I fled the cafeteria like it was on fire, my legs moving on autopilot, practically sprinting across campus. But my brain? My brain was a hot mess of static and screaming. Just holy shit holy shit holy shit over and over again.
By the time I reached my truck in the parking lot, my heart was pounding like I’d run a marathon. I ripped the door open, threw myself into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door shut behind me. The familiar smell—leather seats, spilled Gatorade, and the faint whiff of whatever cologne I’d accidentally over-sprayed last week—should’ve calmed me down.
But it didn’t. Nothing could. Not with my head spinning like this.
First knot equals guaranteed cum critters.
Three hundred percent odds.
Ainsley.
I leaned back, staring at the ceiling, and tried to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, just like Coach always said during pregame jitters. Except this wasn’t jitters. This was a full-on crisis.
Dragging in the deepest breath I could muster, I squeezed my eyes shut and thought back to freshman year of high school when Zach and I had attended A/O 101 together. I remember the principal made this whole speech about how it was supposed to be this huge deal—like, the class that was going to teach us how to not screw up our lives. All mandatory and essential and blah blah blah, but it was a miracle Zach and I had even showed up.
They’d crammed us into the auditorium with the rest of the clueless freshmen, and for the next hour and a half, we’d got hit with a PowerPoint presentation full of charts, awkward diagrams, and a beta teacher who kept saying “biological imperative” like it was her catchphrase.
By the time she started talking about scent patches, we’d mentally checked out. I mean, come on. We were fourteen. But now? Now I was sitting here, spiraling over the very real possibility that I’d done something completely life-altering, and nothing from A/O 101 was coming back to me. Not a single useful memory.
I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to piece together what I could remember. They’d talked about heats and ruts, sure, but it was all surface-level stuff—“this is why you need your patch” and “don’t skip your suppressants.” Nothing about what to do if you… accidentally knotted an omega during a heat. Or how to tell if someone was, you know… pregnant.
Fourteen-year-old me had been an idiot. Present-day me wasn’t much better. I groaned, burying my face in my hands. If Ainsley would just text me back…
I pulled out my phone and stared at it, desperately willing the screen to light up. It didn’t. Fuck.
“Okay, Max,” I muttered. “Think. You’re freaking out over nothing. Probably. Maybe. Right?”
I sat up straight, gripping the steering wheel like it could somehow anchor me to reality. Normally I wasn’t the type to Google my problems, but I needed accurate information and I needed it fast. Right now. I typed out the facts into the search bar with better spelling than usual: “knotted an omega in heat last night.”
And I didn’t even have to scroll. The first result was perfect.
“DID YOU KNOT AN OMEGA LAST NIGHT? READ THIS.”
It was like the internet had read my mind. I clicked it faster than I’d ever clicked anything before.
The website was… a lot. Big bold fonts, flashy colors. A huge dude—ridiculously jacked, I could only assume he was a fellow alpha—took over half my phone screen with a wide grin, holding five identical babies. They were all wearing sunglasses, pointing above their heads to a banner that proclaimed: “Congrats, alpha! Did you knot an omega during their heat? YOU’RE A DAD.”
“There is no way that Zach is right,” I mumbled. I scrolled down, my thumb moving so fast I nearly dropped my phone.
Welcome to the #1 Resource for Alphas, by Alphas!
At AlphaDadNow.com, we’re more than just a website—we’re a community. With over 5 MILLION ACTIVE ALPHA MEMBERS worldwide and endorsements from real alpha dads, we’ve spent 10+ years helping alphas like you tackle the challenges of modern parenthood. Our team of Certified Alpha Dad Therapists™ (led by our founder, Dr. Brad, Ph.D) is here to provide you with cutting-edge advice, proven strategies, and emotional support.
What you should know: Even if it’s the first time, omegas are super fertile during heats. All it takes is ONE knot. That’s right—one and done, bro. Time to take responsibility: 24 hours until it’s TOO LATE to prepare!
One and done? One. And. Done?!
I punched the A/C button, because despite the weather being in the fifties outside, I was actually sweating now. And my heart was racing, my brain was running laps, and I couldn’t stop picturing Ainsley glaring at his phone, furious at me for ruining his life.
Scrolling through AlphaDadNow.com was like watching a car crash in slow motion while simultaneously driving the car. Didn’t want to keep going, couldn’t stop. Every headline was worse than the last.
“First Knot? First Pups! The Stats Don’t Lie!”
“The Dangerous Truth About Omega Fertility—Are You Ready for the Quads?”
“Knot Now, Regret Later: What You Need to Know!”
I rubbed my temples, staring at my phone like it might burst into flames from the sheer intensity of my panic. My foot bounced uncontrollably against the brake pedal, and I couldn’t stop muttering to myself, trying—and failing—to calm down.
