Chapter Text
The call comes through during Jeremy’s biology lecture.
To his absolute horror he forgot to turn his phone to silent this morning and consequently the room is suddenly filled with the crooning of Adam Lambert. Cursing his weakness for allowing his friends to choose their own ringtones Jeremy scrambles through his backpack as the rest of the class looks on with expressions ranging from vaguely sympathetic to highly amused. Some dickhead alpha in the back is outright laughing at him.
Jeremy is bright red by the time he finally fishes his iPhone out and silences it, only managing to get a brief glimpse of Rich’s contact photo flashing onscreen before Professor McNair lets out a very over exaggerated ‘ah hem’.
“If Mr Heere is finished with his highly important business, maybe rest of the class could kindly return to discussing the downfalls of cell-specific gene expression?’ she glares at him and Jeremy has never been more embarrassed in his life. Forget gene expression, his cells are about to spontaneously burst into flames and he for one will welcome to sweet embrace of death. He’s so focused on not making himself look like any more of a fool for the duration of the lecture that he doesn’t even wonder why Rich would be calling him in New Jersey when its currently ass o clock in the morning in Thailand .
So it’s not until after dinner that Jeremy remembers the call. Wincing a little as he thinks of international calling fees he dials Rich back.
“Jere! Buddy! How are you? How ya doing? Whats hip hop happening homie?”
“Hey Rich, yeah I’m-“
“Good, great! That’s great! So stoked! How am I you ask? Fucking fantastic bro and here’s the reason why, Jake finally wants to make an honest man out of me!”
Faintly Jeremy could hear Jake’s pealing laughter in the background. His overworked student brain took a second to process why Rich was so excited.
“Wait. Rich. Do you mean?”
“We got engaged! Jake proposed! He was all romantic and shit and I cried and he cried and the hotel staff cried and then we got smashed and did it like five times in the hotel suite.”
Holy shit. Jake and Rich were getting married? Rich was letting Jake marry him? Jeremy had known Rich since kindergarten and the kid had always been a rough and tumble, unemotional kind of guy. It had come as a surprise to everyone when he’d presented as an Omega on his eighteenth birthday, least of all Rich who’d vowed he was never going to, in his words “let any dumb alpha think they can own me.”
Jeremy guessed the rules didn’t apply to his best friend Jake, who was basically the least alpha-ey Alpha either of them ever known. The two were well suited, but it was still sort of a shock. Rich and Jake were only twenty, his age, so young to get married.
Well, Jeremy thought, I guess when you know you know.
Truth be told he was a little jealous. His own love life was sadly lacking and nobody at college seemed to be taking an interest in the reclusive, gangly Omega who was too shy to join in with any club or event on campus. Since he and his friends had all gone off to different places around the states after they graduated, Jeremy’s social life had take a huge hit. There was nobody he missed more though, that his own best friend Michael. The pair Skyped every night from their respective dorm rooms five hours away from each other, but it wasn’t the same.
But now was not the time to dwell on this. There was happy news!
“Oh my god Rich, that’s amazing! I’m so happy for you two!”
“Ha, thanks bro,” came Jake’s unmistakably thrilled tone from the speaker. “I can’t believe I landed such a catch, honestly.”
“That’s right Jakey-D, you are one lucky son of a bitch!” Rich sing-songed. He sounded far away.
“Hey listen Jeremy, we have to go or we’ll miss the breakfast buffet. We just wanted to let you know, and obviously invite you to the wedding once we get all the shit sorted out. Actually Rich was wondering if you’d be his best man?”
Flattered, Jeremy readily agreed. He’d do anything to be let into a free cake tasting.
“Nice! K dude, talk to you later, bye!”
Jeremy could hear Rich’s jubilant cry of ‘pancakes’ in the background just as Jake hung up the phone and he smiled fondly. Like he said, he missed his friends. Jake and Rich had forgone the whole college scene in favor of a gap year which had never ended, and they spent most of their time travelling round the world on the guilt money Jake’s parents had left him before they vanished into thin air.
Christine had gone off to New York to train professionally as an actress. She’d auditioned for Julliard twice unsuccessfully but was not yet discouraged, attending a smaller theater school and determined to keep going until she got in. Jeremy missed her not only because she was the kindest and funniest person he know (besides Michael of course) but also because she was the only other one of the gang to present as Omega, and that meant they’d bonded from the shared hatred of social pressures, alpha assholes and the dreaded bi-monthly heats.
Jenna was somewhere in Boston working towards her degree in journalism. The last thing the Beta had posted in the group chat was that her new boyfriend worked for Buzzfeed and, ever resourceful, she was using him to try to get an interview there.
Brooke was still in New Jersey, albeit the opposite end, but since she and Jeremy were both studying to get into medical school it was difficult to find the time to meet up. Occasionally they managed to grab a coffee somewhere, which was nice because they could both talk about how hard it was to be away from your favorite person.
Chloe was off somewhere in California, managing to juggle her law coursework with, from what they could tell from her snapchat stories, an insane amount of partying. Her Beta best friend was clearly worried about the amount of hook-ups the Alpha bragged about, but Chloe seemed to be having fun.
And of course, Michael. The two boys had always dreamed of attending the same college, being roommates and struggling through workloads sided by side just like high school, but when Michael had gotten an acceptance letter into SFCM he couldn’t begrudge the boy from going. Even if it meant they only saw each other maybe twice a year and it was killing them both.
Jeremy was snapped from his reverie by the violent buzzing of his phone, which was now displaying mile a minute notifications from the group chat ‘JAKE YOU IGNORANT SLUT’. They’d gotten round to telling everyone then.
He read the messages without opening up the app, too drained from a long day to engage in the frantic conversation the rest of his friends were having as they vied for the top spots in the wedding party. Christine wanted to officiate.
He smirked. Knowing Rich and Jake that would probably happen.
He did, however, open up the text he’d just gotten from Michael, with somewhat an edge of relief. The boy hadn’t responded to any of Jeremy’s messages for the past three days, not even any of the dog memes. He’d probably also just been bogged down by work.
PLAYERONE: so, rich & jake huh??? :D
JEREMY: I know, so crazy!
PLAYERONE: kool tho. weddings! cake! badly fitted tuxes! do u think rich will wear a dress???
JEREMY: No way dude, he’d rather die than be an omega stereotype.
PLAYERONE: oh yeh. Sorry.
Michael was rare in that he was a late bloomer, one of maybe ten percent of the population who didn’t present their secondary gender at the age of eighteen. This meant that he could be a bit clueless when it came to the strained relations between Alpha/Beta/Omega society, though not for lack of trying. Anyway, he’d present any day now, twenty was getting late in the game.
JEREMY: It’s fine man, don’t worry. You coming back to Jersey for the ceremony?
PLAYERONE: hell yesssssss!!!!!!!!! WOULDN’T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD BABY
PLAYERONE: plus we can finally get to see eachother again :) ;)
He hadn’t thought of that. Michael and him in the same room together again! It had been months.
JEREMY: Oh my god. I didn’t even think of that.
PLAYERONE: i cant wait.
They chatted for a little while longer, catching up on what was going on with each other. Michael didn’t want to Skype, something about his roommate trying to get an early night for work, so Jeremy just smiled softly at his screen as Michael typed out his story about a disaster with a broken cello string, an empty gum wrapper and a first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. It wasn’t long until he had dropped off into a nice, peaceful sleep.