And so, I went shopping with my lovely nieces and my idiot brother-in-law.
Mercy was delighted when I bought her and her Ate Blessing new shoes. Not to be outdone, Louie bought them new bags to match.
It was actually a fun outing, the only downside was that people kept thinking we were a couple.
Ugh!
Can you even imagine?
That alpha moron and me? A couple?!
Someone even offered us couple shirts!
As soon as we got to their home, Mercy dragged me to the den upstairs to play the new family game she got. We had so much fun, that we hardly noticed the time, until Bless brought us some chicken feet as a pre-midnight snacks!
"Woah, it's 11 PM already?" I quickly called a GrabMe to pick me up.
"Tito, why don't you spend the night here?" asked Blessing.
"Sorry, but my Habibi might start sulking again," I said with a laugh. "He can't get enough of your Tito Eric, after all."
"Wow, I never thought Dr. Aahmes was the obsessive type!" Mercy said with a grin.
"Haay, if you only knew," I sighed. "Well, I've got to get going now, before Aahmes locks me out of our room!"
"You're sleeping in the same room?!" Louie asked in alarm, spitting out chicken from his full mouth.
"Ha! Go ahead and die of envy!" I stuck out my tongue at him.
"Tito, I wanna be a bride's main, okay?" giggled Mercy.
"Let me take you home!" Louie stood up and wiped his hands on some wet tissues. "I wanna meet this 'Habibi' of yours!"
"No way! My Habibi's off limits! Especially to you!" I insisted. "Besides, I've already called a GrabMe service!"
"I just wanna know why you're so crazy about this person! Let me be the judge of –"
"There you go again, trying to judge everything, when you're just another lawyer!" I snapped at him.
"And a damn good one, mind you!" he snapped back.
"This is why I don't introduce you to my friends!"
"Your so called 'friends' in the past consisted of a woman who asked you to buy her a sports car, a co-worker who kept making you pay his credit card bills, and an online thief who stole your research!"
I glared at Louie who stared back at me with a challenging look on his face.
I can't believe I can't answer him back.
"Dad, just take my word for it," Mercy comes to the rescue! "Dr. Aahmes looks like a really good person, and they really look nice together, in fact they make the perfect pair!"
Good thing my phone rang before the idiot Louie could question me again.
"That's my ride," I quickly said. "I got to go. Don't forget to scold Nathan for me when he finally gets home."
I sent Aahmes a text message when I was half way home. When I got there, he welcomed me by the gate and gave me a hug and a kiss.
"Did you miss me that much?" I asked with a happy grin. He simply gave a nod and leaned on my chest with a sigh.
"Are you sniffing me again? I haven't taken a bath in two days, you know..."
"It's okay..." he replied in a whisper. "I like your naturally husky scent. I like, especially, the way you smell in the morning when you drink your coffee."
"You're just smelling the coffee you brew," I couldn't help but laugh while I run my fingers through his silky black hair. "Let's head inside before the mosquitoes make a feast out of us."
"I made some coffee," he said as we entered the house.
"Perfect! Was that what you had to prepare? You really know exactly what I love!"
Aahmes looked up at me and smiled.
"Of course, professor, I have known you well enough through all these years, and I'm ready to know more."
I remembered then, the promise I gave him before I left, and that was exactly what I did as we walked towards the kitchen.
I told Aahmes everything.
About my parents who were one of the last fatalities of the Covid pandemic.
Our abusive uncle who took us in for the insurance money, and even had the gall to sell Kuya Jonas to an illegal omega research facility.
How Louie's family saved us and took us in when Kuya got pregnant.
Why I went overseas to pursue my studies and how I fared there.
All the while, Aahmes sat silently listening to my tale. He would nod his head from time to time and ask short questions every once so often, until I finished with my beloved brother dying on the day of my birthday.
"So, you mean to say that your Kuya was able to distance himself from his fated pair?" he asked me.
"Yup." I nodded slowly. "Winston Heuer was a real gentleman. He quietly went away when Kuya told him that he had no plan of leaving his husband. That he didn't want to meet him again. He went back to Europe where he killed himself three weeks later..."
"And how did you find out about this?"
"His editor messaged us," I explained. "According to him, Heuer was a loner who lived alone in his county estate. He said Heuer called him one night, telling him goodbye. He tried calling paramedics, even the cops, but it was too late when they got there. Heuer had already hanged himself."
"I see..." Aahmes said with a nod. "And then, your brother started feeling better?"
"Yeah, as I'm sure you already know, when a mate in a fated pair dies, the bond between the two vanishes, giving the surviving mate the freedom to bond with someone else."
"Yes, the same is true when it comes to marked omegas with regular mates. Once an alpha dies, all the omegas they marked are released from their bonds."
"Exactly, that's why it's so unfair. How can alphas bite more omegas than they can chew?" I asked with a grunt. "Why is it that an omega needs to suffer when their alpha mate leaves them to bond with someone else? While an omega gets tied to their bonded alpha until one of them dies! No matter how much they hate their mate, there's nothing for them to do but curse their fate, or worst, wait for death as they waste away. Some of them don't even know the alpha bastards who took advantage of them!"
"Yes, I have asked myself that question multiple times," answered Aahmes. "It is still a big mystery, how the body 'knows' that the alpha pair has expired, even when they are far away."
"Fuck... this reminds me of a tasteless joke I heard as a kid..."
"A joke?"
"How would you know which alpha marked an omega?"
"How?"
"Ask the suspects to take turns."
Aahmes didn't laugh.
Neither did I.
"Anyway..." I gave a heavy sigh. "My brother's health improved the moment Heuer died, then a month later, we found out that Kuya Jonas was three months pregnant. His ovarian cancer relapsed during the pregnancy until he gave birth to Mercy and died a year later on the day of my birthday."
"A question," Aahmes spoke up after a moment of silence. "Are you sure that Mercy is Louie's child?"
I glared at him.
"There have been debates over which bond is more powerful, a marked one, or a fated pair. Some studies show that even when marked, some omegas can actually endure the pain of having intercourse with someone other than the partner who marked them, as long as that person is their fated pair.
"I know. I have read your study about it."
I watched as Aahmes' face lit up at my remark.
"But we don't talk about that," I said with a sigh. "It's enough that Mercy is Kuya Jonas' daughter and that she looks so much like him. That's so much better than looking anything like my blaster brother-in-law."
"And after that?"
"After that, Kuya made me promise to take care of his family, the way he took care of me when we lost our parents. He told Louie that we should happily celebrate my birthday every year, and not wallow in sadness because of his death..."
I trailed off my story as I stared into nothing.
"Anyways, that's the reason why I always take a leave on my birthdays," I concluded.
"And after that?" Aahmes asked again.
"After that, I moved in with Louie and the kids. I decided to work in Universal Labs once more, this time, locally. My mentor fixed my schedule so I can stay with the kids during daytime. At night, our friends Florence and his brother Franklin Derejedo would come by to sit until the kids go to sleep..."
"Was that the time when you met your DOME?" Aahmes cut in.
I looked at him, a bit surprised.
"Yeah, but that's a story for another day." I reach out and ruffle his hair. "That's restricted information, we can't be so sure that no one's listening in on our conversation."
"Then, let's go to the lab!" Aahmes stood up.
"I'll tell you next time, Habibi," I said with a yawn, "I'm really tired right now..."
"Are you sure?" he looked at me with doubt in his eyes. "I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night and find you sneaking out to the lab again."
"Of course not!" I grinned at him. "For now, all I want to do is to lay down in bed and snuggle with my Habibi."