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Wayne was sitting on the stoop smoking a cig when the pup came to him.
“Uncle Wayne,” he said. He had that look in his eyes that reminded Wayne of Al when he got some idea in his head. There were harsh reminders like that every day, reminders that this sweet pup before him had sprung from his bastard brother’s loins. From the womb of a poor broken woman.
Wayne exhaled. “What’s the trouble, boy?”
Ed took a seat next to Wayne. Wayne half-heartedly waved his cigarette smoke away before he stubbed it out completely. Smoke wasn’t any good for pups, even though Ed smelled like it.
Ed didn’t scent like any other pup Wayne’d ever come across. Most pups were all milky-sweet. Some pup-scents lasted a long while. Wayne’d been a janitor at a high school for a little while after he got back from the war, before he settled himself in Hawkins and got a job at the plant, and even then the halls had a lingering sweetness to them. So many pups stuffed into one place. Patches hadn’t been mandated yet then—it’d been right on the cusp of the decision, his time as a janitor—and most kids in that school had gone without. It’d been a poor district closer to home, the kind where half the young men would drop out after freshman year to start work in the mines.
Ed didn’t scent like a pup. Not completely. He was milky-sweet sometimes. Other times, he was sharp with fire, with spice. It wasn’t like nicotine smoke, all poison and comfort to Wayne’s lungs. It was like bonfire smoke, like the clean heat off of kindling. Wayne could close his eyes and Ed’s scent would take him home to the hills of Appalachia, to Mama and Papa’s arms.
“Wayne,” Ed said. He sighed. A little plume of scent came off of him, a fire pit under rain. “I have a problem.”
“Kids picking on you at school again?” Wayne said. It was a problem that Ed reported on every few days, kids picking on him for being himself.
“No-o-o. I found the most perfect omega,” Ed said. “And I wanna court him.”
Wayne choked. He coughed hard into his hand, spluttering. Fucking cigarettes.
“You okay?” Ed said, nonplussed.
“Ain’t you a little young for that, kid?” Wayne said. He rubbed at his chest.
“Mama always said no such thing as too young for love,” Ed said. He even wagged his finger.
“Uh-huh,” Wayne said. “And what’d she say that about.”
Ed met his eyes, no less confident than he’d been when this whole conversation had started. “Ice cream.”
Wayne scrubbed his face with his palm. This pup was a piece of work.
Just like Al.
“Wayne,” Ed whined, “he’s the prettiest omega in the world. He has brown hair and brown eyes and little dark spots all over.”
“He a dog, now?” Wayne said.
Ed yipped. He was half-feral like that, always barking and yipping and howling when he should hold his tongue. He liked to nest, too. “No!” he said. “Like these!” And he pointed at the faint freckles that ran up and down his arms.
“Hm.” Wayne scratched his chin. “He a boymega? How d’you know he’s omega?”
“I heard him say it!” Ed said. “Heard him and his friends talking about smells and he was saying about how he hopes he smells nice like his Mama when he grows up because he’s an omega like her. He’s the only boy omega I’ve ever heard of.”
“There’s not a lot of ‘em,” Wayne said.
“So he’s special,” Ed said.
“Must be,” Wayne said. “And you’re looking to court this boy?”
“Oh yeah,” Ed said. He looked far too serious for an eight year-old. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what to do to get his attention.”
Wayne hummed. There was no way he’d be able to talk Ed off this ledge. The kid was stubborn like all Munsons were. “D’you know what he likes?” he said.
“No,” Ed sighed. “He’s not in my class. He’s always wearing blue. Maybe it’s his favorite.”
“You could color him something blue.” Ed loved to draw. Wayne tried very hard to keep him in crayons. He’d already worn a few down to nubs since he’d come to live with Wayne just a year ago. He drew on everything he could get his hands on—old newspapers, legal pads, receipts.
“That’s perfect!” Ed said. He tilted his head so his cheek touched his shoulder.
Wayne lifted his wrist and rubbed it over Ed’s gland. The pup was always begging for scent. Wayne was happy to mark him. The kid zipped around smelling of smoke and milk and wood all the time—what a concoction that must’ve been.
Once Wayne was through, Ed hopped to his feet and ran into the trailer.
Later, before bed, Ed showed Wayne a little scrap of paper.
“For omega!” Ed said.
