“I have an idea. Instead of dinner, let’s go for a walk.” He slid out of the booth, holding out his hand, which I greedily took. “And for the record, I’m a pass on the daddy thing. It is on my very short list of passes.”
And with that, he led me out of the bar and on a short walk to his studio apartment where we spent very little time talking.
Chapter One
Carter
A few years later…
“And while progress had been steady over the past couple of decades, there is still a lot that needs to be done as it relates to pay equality.”
Janice, my dean, stood in the back of the room, tapping her foot as I tried to focus on my lecture. I was failing miserably. She had me a nervous wreck between her body language and her unexpected arrival. Not to mention the recent mumblings about a certain website.
I’d received tenure a couple of years earlier and had outstanding performance evaluations, but my ranks on rateyoureducator.com averaged out to horrible. Students loved me, the in-house evaluations always stellar. But the trolls...oh, the trolls. It was amazing how quickly they came out of the woodwork when you tried to bring attention to the inequalities of our everyday existence.
And my mind kept trying to wander back to Jonathan Ray who’d just received his walking papers despite tenured status. Sure, he’d been shtupping a student—an underage student in dual enrollment, but still…fired is fired.
“So, that brings us to the next question, the one that appears to have perplexed the nation. What if anything should we do about it?” It was rhetorical, but one or two people every semester thought it wise to offer their answers at this juncture. I expected that. Prepared for it even.
What I was not expecting was to see Janice’s hand shoot up— a hand I could not ignore.
“Dean Ward, you have some insight on the subject?” She, of course, had opinions—everyone did—but being the only professor of omega studies in the entire county, meant that I’d been thrown in with the sociology department, so, professionally speaking, this was not her forte.
“Actually, Professor, I came to let your students know that class is dismissed for the day. We unfortunately need this room for an urgent matter.” It was bullshit. I could sense it, but the students didn’t seem at all fazed by the bold lie, instead packing up and chatting with each other.
“We will take this up again in Monday’s class.” I spoke to no one. They’d checked out the second class was dismissed, probably deciding what fancy coffee to pick up as they dawdled to their next class, which, at the earliest, started in another forty-five minutes.
“Carter.” Janice waited until the room was void of students before joining me. “I have some people waiting in my office for you.” Her eyes glistened. Crap, I was getting canned. So much for freaking tenure.
“They are trolls,” I mumbled under my breath as I followed her out. Shit, I needed to compose myself. It might not be as bad as I was assuming.
“Trolls? No. No, Carter, nothing like that.” She pushed the door of the lecture hall open, effectively ending our conversation.
Her office was on the next floor and, as we climbed the steps, students from my class chattering in the landing, I felt it less than ideal to try to pump her for any information. We’d be there soon enough. We walked out of the stairwell and turned into the corridor, her office coming into view, and my stomach fell.
I wasn’t getting canned. I was getting arrested. Two police officers stood outside the door, and voices could be heard from within the office.
“Carter Bates.” I held out my hand as we reached the first officer.
“Officer Donovan and Officer Travis.” He failed to either meet my eyes or shake my hand, and I let it drop. “We would like to speak to you before we go inside.”
“Okay?” It very much was not okay, but Janice settled her hand on my shoulder reassuringly, so maybe I had jumped to the wrong conclusion with the arrested thing. Not that I’d broken the law, but I was in a controversial enough profession, that didn’t always mean anything.
“I’m sorry, sir. There has been an accident.” Officer Donovan began as my nephew, Jace, came barreling out at me, wrapping his little arms around my legs.
“Car-Car.” His nickname for me rang through my ears. “Did you see? Did you see?” I reached down and picked him up, the situation becoming far too clear. I’d been worried about Internet trolls and false allegations when the situation was so much worse.
“See what, little man?” My voice cracked with emotion.
“We rode in a police car. No sirens, though.”
I hugged him tightly. “How exciting, Jase. Do you remember Dean Ward?” My brother had brought the kids a couple of times when his child care fell through. Being a single dad was hard on a good day, and I’d always been willing to lend a hand. I had a feeling curling in my gut that today he would need more than a hand.
“Uh-huh.” He nodded as she reached out a hand for him.
“Why don’t you go with her.”
“Yes, come with me. I think I have some crayons for you and your sisters to use.”
He went willingly, and her words sealed what I’d known in my gut. Something had happened to Joey. How bad was the accident?
“Tell me,” I whispered to the officers as Janice ushered him into the office and closed the door.
“Joseph Bates was on his way to pick up the kids from daycare. Apparently there was a plumbing problem and they closed early. A car was going the wrong way on a one-way street and hit him head-on. Neither driver made it. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
I crumpled to the floor, tears flowing freely. Jase was my only family. He and his children were the world to me, and now he was gone. leaving his children with no one. Their alpha father, Jase, Senior had passed away in a training exercise while deployed some time back. They had no one but me, and what kind of a parent would I be? I was an underpaid workaholic in a job that brought less than the best kind of attention on myself.
