A Bundle of Mannies

by Lorelei M. Hart

  Unless I remembered the directions wrong.

  I reread the insert for the fifth time. I’m gonna be a dad. Carter and I are going to be dads.

  If I had thought waiting the two minutes until I caved and looked at the test was challenging, it was nothing compared to waiting the twenty minutes until Carter walked in with the milk.

  “Honey, I’m home and I have a present for you.” He set the milk on the counter.

  “I think I have a better present for you.” I took the milk and placed it in the fridge.

  “Oh, I doubt that. The milk was not your present.” He held open his arms and I walked right into them, kissing him deeply before nestling into the crook of his neck.

  “My present is still better.” I leaned back enough to look him in the eye. “We went to the present store today.”

  “Did you bring your gold coins?” He kissed my cheek. “Joey was clever with the whole gold coin thing.”

  “Do you know what they sell at the present store?” I asked, my hands settling on his ass.

  “Junk?”

  I shook my head.

  “Pregnancy tests.”

  He tilted his head, settled his hand between us and on my belly and I gave a subtle nod.

  “You mean?” His eyes were almost as big as his smile.

  “I mean.”

  “You win.” He cupped my cheek. “Your present is way better. And to think I thought telling you the house was ready was a good present.”

  “The house is ready?” I’d all but given up hope on that happening ever.

  “It is and there is so much to say about that, but right now I need my lips for something else, Dad.”

  Dad. What a musical sound.

  “I like the sound of—” before I could finish my sentence his lips were on mine, exactly where they belonged.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Carter

  “What have we tried?” Larry asked. He, Stan, and I were sitting around a conference table with my file box, printed out spreadsheets highlighted in an array of colors, and a bunch of open laptops. If someone walked in, they’d probably think we knew what we were doing. We. Did. Not.

  I was so grateful to have them both. The university was fine with just fixing the grades that had been altered and moving on. At the scale of the changes, they took the easy solutions, some hacker was trying to prove how badass they were to their hacker group—nothing more. Except in my gut I knew it was more. And with the impending move in two weeks, the storage unit needing far more leeway than I’d have liked, and messing with our initial move-right-away plan, I wanted this off my plate so I could focus on my family—my growing family.

  I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that I was going to be a father and that Carter, the most amazing man I’d ever met as my baby’s dad.

  “So far, I sorted things by GPA, state of residency at time of enrollment, major, and socio economics according to financial aid packages received at time of enrollment.” Larry, bless his soul was able to work magic with the data we had.

  “So what does that leave?” Stan paced behind the laptops, also known as, his domain.

  “What about—wait.” Larry closed his eyes, sucking in his bottom lip the way he did when he was concentrating. “Remember when you had to deal with the whole Professor Ray thing?”

  “I thought about that but it wasn’t just the student I helped or even the students involved, in fact many of them were never even in my class.” It was an easy solution of course. What would make the asshat happy besides a get out of jail free card? Fucking up my grades. But it just didn’t fit as much as I tried to make it fit.

  “Except what if it does. Your class is all about omegas and their equality in all ways even with the shitty institutionalized bullshit we deal with, right?” Not that I’d ever put it that way.

  “What if this is...give me a minute.”

  Stan and I just gave each other the Larry’s at it again but we love him and will humor him look as he fiddled with his computer for about fifteen minutes.

  “Here. Look at this.” Stan and I huddled behind him. “Notice something?”

  I looked at the spreadsheet. It might as well have been in Japanese for all I could read.

  “Just tell us, oh genius.” Stan sighed exasperatedly.

  “Every single omega except two had their grades lowered. Every single alpha except one had their grade raised. Zero betas were impacted.”

  “So this was about my content, not just street cred for hackers?” I’d thought a lot of things, that hadn’t been one of them.

  “At first I’d thought so, too, but watch this.” He clicked some buttons and like magic, or at least magic to me, three names remained: Martin Bates, Linda Ray, and Samuel Ray.

  “Martin Bates—do you remember him?”

  “Yeah, really bright guy—top in my glass. One of the first alphas I had because they were interested and not because it was the only class left or part of their mandatory requirements,” and sadly I knew this for fact since the students were brutally honest about why they were in my class. “Come to think about it, the class used to joke and say he got—” Oh shit.

  “They thought you were his dad,” Stan finished for me, looking quite proud of himself.

  “I was nowhere near old enough. But yeah, they did.” He was a nontraditional student, and if I had three years I’d have been surprised.

  “Are the Ray entries related to Professor Ray by chance?” Stan interjected.

  And finally my dumb ass caught up.

  “Linda is a niece according to her emergency contact records. Samuel undetermined.” Larry puffed out his chest proud as punch for his information.

  “Are you supposed to have access to emergency contact information?” The last thing I needed was him getting fired over this.

  “Do you want to get home in time to take your omega to his doctor appointment?”

  “Midwife, and fair point.”

  We spent the next hour documenting all things and calling the right people. Nothing was proven and possibly not even actionable, but we gave it to the people who needed it and that was going to have to be enough. If nothing else, maybe this would open the university’s eyes to the security breach waiting to happen that was their electronic filing and data storage system.