In Wayne’s hands was a little drawing of two butterflies. Their wings were blue and orange and neatly colored in. Ed was good at that, coloring inside the lines. They were flying over a field of yellow flowers. Wayne turned it over. On the back, it said CAN I COURT YOU. Every word was spelled correctly, and only the R was backwards.
Wayne turned it back over. He stroked over the butterflies with his thumb and felt the waxy build-up of color.
“Mama said that every color has a friend,” Ed said, “and blue and orange are friends. So I added orange.”
Suddenly, there were tears in Wayne’s eyes. “I’m sure he’ll like it, pup,” Wayne said. He cradled Ed’s head, stroking over his cheek with his thumb. “He’d be a fool not to.”
*
Eddie and Steve’s house was always noisy.
Mary and Laurie were running in circles around the kitchen table yipping and barking. Pris was sitting in front of the blaring TV quietly singing along with whatever brightly-colored cartoon was on screen. Mona was haranguing the cats. And Steve was idly stroking a hand over his four-and-a-half month bump while he offered Wayne some coffee.
“I’m alright, son,” Wayne said.
Wayne’d made the trek over to help Steve out with the rugrats for the afternoon until Eddie got back from the studio. Most of the sessions he was booked for took place during the week, but this artist had offered extra to the musicians if they could make it to a Saturday session. Eddie and Steve weren’t struggling by any means—not anymore, at least—but with Pup Number Five on the way Eddie wasn’t about to scoff at some extra cash.
“You sure?” Steve said. “I gotta start lunch for them anyway, I’ll be in the kitchen a while.”
“I said what I said,” Wayne said.
Steve shuffled into the kitchen, humming some radio hit. He looked comfortable in his T-shirt and pajama pants and slippers. Wayne made the rounds saying hello to the girls. Pris blinked her big black eyes up at him before she returned her attention to her cartoons. Mona meowed at him. Mary and Laurie squealed Pawpaw! from under the kitchen table where they’d started play-wrestling. They were the picture of two perfect little alpha girls, always roughhousing and nipping at each other.
Wayne’d never thought he’d be a pawpaw. He never took a mate and though he spent many nights in omega nests he was always careful. Never helped a girl through her heat, never knotted anyone. But then Betty had died, and Al had gotten in trouble, and the only one left for Eddie was himself. When Steve was pregnant with the twins, they called Wayne over to sit him down and tell him proper. Eddie’d handed Wayne a little box that just fit between his two palms. Wayne opened it and found a white mug that said BEST GRANDPA EVER. Wayne wasn’t one to cry, but he did that day.
Steve was getting a cutting board out of the cabinet. There were a pair of bananas and a bag of baby carrots on the counter. Wayne went to the pantry. He could make the girls sandwiches and cut into little triangles, the same way he used to do for Eddie. He grabbed the bread and set it on the table, and then he turned to the refrigerator.
It was less of a fridge and more of a scrapbook. Across every side was invitations, pictures, drawings, lists, and receipts all studded with colorful magnets. Pride of place was Steve’s latest ultrasound, which Wayne had a copy of in his wallet. There was a photograph of Anita and Richard with the twins, a picture of Robin in some kind of collegiate garb with braided cords, and a picture of Steve pregnant with Mona with Pris asleep on his chest. Wayne’s favorite was the picture of himself with the twins, an arm around either girl as they brandished their colorful toy fishing rods.
What gave him pause was a child’s drawing in the top corner.
Steve looked over and beamed. “Mom and Dad found that in a box of stuff from my room,” he said. “I thought we’d cleared all my shit out forever ago, but they said there were a couple boxes in the basement.”
Wayne blinked. A few tears slid down his face.
“Pawpaw!” Wayne looked down at his side. Mona was sitting at his feet. A tie—surely one of Steve’s—was sticking out of the back of her pants. “Why’re you crying. Meow.”
Wayne leaned down—fuck, his old bones—and pulled her up into his arms. “No reason, puppy,” he said.
“You alright?” Steve said, his hand on Wayne’s arm.
“Just fine,” Wayne said. He cast a last lingering look at the fridge, at eight year-old Eddie’s blue-and-orange drawing of butterflies. The paper was yellowing, and the edges were soft and frayed, but it looked just as it had when he’d shown Wayne almost three decades ago. “Let me help you with lunch.”