“Professor Bates?” The officer gave my shoulder a squeeze.
I somehow managed to stand up and pull myself together enough to continue the conversation.
“Yes?”
“We have not told the children yet. We wanted to see if you would be willing to take them first. If not, we are going to let the social worker at the foster care intake office tell them.”
“I have to tell them their father is gone?” A sob escaped me.
“Yes, sir.” He failed to meet my eyes as he spoke. “And...ummm...Dean Ward said she would be happy to help you with anything you need to get settled in.”
It wasn’t until later that night when I settled the children into their beds and sat down with Janice, who had kindly come over to assist me as promised, that I’d learned just how many connections and strings she had pulled to make this as easy as possible for the children. Her partner, Sally, an ER nurse, was on duty when the call came in and immediately recognized my name on the emergency contact list, having met me at multiple staff parties. Turned out, being in the social work department was exactly where I had needed to be.
Now, if only it could help me be the father figure I suddenly needed to be. Because I wasn’t much, but I was all they had. I’d heard a lot of horror stories at those parties. The system was overtaxed and not anywhere I’d send my family. Joey would expect me to step up—and I would.
Chapter Two
Charles Beckham Tenner, III
I hiked my bag onto my shoulder and strolled through the quad, a cup of my favorite mocha on ice in my hand. Other students had newspapers in their hands. Some of them paired up, looking at the same black-on-white words. Strange—students usually read news online. Must be something big in the university world.
A cool breeze from inside the building hit me as I opened the doors to the General Sciences department. They always kept everything cool there because of experiments and germs and bacteria. At least, that’s what the older woman who was department head sai
d. Personally, I thought she was going through a bit of menopause, but I had the good sense to keep that notion to myself.
At the end of the hall, I took the stairs down to Professor Ray’s basement office, dropped my bag on the desk, and got to work. The professor was fine with the extended hours of being a teacher and always took the time to see students one on one but wasn’t really into grading.
A stack of over fifty papers lay on my desk. Who even printed papers anymore? I could’ve just made comments and graded them online.
That’s what happens when you work for a professor from the Dark Ages, but I needed the clout that came from this job in order to complete my degree in chemistry and get a decent job.
This was so not my calling in life.
Originally, I’d attended a high-priced school intending to become a lawyer, but then my pappy got sick. I dropped out to help him, losing my scholarship in the process, but it didn’t matter.
Grandpa Anderson had been my best friend. He was there for me when my parents weren’t, which was all the time. He took me fishing and taught me life lessons. It wasn’t until later that I realized those lessons were worth my weight in gold. That was before the cancer started to eat away at him.
My dads refused to care for him, wanting to hire a team of home-health nurses instead. Even at eighteen, I knew that was bullshit. So I did it. I took care of him, fed him, cleaned him, made sure he was cared for until he passed away while I read to him one night.
When I was ready to come back to school, I had to find a cheaper one, not wanting to be strapped down by student loans for the rest of my life.
Now I worked here and barely made ends meet, but that was okay. I had a goal in mind, and as long as progress was being made, it was okay.
But that was five years ago. I needed to get over it.
I got through half the pile before I realized it was past noon. The peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in my bag was squished, but it would have to do along with some chips I’d swiped from the department meeting the week before.
Shuffling through my pockets and bag, I found enough change to buy a soda from the machine down the hall. Professor Ray’s door was shut, which was normal when he was meeting with students, but there was a letter taped to the door. I thought to pick it up and deliver it to him personally, but the department’s stamp was on the seal and I left it alone.
I stayed until seven that night when I clicked off the light on the desk and stood to go home. Ramen for dinner—again.
“Dude, did you hear? Why are you grading papers?”
Kevin, a student of Professor Ray’s, stepped into the office just as I was gathering my things. He was also my roommate. Long story short, we shared a shitty apartment on the outskirts of campus, and both of us had ramen breath.
“Um, because it’s my job?” I replied.
“Here.” He shoved a newspaper into my hands.
The headline read Professor Accused of Sexual Misconduct with Underaged Students.
Below the headline was a picture, and seeing it made my chest hurt and my stomach churn. Professor Ray?
“What the hell?”
Kevin barked, “He’s been boinking students left and right. In his office. Underage students. No joke. You really didn’t know?”
Of course I didn’t know.
“I wouldn’t have worked here if I knew, Kevin. Don’t be an asshole.”
He shrugged and headed down the hallway, whistling like my life, and maybe my career, hadn’t just been dumped into the nearest trash can.
Now I knew why everyone was all of the sudden so interested in the news. This was the first huge scandal to hit our university in years, at least the first that I knew of.
I walked home, my stomach and heart heavy. I needed to find another job, stat. Three sets of stairs took me to my apartment, where I found a bright-green note attached to the door.
Notice of Eviction.
They had to be fucking kidding me.