  “I hate to rush, but I have an omega to take care of.” I grabbed my keys, glad I still had an hour to get home and collect him for the appointment.

  “I’m coming with you.” Stan cupped my shoulder.

  “Not gonna happen, big guy. The appointment is not a spectator sport.” And what a weird offer.

  “Ward texted me earlier and she’s sick so I said I’d watch the littles—but if you want them all there with you instead...that’s fine.” He locked the cabinet where he had stowed the paperwork and laptops. “I’d rather be bowling anyway.” Not that bowling midday in the summer was possible with the alley’s summer camps filling their lanes.

  “Come on, jackass.” I gave him a tilt of the head with a smile.

  “I have so many ideas for things to do with the kids.” He winked at Larry. “Do you have any glitter?”

  I so very much ignored that comment. Even if he was serious, he was watching them through the very exciting time of day called Nap Time.

  “See you for bowling, Larry?” Stan asked.

  “Couldn’t keep me away. Maybe Mr. Married over there will show his sorry ass soon.”

  “Maybe.” I rolled my eyes, trying to not let him see how close to true his words were. I’d already picked out the ring, a silicone one which was all the rage in the world of pregnancy blogs. All that was left was to figure out a grand gesture for when I popped the question; a flash mob, a perfect date, a trip—something.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Beck

  “Are you sure you don’t want to nap?” My exhaustion had me the epitome of the worst manny ever. No, not manny. I didn’t work for this family, I was part of it. Didn’t me
an I was doing a good job at that, either.

  “No nap. Not tired.” Chelsea jumped up and down as if to prove her point.

  And really they had no reason to be tired. I’d spent the stupid morning on the couch with Cuddles nestled by my head, me not wanting to get up, and putting on movies for them and exerted similar energy as they were fed cheese sandwiches and a banana for lunch. The lack of energy thing was the first thing I was going to ask the midwife about—the first of a bazillion.

  “More movies,” Jase pleaded.

  Nope. Let’s do crafts.” I pushed myself up and off the couch, the children gleeful as I mentioned their favorite activities—making messes—or as we all pretended, crafts.

  I got them settled at the small table we’d put in the kitchen for them and looked through the cabinet where all things crafty lived. If I had more energy, I’d have looked up something fun to do with the supplies we had, but I didn’t, so make what you want time it was. I was pretty confident that in some child development book somewhere, this was the best plan possible.

  I grabbed some glue sticks, paper, magazines, cotton balls, glitter, stickers, and crayons and spread them in the center of their small table.

  “Before you start, what are the rules?” I asked eyeing Jase who had a love of putting stickers on the walls for his collection.

  “No stickers on the wall and no eating anything,” Hannah recited the rule verbatim.

  “And no stickers on the baby.” Jase added our new addition to the rule after—well stickers on Chelsea.

  “Very well. Here you go.” I put one piece of paper in front of each of them and wrote their name in the corner the way they liked and let them go to town. They tore pictures from the magazine, colored, and glue stickered everything. Then came the glitter. Glitter was everywhere including Chelsea. Looked like Don’t glitter the baby was going to be a new rule after this.

  They were having a ball and all I had to do was watch, so I called the activity a win.

  “Hey,” Carter’s voice came from behind me. I’d somehow missed him coming in. “I’m home.” He came over to me and hugged me, whispering how he missed me as laughter filled the room, laughter that belonged to no one in our family.

  “My work here is done.” It was Stan pointing to Chelsea covered in glitter.

  “Looks like it is,” Carter agreed. “If you don’t need anything, we are out of here.” He reached down and took my hand in his.

  “I know where all things are, go have your appointment, I want to hear all things.”

  We said goodbye to Larry and the kids and took the short ride to the midwife. We’d spent hours researching whether we wanted a doctor or a midwife and were pleasantly surprised to find an office near the house that had both.

  “Before we go in…” My voice softened with each word, my hand on the buckle of his seat belt, not disengaging it even though we were there. “It asked me about the father and if we were...it asked stuff and I didn’t know what to put down.”

  “And you weren’t sure how?” he clarified, worry on his face.

  “It asked if…if I was a single omega which I’m not but...never mind.” I was at a loss for words. Did it matter what some stupid paper said? No, not really except ever since I saw that line on the paperwork, it mattered more than most anything.

  “Can you open the glove box for me? There is a little yellow bag in there I need.” His abrupt change in subject had me wanting to bolt from the car to the safety of the doctor’s office where they could resuscitate me if I died from embarrassment which I was just about to. Why did I have to say anything? Things had been going so well.

  I handed it to him and he reached inside and took out a little matching yellow box, slowly opening it for me. As a ring came into view, my ability to do anything but stare was stripped from me. He. Bought. A. Ring. “Does this help you with the paperwork?”

  “This is a...a…” Tears were forming in my eyes, a lump building in my throat as he took it out and slipped it on his finger, the material almost—no not almost—very flexible. “Is this plastic?”

