2. Steve

Julius peers at me from his perch atop the cat tower.

"You have to come down here! I have a treat for you. Look." I hold up the can of tuna I opened for him. He considers it skeptically, but doesn't come down.

"Damn you. We have to go to the vet. If you won't come down on your own, I'll make you come down."

His silver tail swishes back and forth, as if the idea of me trying such a thing amuses him.

I pull out my phone and call my omega dad.

He answers on the second ring. "Good morning. How is my favorite son?"

I'm his only son, so being his favorite doesn't mean much.

"Julius won't come down from his cat tower, and we have an appointment with the vet in less than thirty minutes."

Dad laughs. "Why are you calling me about this?"

"Because he likes you. He rarely comes down from his cat tower unless you're here."

It's very annoying. Julius will sit on Dad's lap and purr while he pets him. If I try to pet Julius, he hisses at me, and that's on the rare occasion he gets close enough for me to touch him.

"Open a can of tuna. That will do the trick," Dad suggests.

"I did open a can of tuna. He won't come down to eat it."

Dad sighs. "I'm sorry, Steve. I got you a cat because I worried about you being alone now that you work remotely half of the week. But if you want me to take him off your hands, I will. Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent won't mind."

Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are my dads' cats.

"No. I'm sorry, Dad. I don't want to get rid of him, I just…" Don't like cats? I can't say that.

"Is that Steve?" My alpha dad's voice says.

"Yes. He's having trouble with Julius again."

"Let me talk to him."

There are a few shuffling noises before I hear my alpha dad again. "This is why you need to name your cat after a superhero. It appeals to their arrogance."

I hold back a smile. My alpha dad is an even bigger nerd than I am, which is saying something. But he's a comic book nerd, while I'm a gamer nerd. Those two communities are very different.

"I named him after a Roman dictator. That fits his personality better. If someone was crying for help, Julius would not save them. He would watch them be robbed with a cold indifference that only someone who single-handedly destroyed the democracy of Rome would understand."

My alpha dad laughs on the other end. He always gets my stupid jokes. Truth be told, I miss working with him during my remote days. We agreed that the employees at our accounting firm would benefit from the freedom to work from home, but I never minded coming into the office. It gave me more time with him.

"Technically, Rome was a Republic, not a Democracy," My alpha dad says.

"How does that have anything to do with Steve's cat? Did the two of you get distracted by obscure historical references again? Give me my phone back."

My omega dad always reins us in. He acts annoyed about it, but I can hear the smile in his voice, even over the phone.

"I would like to clarify that we didn't name you after a superhero because we thought you were arrogant," my omega dad says.

"Oh, he knows that. Captain America is the opposite of arrogance. He's nothing like Bruce Wayne up in his tower. And with a butler, for Christ's sake." He goes on about how snooty Batman and Superman are for a full minute before my omega dad stops him.

"We really don't mind taking Julius, if that would help. But maybe it would be good to get out more, you know? Make more friends."

"Tim, that's none of our business. He'll make new friends when he's ready," My alpha dad says.

"No. He's right. I need to get out and talk to people more," I admit. The problem is, I like my apartment and small group of friends. I don't want to go out and meet other people. "I, um, signed up for that matchmaking service you recommended." I was planning to tell them at dinner on Sunday, but maybe telling them now will help my omega dad feel better.

"Really? That's great! Did you hear that? He signed up for the matchmaking thing." The excitement in my omega dad's voice is over the top. He's a nerd too, in his own right. But instead of comic books, he reads the regular kind of books. When I was a kid, it was always self-help or parenting books sprinkled with the occasional romance. They were scattered all over our house and stuffed into his three meager bookshelves. After I moved out, my alpha dad converted my room into a library for him, complete with a cushy window seat and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. He spent months getting it perfect for my omega dad, keeping the door locked at all times so it would be a surprise.

I want to do something like that for my omega someday. The little things they do for each other and the way they look at each other, even after all these years, is the real reason I signed up for the agency. I've always wanted a love like my dads'.

"How long does it take to get a match?" my alpha dad asks.

"It depends. They said it could be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months." I did my testing and the questionnaire last Friday. I probably won't get a match for at least another week or so.

"I hope it works out," my alpha dad says. "You deserve a good man in your life."

"You know you can call if you ever need to talk about it," my omega dad reminds me.

"Yeah, of course." They've always been my rock. That might be why I've never been particularly social. I have a good group of close friends and amazing dads. I don't need anybody else. "I love you guys, but I should probably get going to the vet."

"That's right. Good luck with Julius. We love you!"

They end the call, leaving me alone with my difficult cat. I lift the tuna can up to the top of the cat tower and wave it around, hoping the scent will lure him in. Julius sniffs at the air, but is unmoved.

I briefly consider calling the vet and cancelling the appointment, but what would I say? I can't get my cat to come down from the expensive tower I bought him in a futile effort to get him to like me?

My phone dings. It's the sound of a new email, which I would normally ignore. I get new emails all the time from my clients. It's part of managing an accountant firm. But after checking my email constantly for three days in hopes of news from the matchmaking agency, I'm on high alert for that sound. I press the new message, and an email opens on my screen.

It's just a message from a client asking me to add a new employee to their payroll. I sigh. It's officially time to stop obsessing about the matchmaking thing.

I take a desperate swipe at the top tier of the cat tower in a last-ditch effort to grab Julius. He darts to the back corner, narrowly missing my hand.

Hopefully my future match will like me better than my cat.