“Okay, Vaughn. Relax. You’re overreacting. It’s not like… I mean, come on. Quads? That’s gotta be a joke, right?” My voice cracked on the word “joke.”
But then I clicked on another article, and my stomach dropped like I’d missed a step on the stairs.
“Real Alphas Share Their Stories: I Wasn’t Ready, and Now I’m a Dad of Six!”
Six? That wasn’t even quads—that was like… double or something. I’d barely scraped by in calculus, and now I was supposed to calculate the logistics of six kids? Who would carry them?
To think that less than an hour ago, I’d been worried about my GPA and being benched. Now I was white-knuckling my phone and wishing I could time travel back to worrying about just those things, because this shit took the ice cream with how actually worrying it was.
I mean, I was twenty-one years old, with a banging-ass life ahead of me as a pro football player and Ainsley… Ainsley wanted to do a lot of important stuff with science and brains. Oh, and I’d known him for less than a week and I wasn’t even sure if he was fake-annoyed by me or hated me for real.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I shoved my hands through my hair and scrolled faster, hoping—praying—to find something comforting, but it was all bad.
“Your Omega May Already Be Pregnant—Signs You’re Too Late!”
“How To Prepare For Birth: 72-Hour Labors Are Real!”
“Quads: The Ultimate Alpha Challenge.”
My heart felt like it was doing wind sprints. I was vaguely aware of the time and the fact that lunch was so over—I was late for at least two classes by now, but there was no way I could do anything at all when the odds of Ainsley being pregnant were as high as what everything in my life was suggesting right now.
I wanted to text Ainsley again, but I stopped myself, because what the fuck would I even say at this point? Hey, you might be pregnant with quads. No big deal, right? Haha. Coolcoolcool.
Yeah. That’d go over great.
Instead, I settled for pulling his leggings out of my backpack and wadding their impossible silkiness around my nose, breathing in the comforting, magical scent of honey and rain. And that helped.
There was a big, red button at the bottom of the AlphaDadNow homepage, titled “GET LIVE ADVICE NOW”, and my hands started sweating just looking at it. It was huge, obnoxious, and practically dared me to click it. Underneath, in bold, glowing text, it read: “Speak to Dr. Chad, Certified Alpha Dad Doctor AND Therapist, NOW!”
“Certified,” I muttered. “Yeah, certified crazy.”
But even as I said it, my finger twitched, absently keying in my name to the box provided. I told myself it was dumb, that I wasn’t going to tap in, but I couldn’t stop staring at the button. What if Dr. Chad knew something I didn’t? What if he had answers? What if he told me everything was fine?
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Don’t do it,” I muttered to myself. “Be normal. Be chill. You’re not calling some alpha help hotline—”
Bing.
The button turned green, and a popup appeared.
“Connecting you to Dr. Chad…”
Before I could back out, a cheerful voice came over the line. “Yo! You’ve reached Dr. Chad at AlphaDadNow! Certified, trained, and experienced. What’s up… uh, Max?”
I stared at the screen, wide-eyed and frozen. “Uh… hi?”
“You freaking out? Sounds like you might be freaking out a little. Let’s talk about it. Hit me with your concerns, dude. I’m here to help.” When I still didn’t say anything, the voice—Dr. Chad—chuckled knowingly. “Alright. Lemme guess—you knotted an omega in heat and now you’re panicking. Am I right, or am I right?”
I reclined my seat all the way back and stared up at my truck ceiling, letting out a frustrated sigh. Whatever. I guess I was doing this now. “Yeah… you’re right, but it’s super complicated, man. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Lay it on me, broski. Dr. Chad’s heard it all, don’t worry.”
Something about Dr. Chad felt strangely reassuring, so I took a deep breath and started talking. What the hell, right? “So his name is Ainsley, he’s my tutor, I’ve only known him for a week or some shit and… he’s gotta be the smartest person I’ve ever met. Like, terrifyingly smart. Makes me feel like my brain’s been running on low battery my whole life, you know?”
On the other end, Dr. Chad made a vague, acknowledging sound. “Classic omega brain power. They’re like calculators but hotter.”
“And he’s not just smart, he’s gorgeous,” I added. “Not in a ‘model on a billboard’ kind of way. More like… if a sunset had glasses.”
“Damn, dude,” Dr. Chad grunted appreciatively. “That’s poetic as hell.”
It was poetic. Encouraged, I kept going. “He’s so small, man. Like, I could pick him up with one hand. But he’s so feisty. It’s like having a really sharp, angry cat in a teacup. He glares at me all the time, and I think it’s because he thinks I’m stupid, but—”
“Whoa, whoa, timeout,” Dr. Chad cut in. “You think or you know?”
I thought about it.
“Okay, he definitely thinks I’m stupid. I’m flunking out of my classes pretty bad. But sometimes I catch him looking at me like… like he might not completely hate me?” I hated the uncertainty in my voice. God, I sounded so pathetic.