  “Better.” He took my hand to his lips and kissed where the ring now sat. “Silicone so that you never have to take it off your entire pregnancy. No bloated fingers will stop this sucker from doing its job marking you as mine.” Look at my caveman. My omega studies professor of a caveman. I was so incredibly lucky.

  “This is the weirdest proposal ever.” I twirled the ring, looking at it from every angle. Weird somehow fit us perfectly.

  “So you will remember it, then?”

  I cursed the weird angle we were sitting at in the car, wanting him closer.

  “Of course I will. How could I not?” I mouthed plastic and it looked like a struggle for him not to laugh at my joke. Goddess, I loved him.

  “I had planned on doing a grand gesture.” He spoke matter-of-factly. I could only imagine.

  “Did I ruin it?” I unbuckled, rotating his body as much as the seat would allow so that he could face me.

  “Absolutely not, the important thing is you said yes and that you want to be mine for always.” I looked up at the ceiling mischievously. I hadn’t said yes, although slipping it on my finger implied I would. “Wait, you haven’t answered yet. Is that a no?”

  “That most definitely is not a no.” I leaned over and kissed him. “I love you and there is nothing more that I want than to be your omega—your husband.”

  “Good, put that on your form, then,” he sassed and I whipped out my pen and did just that in the most exaggerated manner ever. “Now let’s see this midwife and find out how many babies we got cooking in there.”

  “One. We have one,” I insisted as he got out of the car. As it was, this one baby made a household of six people.

  “One,” he said again as I opened his door for him, helping him out.

  “We shall see.” I took his hand in mine, running my finger over his ring. “I plan on getting you a proper ring, but the thought of you needing to take it off in a few months had me thinking this was a better plan.”

  “I like this one just fine, thank you very much.” I leaned my head on his arm as we walked in to meet with Joshua our midwife to reassure us that there was only one baby, that being tired was both normal and temporary, and that everything looked perfect.

  We left his office with a prescription for prenatals, a bunch of scheduled appointments, and my heart fuller than I ever thought possible.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Carter

  “I thought once we had everything here, we’d be all moved in.” I fell into the couch, overwhelmed by all of the things still needed doing after the moving helpers left. “I’d been so foolish.”

  We had a week before the semester began and so much needed to be done.

  “All the important things are done.” Beck handed me a cup of tea which was about the only thing I’d been letting him do even though, as he reminded me often, Joshua said I need to keep active. Joshua wasn’t there, and if he were, I’m sure active didn’t mean lugging boxes.

  And he was right—as always. The important things were done. Larry and Stan unpacked things in the kitchen and while it wasn’t necessarily where we’d have put things, it was close enough. And Janice and Sally helped with the kids’ bedrooms. More accurately, Janice put things away as Sally gave Beck little things to do to keep him from overexerting. He’d not been impressed, but I couldn’t care any less. That was my babe in the little belly he was sporting, and he already did far more than I’d have liked.

  “Thanks to all our help.” I took a long sip of the tea. “Lavender?” Or licking a sneaker. It was hard to tell.

  “No, some calming blend. Like it?”

  “It sort of tastes like...”

  “Dirt.” I nodded profusely. “I know. Next time we are going back to apple.”

  “I do like the apple tea best. Speaking of apples. I have something for you.”

  I got up and took the present I’d hidden behind the cereal
out, handing it to him.

  “And what does this have to do with apples?” He quirked his brow as he held the box.

  “Open it and see.”

  He opened up the gift, one I’d picked up the day after he got his practical assignment for this semester, his first one. I had managed to find a stethoscope that met all the criteria of their supply list and had the added feature of being designed for young patients sometimes looking like a puppy, others a frog and so on. It was perfect—I hoped.

  “This is a stethoscope.” He took it out and put it in his ears then took it off, letting it hang around his neck.

  “I know.”

  “With faces.” He picked up one attachment after another, his eyes filled with wonder.

  “This I also know.”

  “You got this for me.”

  “I did.”

  And then his tears came and not the happy tears I was wanting to give him. No these were something else entirely.

  “Even though I’m abandoning the family.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “I’d hardly call Chelsea hanging out at the campus daycare where I can see her between classes while the older two are at school two days a week abandoning us.” It had been far easier to arrange than I’d thought possible, and the children were in a much better place than they were a few short months ago. It boggled my mind how resilient they were. They got that from Joey. He’d always been the strong one from our family.

  “It felt like it—like maybe I should stop.” He sniffled. How long had he been feeling this way? Had he not figured out that I wanted the world for him and I’d do anything to get it for him?

  “Omega mine, answer me this. Do you want to be a nurse?” I cupped his cheek, meeting his eyes as he answered.

  “Yes.”

  “And did you uproot your entire life to make that happen?” He’d lost a scholarship to care for his grandfather and then worked his tail off to financially make it through school as a nontraditional student. He deserved to finish more than most everyone at the university, a higher percentage than I liked there only because it was expected and not because they gave a rat’s ass about their chosen field or lack of field in many cases.