Ty

TY

WARM RAYS OF sun beamed down on my skin, and the sounds of kids' laughter and splashing flowed into my ears. The tangy mineral scent of sunscreen wafted around in the air, right up into my nose.

Summer was awesome for everybody, but I was pretty sure it was more awesome for me than most. Basically every aspect of my life was more awesome than it was for most. Not a flex, just a statement of fact.

My final year of high school was done and over with, and I'd already been accepted to my first choice college. It was close, so I wouldn't need to live on campus, a huge relief to my clingy, hovering parents. Most of my friends were scrambling to attend college out of state, but I had nothing to run away from. A lot of their parents had pushed them to go into certain fields, but mine had never pressured me.

I'd nab a bachelor's in biology, and throw in zoology courses for good measure. I wasn't exactly sure yet where I would go for my doctorate in veterinary medicine, since I'd need to find somewhere that offered avian treatment curriculum, but I'd cross that bridge when I got there. Eventually, when I was old and worn out from a trillion hours of schooling and internships and residency, I'd open my own private practice. In other words, I would be a veterinarian for exotic fowl. Ducks and geese.

"Ty?" My omega dad waved a hand in front of my face to get my attention. "Did you hear me?"

"Ah, no, sorry," I apologized, grinning. "I was kind of spacing out, sorry."

"I asked if you want a glass of this lemonade."

"Yeah, I'll take one."

Our pool was huge, built into a giant deck with tables and chairs shaded by umbrellas and an actual bar my parents kept alcohol and fruit and stuff in to make cocktails or juice drinks while we all lounged out here.

My alpha dad, or Pop as I'd gotten into the habit of calling him after my sister had started as a toddler, stood behind him as he sliced up a lemon. His muscular arms were around my dad's waist, but his attention was on my sisters in the pool. They were great swimmers, but he was pretty protective of us.

When my dad hissed and dropped the knife, letting it clatter to the surface of the bar, my pop's attention was yanked down to a small cut on his finger. A tiny droplet of blood surfaced there.

"You're hurt?" He asked in a demanding voice, as if my dad had accidentally sliced his arm off with the tiny paring knife.

"Not really," Dad answered him with a light laugh, wiggling his still intact fingers as proof. "It's just a little nick."

"I'll get a bandage for you," he insisted. "Ty, watch your sisters."

"Yeah, Pop," I agreed, but knew I would only glance over to them every once in awhile. Their constant shrieks of laughter were a pretty good indication they probably weren't drowning. Once he was in the house, I tilted my head with a grin. "Should I call an ambulance?"

My dad giggled, shaking his head. When he laughed like that, he looked really young. "You know how he is."

"Yeah, I know."

When you were a kid, all adults were big. I'd never really understood how small and delicate my dad was, until I'd hit puberty and presented as an alpha. Now at 5'11, I was already more than half a foot taller than him. It hadn't occurred to me back then, when it was just the two of us, how scary it must have been for him to do everything all alone. But if he had been scared, he'd never shown it to me.

I didn't remember a lot of my childhood from before my pop had come. But I remembered everything getting way better after that, and my dad pretty much never being sad anymore. They were inseparable now, and hardly ever argued about anything.

I hoped that when I found my fated omega, I could make them as happy and secure as my pop made my dad. Not that I was really in the market or anything. As nice as it seemed, I kind of wanted to have a life first before all that.

My dad sighed as a cool breeze whipped through, stirring his bangs. "We should have a barbecue soon. We'll invite everyone."

Grandma Tracey had taken my dad under her wing a few years back, desperately trying to pass him the torch of incredible party planning. I was starting to suspect he would never quite develop her zen energy when it came to it, but he was getting pretty decent.

When my pop came back out of the house, with practically half a first aid kit in his hands, my dad dutifully let him tend the almost non-existent wound with no complaints. When he was done, he lifted my dad's hand to his mouth, tenderly kissing his bandaged finger. My dad looked at him with an embarrassingly dreamy expression, before cupping his face and pulling him down for what I personally considered to be an inappropriate kiss for a sort of public setting. I grimaced, turning away so they could finish up. Gross.

"You'll get it one day, buddy," Pop told me, clapping a big hand on my shoulder as he passed by me to head over to the pool. Yeah, yeah. I was pretty sure I got it now, but that didn't mean I wanted to see my parents making out in front of my face. My dad watched him for a few more moments, before returning his attention to the glasses of lemonade.

"A party sounds good," I agreed. "I can help."

"You don't need to help me, baby. You should just enjoy your summer."

"I like helping you," I told him. "We make a pretty good team, you know."

When he leaned over to plant a kiss on my head, like he always did when I said something that made him happy, I dipped my head down so he actually could.

"There's no one I'd rather have on my team than you," he said, finally handing me over a frosty glass filled with the strawberry lemonade he'd made from scratch in our kitchen just a few hours earlier. A lemon wedge rested on the side of the glass, hopefully worth the near-mortal injury he'd endured for it.

"Me too," I said honestly. When he walked around the bar to head toward everyone else, I followed him.

My sisters were floating at the edge of the pool now, chatting with our pop. They looked more like him, with golden curls of hair and pale blue eyes. I looked like our dad. But when we all went out together, we got compliments all the time about what a beautiful family we were. My parents always preened about that.

My brattier sister was 11 years old. She was named Calliope, but no one called her that, just like no one called me Tytan. I think my dad just liked giving us covertly weird names. My youngest sister, 8, decidedly less bratty, was named Artemis. Calli and Missy.

They begged me to get in the water with them, and even though I didn't really want to, I knew I'd eventually give in anyway. I had a hard time telling them no about anything. I guess I was kind of like Pop, in that way. He couldn't tell any of us no either, especially Dad.

When I glanced back to see the two of them already cuddled together on a single lounger, lost in each other, I rolled my eyes and jumped into the pool, hopefully raining a big splash over them to show my displeasure with their inability to keep their lips off each other.

If they kept being gross, I'd have to pull out my secret weapon to humble them, which I'd only pulled out a few times over the years. The fact that if not for me really, really wanting a ducky donut, they never would have met. So technically if it wasn't for me, they would never have gotten married and the girls wouldn't even exist.

But if I really stopped to think about it, there were way worse things than parents who kissed all the time. Even if it was gross and embarrassing, I wouldn't have traded them, or any other part of my life, for anything or anyone else in the world.