by Aiden Bates
Carter pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're married, Tom. Show some respect."
Tom threw his hands up. "There's nothing wrong with it. Plenty of guys have a side piece. And it's not like Paul expected love when he accepted my proposal."
Carter's stomach gave a lurch. "There's so much wrong in that sentence that I don't know which thread to pull." He clutched at his middle. "Look, even if I were willing to be someone's… side piece… it wouldn't be right for me to be a patient's husband's other man. Okay? That's just gross." He shuddered.
"Come on, Carter. Don't be so stuck up. I mean, you're an omega, and you're in your thirties. You're not going to find someone to claim you, but you still need to be taken care of. I can give you that. Not all the time, but I can give you better than you could expect from any other alpha."
"Maybe. But I've gone this long without that, and I'm not taking it from one of my patients' partners. Tom, look, you had your chance, okay?" Carter could have elaborated. He wanted to elaborate, but someone knocked on the door and let himself in right away.
Tom's face darkened at the interruption, but he smoothed it over when he recognized one of his own clients. "Finn, man, good to see you!" He held out his hand to shake.
Riley shook Tom's hand, but his expression was cool. "Tom, hi. I wasn't expecting to see you here. Carter, I was wondering if I could maybe talk to you about something confidential for a moment, but I can see that you're with a patient. I can wait in your office."
Tom flinched when Riley addressed Carter by his first name. Carter had to fight not to do the same. After all, they'd never been on a first name basis. "You know what? Why don't you join us, Finn?" Tom's smile looked a little cracked, but he patted Riley on the arm like the pair was good friends. "My omega, Paul, is pregnant again. Let's all celebrate!"
Riley met Carter's eye and gave a little roll of his own, and then he followed along. "Another baby? Aren't his hands full with three?"
People in New Jersey had apparently been raised with no manners. Carter wasn't about to complain, though. Not when Riley's ridiculousness got him out of something he didn't want. Tom certainly didn't seem to be all that interested in pushing back. "I've always wanted a baseball team," he laughed, stuffing his hands into his pockets and tossing his head back. "Paul's right on board with me, you know? We've both always wanted a big family. That's the main reason for a guy our age to go after a guy his age, right?" He patted Riley on the back. "I mean, Paul's young enough to give me all the kids I want and still have the energy to take care of them."
"I see." Riley's tone made it clear that he didn't see, not at all, but Tom didn't seem to care. He hadn't seen Riley around kids and didn't understand that Riley thought that children were a sexually transmitted disease.
"What about you, Finn? Having any thoughts about having kids of your own?" Tom opened the door to the ultrasound room.
"Oh God no." Riley recoiled. "Obstetrics is a cost center, not a service I hope to ever need." He shuddered.
Paul looked up as they walked in. His brown eyes missed nothing, especially not the way that Riley kept himself between Tom and Carter. He relaxed, ever so slightly.
The ultrasound tech got to work, glancing over at Riley in abject terror every few seconds. Carter tried not to get irritated. He'd be afraid of Riley too, if he had mouths to feed. Instead, he interpreted the results so the poor woman wouldn't have to speak in front of the CEO. "Okay, so over here we have the head, and over here we have the rump. You can see the heart beating nice and strong, we like to see that. Mary, if you could maybe get a little bit of a better angle—that's perfect. Yeah, so far everything looks normal. Like we discussed in the exam room, you might want to come back for another ultrasound in a month, just to double check, but for now you're golden."
Mary hit print and smiled at Tom and Paul, but couldn't bring herself to speak.
Tom frowned at the screen shot. "It looks like a bean."
"Have you never seen a sonogram from early pregnancy before?" Carter snorted. "Yeah. It looks like a bean. They all kind of look like beans at this stage, until they grow a bit more. Then they get scary looking. It's not until the end that they start to look like people. All right, Paul. Let's get you weighed in and start up a pregnancy record for this birth."
He led Paul back to the exam room and waved his finger at Tom when Tom tried to follow. "Ah ah! We have to leave something to Dad's imagination, don't we?"
Riley dropped his hand onto Tom's shoulder. "Come on, we can wait in the reception area. I wanted to run an investment by you anyway, this is as good a time as any to do it." He pulled the door shut behind himself as he led Tom firmly away from the exam room.
Both Paul and Carter relaxed once they were alone. Relaxation didn't mean that Paul lost any of his contempt, of course. "So that's your new man? I guess it's good that he doesn't like children."
Carter shook his head. "He's not my partner." The words stung. He hated himself for letting them sting, but hating himself didn't lessen the ache. "He's the hospital CEO. You know I'm not going to do anything against you, Paul. I keep my hands to myself. I respect you, I respect your marriage. You know this."
Paul snorted and stood up on the scale. "You won't be able to help yourself. You love him, and you're single. It doesn't matter what kind of degree you have, or what kind of job. You're still nothing but an omega. You're just as weak as any of the rest of us. You should've belonged to someone long before now, for your own protection if not everyone else's. You can't help but break homes apart."
