Page 42 of Mate Match: Curtis & Jae
“Hello Grandmother,” I said in Korean, the words feeling strange on my tongue. I was so out of practice!
“Ah! There’s my grandson! It has been too long since I last saw your handsome face. Are you married yet?” She spoke in rapid Korean, the words almost too quick for me to understand.
“Could we speak in English, please? I have someone to introduce you to. He doesn’t speak Korean.”
She frowned. “Have you picked someone who does not know our language?”
Immediately, I felt defensive over Curtis. “He’s learned some phrases.”
Irritation filled me. Nothing I did seemed to be good enough. My grandmother was my mother’s mom. They had a strained relationship because my mom wanted to stay in the US when my dad was offered a job with my grandfather’s company. I was so grateful for her making that choice because I felt like there were more opportunities in the US for me and my beta sister.
“Is Grandfather at work?” My grandfather still hadn’t retired, though he was in his seventies. He thought my father was weak for retiring early, while Mom thought it was smart. She didn’t want him dying in his office of stress.
“No. He is here. The doctor told him to slow down. He works half the hours now,” she said with some pride.
The scenery changed as she walked through the house to find him. She then spoke too quickly for me to translate. Neither looked happy.
“We have heard rumors,” my grandfather said without greeting me, “that you are pregnant and unmated.”
I was stunned. How had they learned the truth?
“I—we plan to bond and maybe marry—”
“You will marry this alpha. Even if he is not of our choosing, you must marry and mate with him now that you are having his child.” Grandfather’s face was stern.
For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Curtis moved closer so he could be seen on the screen. “Hello, I am Curtis. Ilove Jae very much and hope to marry him when we are ready to. After the baby is here. I am excited to join your family.” His Korean was clumsy, though incredibly charming.
“You will do,” Grandmother said in a clipped voice, which softened when she added. “We are too old to travel for your wedding. Your grandfather is unable to fly. Instead, we will help you to pay for it. Send us a list for the baby!”
“Thank you.”
“We are proud of you, Jae. For the book. So incredibly proud!” Then she turned to address Curtis. “We do not want to repeat what happened with Iseul and miss seeing the baby grow. Do you make him happy?”
“I try,” Curtis said honestly. I held his hand tightly.
“Then that is enough.”
Nineteen
Curtis
Itfeltlikethepregnancy passed at lightning speed. Before we knew it, there was only a week to go until the baby’s due date. They grew well, and by all accounts, Jae’s pregnancy was a textbook one for a male omega.
Over the months after the news about AlphaPharm, Jae worked tirelessly alongside a team of lawyers to change the law so that every pregnancy which occurred due to a contraception failure would be tracked to ensure this couldn’t happen again. Basically, when you bought any type of contraception, the type and batch was noted on your file. Then an alert would ping out if too many of the same batch led to pregnancy.
The help Hwan had provided was instrumental in ensuring companies wouldn’t get away with hiding that they were selling faulty products. I tried to get Jae to slow down, but he was adamant he had to help. All I could do was get him to takebreaks when possible. It wasn’t my place to tell him he couldn’t do something he felt so passionate about.
Besides, the lawyers argued Jae gave a “face” to the campaign and his presence was vital. Since some of these were old friends from college, they fought harder for him and the affected omegas. They also often backed me up when Jae was burning himself out. While he wasn’t actively creating the laws, he was constantly being asked to consult with lawmakers and those in the medical profession about what omegas needed and how this screw up had affected them.
Whenever the subject was broached on the news, Jae’s face was often used as an example of what happened when an omega did everything right, but were pushed into a situation caused by greed. Everyone knew our love story by now and how the baby had pushed us closer. Jae was quick to point out he was lucky and that he was fighting for less fortunate omegas.
I just wished he would slow down or that the campaign would use some of the other omegas who had come forward. Jae was putting himself at risk, and though I understood why, I just wanted him to take care of himself first.
Surprisingly, Hwan was good on that front, too. He had experience with willful omegas, as he put it, including pregnant ones, so he knew when Jae was pushing the limits of his endurance and how to get him to back down.
I did not have my mate’s ex backing me up on my bingo card, but here we were. If it meant Jae and the baby were healthy, it didn’t matter who it was.
The process of changing the law was involved and required the pharmaceutical companies to be honest with their test data, along with designing a system for reporting. The sheer amount of omegas pregnant after DuoStop failure was enough to get it passed into law. Insurance companies had to ask about their contraception when an omega presented as pregnant, and all thedata went into a nationalized system. No state by state reporting where some areas who were less favorable to omegas would “lose” their details. All the information was entered into one database.