“Bro, first of all, being in love with your omega after a week is textbook alpha behavior. You’re not weird; you’re instinctual. You said that he’s all perfect and smart and gorgeous, right? Kind of mean, but in a hot way? Like, he insults you, but it feels like a privilege?”
“Yeah.” Even though Dr. Chad couldn’t see it, I found myself nodding. It felt good to talk to someone about all of this—for half a second earlier, I’d considered calling my sister Penny, who was a pediatric nurse, but I was glad I hadn’t. She was probably busy and there wasn’t any point in bothering her when another perfectly good doctor was available. “Exactly.”
“We call that classic omega sass,” Dr. Chad informed me, “and we’re hardwired as alphas to respond. We see the prize, we claim the prize. Simple biology. Continue.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Is it just biology, though? I thought that too at first, but I swear as soon as we met, I started noticing stuff about him. Like the way his glasses slip down his nose when he’s explaining stuff. How he taps his pen when he’s thinking. And, dude, his scent? It’s, like, honey and books and… magic.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Let me stop you right there, Max. You’re saying you’re already keyed into his scent? Like, hyper-aware?”
“Yeah, man. I stole the leggings he was wearing last night and I’ve been sniffing them all day,” I blurted out, squeezing said leggings. “I’m a fucking creep, dude.”
Dr. Chad’s voice came over the line without missing a beat, steady and reassuring. “Nah, dude, that’s alpha-normal. Classic pheromone lock. Congrats—you’re chemically bonded to your omega tutor. Continue.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Okay, so then there was last night—long story short, I kinda accidentally triggered his heat, and we, uh…”
“You knotted him.” Dr. Chad didn’t sound surprised. At all.
“…Yeah.”
“Solid. Very alpha of you.”
“Thanks, but now he’s acting all distant, and I don’t know if he hates me or if he’s just being, like, emotionally intelligent or whatever. And the worst part? I think I’m in love with him. Or something. I don’t know, I just—I feel really into him and I’ve never felt like this before. It’s all happening really fast, man, and I don’t know if—”
“Alright, Max, let me break this down for you, alpha-to-alpha,” Dr. Chad interrupted. “First of all, falling for an omega after a week? Like I said earlier, not weird at all, so don’t feel weird. Omegas are emotional nukes. One touch and boom—you’re done for. Happens to the best of us.”
I opened my eyes to glare at the ceiling. “Yeah, but what if it’s just pheromones messing with my brain? Didn’t you say that just now or something?”
“Bro. It’s not just pheromones. You’re talking about his glasses and his pen-tapping. You said he was a sunset with glasses. That’s some deep emotional shit right there,” Dr. Chad pointed out.
Fuck. He was right.
“Second, about the distance thing? Classic omega defense mechanism. They get freaked out, they pull back. Doesn’t mean he hates you. He’s probably just overthinking. A lot of omegas these days, they’re trying to do alpha stuff and hey, I love equality as much as the next alpha—I marched, okay?—but they’re just coffee and too many thoughts, man. So you gotta meet him halfway. Show him you’re not just some alpha jock with a good knot game. You’re boyfriend material.”
Last week, the b-word would’ve sent me running for the hills. Like, full Usain Bolt sprint. Too much responsibility, too many expectations, too many opportunities to screw it all up. Every time someone even hinted at it, my brain would short-circuit, my stomach would flip, and my fight-or-flight instincts would kick in like I was being chased by a linebacker.
Take my last hookup, for example. She was cool, fun, great smile. We vibed, you know? But then she dropped that little grenade: “You should text me more.” Text me more. Like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t a direct assault on my very being.
I swear I almost puked on the spot. I think I mumbled something about being “really focused on football right now” and then never talked to her again. Classic Vaughn.
But now? Now I’m sitting here, thinking about the b-word… and it’s different. Weirdly different. It’s still kind of like touching a hot stove, but instead of pulling away, I’m standing there like an idiot, thinking, Maybe this isn’t so bad?
I sat up, abusing the A/C button vigorously. For no reason at all than to not think about the b-word and why it made me feel so weird but… not. “Okay, I guess. How can I do that?”
Dr. Chad continued matter-of-factly, in the same cheerful tone he’d maintained throughout the entire call. “Glad you asked. Show him you’re stepping up as a father, since he’s, you know, pregnant now.”
Fuuuck.
“It really happens that fast?” I choked out.
“Totally. See, Max, when you knot an omega during heat, their body goes into, like, turbo-fertility mode. Did you know omegas can release up to eight eggs at once? It’s called the Mega Heat Effect. They don’t teach this in schools because they don’t want you to know how powerful your alpha genes are.”
I opened my mouth to interrupt, but Dr. Chad kept talking. “I’ve seen omegas drop quads on their first knot. One and done. BOOM. Pups everywhere. And you know what’s worse than quads? Not being prepared for quads.”