According to the note, the rent hadn’t been paid in three months, and we would be out on our asses by the end of the month, in exactly ten days.
Perfect. I called up Kevin who sputtered excuses about needing the cash I’d given him for rent and saying he would fix it.
There was no way he could fix this unless he suddenly became a lottery winner. Asshole.
Inside my apartment, I had a mini panic attack. Trying to maintain a normal breathing pattern despite my stress, I opened my laptop and began to scroll Craigslist for job opportunities—anything would do.
The first ad, placed just hours ago, read Manny Wanted. Live-in. Needed Immediately.
I had brothers and sisters. I could change diapers and play with kids.
Plus, you know, a place to live would be nice.
I could do this—right?
After clicking on more info, I pulled out my cell phone and called.
Chapter Three
Carter
Two weeks after my brother passed, I still hadn’t figured out a viable option for the addition of three new little ones into my daily life. Sure, I loved them and would do whatever it took—I just wasn’t sure what that was.
The college had given me a week’s bereavement leave followed by two weeks’ family leave, the typical time allowed for an alpha when his omega had a baby. I wasn’t sure how Janice managed to convince HR to do that, but I wasn’t going to complain.
That left me exactly one week to figure out how to juggle all this.
“Thank you for watching the kids today,” I blurted as Janice opened her door. I had Jase in my left arm, his younger sister Chelsea in my other, and their big sister Hannah standing by my side. I had an appointment with a lawyer, the one whose name was some of the paperwork I was going to see him to figure out. Joey had a hot mess of paperwork in his fireproof box.
“Not a problem. Sally and I are looking forward to having them. She even made cookies.” The sweet woman held out her arms, and Jase eagerly went to her. Chelsea was less excited about the entire thing.
It took me a solid ten minutes to get the kids settled in enough that I could go. I didn’t blame the girls for being leery of me leaving. Their dad had left them at daycare and they never saw him again.
I drove the short distance to the lawyer’s office and parked my car out front then grabbed the lockbox and walked inside. I was greeted by a receptionist who led me to a small conference room where the attorney, Tanner Smyth, waited.
He held out his hand, and we shook. “I want to say again, I wish we could’ve met under better circumstances.”
He and I both. I just nodded.
“Let’s settle in and figure all of this out.”
And that was just what we did. By the time the box was emptied, we had piles all over the table. No wonder we met in the conference room and not his office.
“It looks worse than when it was in the box,” I teased. Although it was equally overwhelming.
“Let’s make it less so.” He stood up and opened a cabinet door hidden in the wainscoting. Brilliant use of space. He grabbed some file folders and a couple of pieces of cardboard that quickly turned into a file box. “This, of course, is not ideal. Your brother was smart with the fireproof box, but this will be more helpful for you in the short term.”
I just nodded, not sure what else to say.
“In this file, let’s put all of the children’s papers—birth certificates, a copy of both their fathers’ death certificates, vaccination records—that kind of thing.” That remarkably took a decent number of things from the table.
He did the same with other categories from house paperwork to personal papers such as Joey’s diploma. Within ten minutes, he had half the table emptied and the new file box filling up.
“There is still a lot here.” I looked at the remaining pile.
“And this will be the hardest to go through from a logistical perspective. So, let’s have at it. This half I call the money headache.” And headache it was.
&nb
sp; There was so much to weed through but, surprisingly, in all of its disorganization, my brother had provided well for their future should something happen to him. Which made sense, given the loss of his mate. That kind of thing opens eyes. It did for me anyway.
“So,” I said, “bottom line, the kids have a regular income coming in that should cover daycare at a minimum. As well, they have enough insurance money coming to them that we can set up college funds that should more than cover their lives during that time, and I was left his current accounts and a paid-off house to keep or sell, depending on what I feel is best for the children?” I clarified even after the poor man had explained it to me umpteen times.
“Exactly. But if I may be so bold—”
I gave him a nod.
“I knew your brother, and he would not want you to keep the house if it was going to be too painful.”
It had been our parents’ at one time, so painful didn’t begin to describe it.
“But it is all the children know.” Something my coworker Larry reminded me of multiple times when we ate lunch together and I mentioned bringing them to my place and tried to figure out how we would all fit.
“And if you sell it and add onto your place, that will become what they know now.”
“You think my brother would approve?” Everything I’d done since the officers gave me the news had been with that in mind. It was why I’d abided by his wishes to have no big service, something he’d made me promise as he sobbed in my arms at Jase, Senior’s funeral. It was why I read them the same storybooks Joey had read them when their alpha father had died. It was why I told a happy story about Mac the frog every morning over breakfast. “I mean, I am his brother, but I’m not sure.” About anything.
“Let’s put it this way, I know that if you fully dormer your second floor and remove your back deck, adding on there, that you would have enough room for you guys and a dog.” He’d stopped by once after the funeral, and apparently been scoping the place out more than I’d realized. I felt odd, but grateful.
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