lead in my stomach.

“What about you?” he asks.

“I’m a writer,” I say, keeping it vague.

“Oh, that’s so cool. Fiction? Nonfiction? Anything I’ve read?”

“I doubt it. I write romance novels.” I cringe saying it, considering how we met. I’m painfully aware that my personal love life has been a failure. My characters always meet the right person, fall in love, and live a happy life full of bliss and as many babies as they want. But real life doesn’t always follow the script. Sometimes happily ever after isn’t forever.

His eyebrows shoot up and he smiles, his cheek dimpling again. “Well, now I definitely have to read one. I could learn some tips.”

He doesn’t need any tips. “I’m not sure you’re ready for what I write.”

---