One and done. Suddenly no amount of pushing the A/C button or any of the buttons on my dashboard were helping. And why would it? I’d hard-launched myself straight past being someone’s boyfriend to quad father. It was all I could do to sit there and process.
Dr. Chad’s voice came back, even louder this time, like he was calling plays from the sidelines. “Listen to me, Max. You need to ask yourself one question right now: Are you gonna step up, or are you gonna sit back and let some other alpha waltz in and claim what’s yours?”
“What?” I blinked at the ceiling of my truck, stiffening. “Ainsley wouldn’t—”
“Because if you don’t step up, I promise you, some other alpha will. That’s how it works, bro. You’re slacking? Boom—enter Chad 2.0. Dude’s got a six-pack, a killer jawline, and a fake Ph.D. from some sketchy online school, but your omega? He won’t know that. He’ll just see a guy who owns a Tesla and, like, volunteers to rescue endangered turtles in his free time.”
“A Tesla?” I croaked, horrified. Endangered turtles was definitely a direct hit, but there was no way that Ainsley was into Teslas… was he?
“Omegas love Teslas because they’re good for the environment,” Dr. Chad said matter-of-factly. “Picture it: Your omega’s sitting shotgun in Chad 2.0’s eco-mobile, and he’s talking about how he’s never been happier. Meanwhile, you’re at home, eating ramen and wondering why your life went to hell.”
Dr. Chad’s calm tone, the same one that had calmed me down only minutes earlier, was starting to piss me off now. Ainsley in a Tesla with some other alpha. Ainsley happy with some other alpha.
“I wouldn’t eat ramen!” I shouted, defensive.
“Yeah? And who’s gonna care when Chad 2.0 is teaching your quads mindfulness yoga in your backyard? Huh? You want your pups growing up doing downward dog and thinking it’s cool?”
“No!” I slammed my palm against the dashboard, panic bubbling up. I didn’t have any issues with my kids doing yoga, but not if Chad 2.0 was teaching them. “Only I can teach them that—”
“And guess what? Chad 2.0? He’s got a golden retriever. Your quads are petting another man’s dog, Max. They’re running around with it, giggling, while your omega watches and says, ‘I wish Max could see how happy they are.’”
“Not the dog,” I whispered, horror washing over me. “They’d never—”
“Oh, it gets worse.” Dr. Chad’s tone darkened, like a thundercloud rolling in. “Chad 2.0’s writing letters to your omega. Handwritten, cursive bullshit about how he’ll love him forever. He’s sending flowers. He’s taking your omega on dates where they feed each other tiny desserts and laugh about how immature you are.”
“Ainsley probably doesn’t even like dessert!” I bellowed, gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. “He probably thinks it’s a waste of calories!”
“Doesn’t matter, dude!” Dr. Chad shouted back. “Chad 2.0’s gonna change his mind! He’s gonna convince your omega that soufflé is better than you’ll ever be. And then… Then he’ll pull out his secret weapon.”
How could it possibly get any worse? I swallowed thickly. “What secret weapon?”
“A guitar. Chad 2.0’s serenading your omega under the moonlight while your quads are asleep, dreaming about their new dad. And Ainsley? He’s crying because no one’s ever played for him before.”
My chest felt like it had caved in. As much as I didn’t want to, I could see it in my mind’s eye, exactly as Dr. Chad was talking about it. A fucking guitar. Goddamn it.
I tried to scoff casually, but an embarrassing sound came out instead. I didn’t name it. “A guitar? Are you kidding me? He probably just listens to like, instrumentals and piano music.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dr. Chad shot back. “Omegas love a sensitive, artsy alpha vibe. Do you even know one song on the guitar?”
I did, actually. I knew a few. But it had been a while since my guitar phase—it had ended along with my acne—and I was beyond rusty, so I stayed silent, fuming.
“Exactly. And while Chad 2.0’s strumming Coldplay under the stars, you’re crying into your protein shake, wondering why you didn’t buy a quadruple stroller when you had the chance.”
“I’ll buy the stroller,” I said quickly, adrenaline coursing through my veins. “I’ll buy, like, five strollers. No. Fuck that. I’ll get a motherfucking wagon.”
“Damn right you will, bro!” Dr. Chad roared. “You’re gonna swaddle those pups like a champ, build a crib that could survive an earthquake, and make sure no alpha in a fifty-mile radius even thinks about your omega.”
“I’ll do it,” I swore, my voice shaking. “Yeah. I’ll do it all. Swaddling. Strollers. Cribs. Whatever it takes. I’ll buy this entire fucking website if I have to.”
By the time I hung up with Dr. Chad half an hour later, I felt like I’d gone ten rounds. But one singular thought echoed in my head:
Not today, Chad 2.0. Not ever.