Carter scoffed. "He chose you, Paul. You understand that, right? I was there, I was available to him, but he chose you. You can trust him, and you can trust me."
Paul's laugh was bitter. "He chose me, sure, but it's not my name that he screams in the middle of the night."
Carter sighed and noted Paul's weight on his tablet. "Am I correct in assuming that you'd rather see Allen unless something goes wrong?"
"Of course." Paul looked away from him. "I know you don't want to lead him astray. It's just hard not to hate you."
"Believe me. I get it." He stepped back and sent a note to the receptionist. "All right, make your next appointment at the front desk. I just made a note in your file, so they won't say anything about making the appointment with Allen. They'll just do it."
Paul glowered at the door. "Why does he insist on having you deliver my babies?"
Carter sighed. "Well, part of it is that until recently I was the only certified omega surgeon here. If things went south, he wanted to make sure that you had the right care."
"We both know that's not why." Paul shot him a rare grin. "Thanks, Carter." He left the exam room, and Carter retreated to his own office.
Riley waited for him there. "More drama?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Carter opened his mouth to object, but then he closed it again. "You know what? It's not like you didn't hear it."
Riley shrugged. "I heard the tail end of something that's been going on for a long time. I know how it sounded right then and there. I don't know how it was." He uncrossed his legs. "You can tell me if you want."
Carter closed his eyes and tried to pretend that Riley was someone else, or even a statue. His body was telling him that familiar scent meant things like safety and protection. His mind knew better. "He and I used to be together. We were together for quite a while when I first got here, actually. We lived together for a little while."
"Okay." Riley nodded. "I'm with you so far."
Carter shrugged. "You heard him. He wanted a baseball team. Tons of kids, and a stay-at-home omega to take care of them. He knew he wouldn't get that with me. I'd put too much time and work into med school, so he had to make a choice. The baseball team of kids, or me. And then I was out on my ear while he went to a matchmaking service to get a young omega who would give him everything."
Riley stared at Carter for a second. He wanted to be angry, but instead he just looked away. He was too ashamed to do more than
that.
"What did his choice then have to do with pressuring you to be someone's side piece?" Riley scratched his head. "I mean, that's just vulgar."
Carter huffed a little at that. "Yeah. Well. He's right about that, at least. It's about what I can expect at this point, if I decided to make romance my goal." He lifted his head. "Fortunately, I've got a fulfilling career, plenty of friends, and a pretty good life without it. So I don't need to just settle for being my ex-lover's side guy when he needs a break from the guy he dropped me for."
"I can't imagine he ever knew you at all, if he ever thought you had so little backbone as that." Riley stood up. "I know you were here late last night. I checked the time logs. If you have a chance to go home early, you should take it."
Carter watched him leave. He'd seemed almost caring. Carter wondered what had brought that on.
***
The telephone was a major part of Finn's life. That was how business worked, and he'd signed up for that when he went into executive management. Most of the time it wasn't so bad. He liked the phone. It was a useful tool. Today, it felt like the thing was super-glued to his hand.
The constant phone conversations wouldn't be a problem in and of itself. He'd spent eight hours on one call once. Today, though, his calls seemed to last about ten to fifteen minutes. They just never stopped coming. He'd hang up, look at his screen, and then the shrill ringtone that he loathed so much would scrape across his eardrums yet again.
First came Tom Geary. Geary had a legitimate reason to call Finn. Geary was one of his lawyers, for crying out loud. Finn had a few different irons in the fire, and he needed Geary to bring those deals to completion. Finn didn't want to let Geary go, either. The guy was the best in Syracuse, or so his record showed.
When Geary shifted the conversation to another topic, though, Finn found himself reconsidering that plan. "So I noticed you and Carter are on a first name basis now."
Finn made a face. Of course he was on a first name basis with Carter. They'd shared sweat. "Yeah, well, we've been working together quite a bit, trying to bring hospital expenses down. What about it?"
"Nothing, nothing. My son, Adam, mentioned that you'd shown up to Carter's house while the kids were there."
Finn toyed with a pencil. "Yeah. I didn't think to call ahead. I should have, it was rude of me."
"Do you go to his place often?"
Finn knew what Geary wanted to ask, but he decided to let him twist for a while. "If I have to. What's this about, Tom? I know he's friends with your husband, but this is kind of a weird line of questioning."
"The thing is, Carter doesn't have anyone to look after him. His parents live far away, and he doesn't have a man to keep him safe. So I guess it kind of falls to me, right? I mean, it's not like you can leave an omega all alone in the world."
Finn almost dropped his phone as he recoiled. Tom couldn't think of his relationship with Carter like that, could he? Sure, he didn't know that Finn had overheard him pestering Carter, but that didn't mean that he didn't see Carter as somehow under his protection. He frowned. "I guess that living as someone's side piece counts as protection?"
No sound came through the receiver. Finn wondered if Tom had hung up on him, or maybe fallen over dead, but then Tom cleared his throat. "You, ah, you heard that."
Finn straightened up. "I'm not interfering. It's not my place to judge. But yes, I heard it, and it's hardly appropriate for his office, Tom. Whatever's going on between you, don't bring it to the workplace."
Tom exhaled hard, harder than a sigh. "Yeah. Sorry. That was just… I mean it was a family moment, you know?"
"Okay. Still not appropriate for the workplace. I didn't eavesdrop, Tom. It was plainly audible to anyone who might have walked up." Finn opened up the solitaire app on his computer. It would be a good distraction from his alpha anger.
"Are you making a play for him?"
Finn scoffed. "I don't do relationships, and even if I did he's a subordinate. That would be even more inappropriate than you coming into his office to try to lure him into being your side guy. I'm a professional, Tom. Speaking of professional, have you heard back from the sellers on that West Side property? I think it would be a good idea for us to set up one of our remote centers there, for people who can't or won't come down to the main hospital."
"Wouldn't that be kind of a giant money sink?" Tom's voice rose three octaves. Good, he was off of his game. "Anyway, it's good that you're not interested in Carter. He doesn't need a new alpha. He's got one."
"Well I guess that's good to know. So. About that building on the West Side?"
Tom made some excuses and got off the phone. Finn found himself left to shake his head. Maybe it was having kids that did it him. Oh well. Tom might be an ass, but at least Carter knew better than to fall for that crap. Why would Tom honestly think that Carter would want to be his side guy, anyway? Carter deserved better than that.
Not that Finn had treated him any better. The situation was different, though. Finn had slept with Carter once, to benefit both of them. Tom wanted to have his cake and eat it too, and not for Carter's benefit at all.
The next call came from that guy in IT. He wanted to talk about that software glitch that was messing around with everyone's paycheck, but he didn't have any actual news. For a second Finn wondered why Nifterick was bothering him with this nonsense, and then he remembered the update he'd asked for.
The next call he got came from Jerry Wilton, the head of the Internal Audit department back at corporate headquarters in Cleveland. Finn and Jerry had been fairly good buddies when Finn had lived in Cleveland. Finn wouldn't say that he was too close to Jerry—it wouldn't be right to be overly close with the auditor, for crying out loud—but they got along well enough to share beers after a long day at work.
"How's life in Syracuse treating you?" Jerry asked him.
Finn recognized the tone to his friend's voice. He sounded calm and professional, of course, but he also sounded tense. He had something to say. He probably wouldn't have called if he hadn't. They might have been tight when Finn lived in Cleveland, but they hadn't kept in touch over the past couple of months. "Syracuse isn't too bad. I've lived in worse places. How are things in Cleveland?"
Jerry grunted. "Our baseball team kind of sucks. But you knew that. Listen, Finn, I'm calling about some irregularities that have shown up in the systems at Silver Oak. You weren't being targeted, we would always want to take a closer look at a facility that had just come into the family."
Finn huffed out a little laugh. "Yeah, I know that, Jerry. Is this the hundred dollars that gets taken out and returned thing? That came up in a meeting last Friday. You should have seen it in my CEO notes that got sent in on Monday. I just got a call from Nifterick—he's the IT director, he's legacy and I don't think you know him—and he hasn't made any progress in tracking things down yet. Gerig tells me that so far there haven't been any impacts to the financial system yet."
"Then Gerig isn't investigating." Jerry's voice was tight and serious. "Money is coming out of accounts. It's just being hidden in a long string of complex transactions designed to make it look, to an untrained eye, as though the money is popping right back into the appropriate accounts. The amounts coming out of any one account are small, but they add up. Finn, you've got a problem there."
Finn's mouth went dry. "An embezzlement problem."
"Yeah."
Finn closed his eyes. "Do you have any idea, any starting point where we could look into this?"
"Don't you? I mean it's your shop, man." Jerry's voice loosened up, but just a little.
"It could be anyone. Gerig was supposed to be looking into this and getting a handle on it, but it sounds like he's not even remotely aware." Finn pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are the sums substantial or no?"
"So they're different, right?" Jerry sounded a little bit more awake now. "About a hundred bucks per employee, with a total that varies depending on the number of employees affected that we
ek. So some weeks it's four, because your Patient and Guest Relations department is staffed mostly by volunteers while your Emergency department is the size of freaking Kansas. Seriously, Finn, I want to take a look there and see where you might be able to make some changes."
"Be my guest. Beware of Dr. Idoni, though. He will not hesitate to get right up in your grill if he thinks you're compromising patient care." Finn chuckled, thinking about the sparks that flew between them.
Jerry didn't seem to think that much was funny about an insubordinate doctor. "Is he one of the original staff?" he asked after a moment.
"He is. He's an obstetrician with a second specialization in omega care. Up until last month, he was the only surgeon in the region with the right certification to perform a C-section on an omega. The resident we just passed is sitting for his boards next month, but he should pass without a problem. Why?"