Instant Family (Silver Oak Medical Center Book 4)

by Aiden Bates

"I got far enough to earn a PhD, thanks." Allen stood up too. He couldn't decide if he was amused by Brantley's reaction, or just annoyed. "I'm hardly the only man in Syracuse that doesn't cook. My ability to carry a child, under certain circumstances, doesn't define me. But thanks for narrowing my life to one set of parameters. I'd have thought a guy like you would know better, all things considered."

  Brantley staggered back. "Excuse me?"

  "You're gay. Where you come from, that defines your life and whether or not that life has value—and that's wrong. I'm gay, and I can have a child. I'm also a damn smart guy. I save lives every day, I bring lives into the world. I help people's dreams come true. I help build maybe a couple hundred families every year. I make lives better. I worked to put myself through school, and grad school. I bought my house with my own money, no help from a husband or anyone else. But you want to tell me I'm not going to get very far in life because I can't cook?" Sadie pressed her side into Allen's leg, and he calmed down.

  Brantley bowed his head. "I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "You're right. It's not exactly the same—I'm hardly going to harm you for not being able to cook, after all—but I was defining you inappropriately." Then he picked his head back up. "That doesn't mean I'm not going to take over your kitchen. And that doesn't mean I'm not going to teach you to cook, damn it. You've done something incredibly kind for me. I can't ever repay you. But I can try to teach you a skill that will keep you and that baby you're bringing home healthy for years to come."

  The tension bled out of Allen's body. "All right. Thank you."

  Brantley flashed him a grin. "Plus, if I do the cooking, then I don't have to do the washing up. And there's no way I'm going to pass on the chance to avoid washing dishes." He headed toward the stairs. "You'll have to excuse me. I've got a menu to plan, and we're going shopping tomorrow after we go pick up some more of my things."

  Allen just shook his head and sat down. If grocery shopping made Brantley happy, they could do it. He didn't need to be part of it, but he could try.

  He puttered around the main floor for a little while, and then he headed upstairs himself. The last time he'd lived with a guy, their first night together had gone very differently. Of course, they'd moved into an apartment that was new to both of them. They'd been too sore after moving furniture and boxes up all those stairs to argue about food. They hadn't been too sore for sex, though.

  He'd always figured if he did the cohabitation thing again he wouldn't be sleeping alone. Sadie, wonderful as she was, didn't count. Of course, he hadn't counted on moving in with someone just for the sake of appearances. He'd been okay with sleeping alone. He'd been single for a while now, and he'd accepted it.

  It wasn't like he had feelings for Brantley. Brantley was handsome, but that was about it. No, it had to be purely nostalgia that made Allen's king-size bed feel ten times bigger than it usually did. Only the memory of what had come before could make the bed feel this empty.

  With any luck, this whole charade would soon be over. They would be able to go back to their regular lives, and Allen would be able to recover his equilibrium. He liked living alone. No one judged him for eating frozen dinners or takeout. No one complained about his beloved dog.

  He heard Brantley moving down the stairs to the kitchen. Probably trying to figure out what he's got to work with. Allen rolled over and huffed out a little laugh. He's in for an unpleasant surprise. Allen curled up and closed his eyes. Brantley's judgment shouldn't matter to him. If he was careful, it wouldn't.

  ***

  Brantley heard water running at about three in the morning, and then he heard someone moving around on the same floor as him. His pulse raced in his ears, because he shouldn't have had anyone on the same floor as him. Then he remembered, and he leaned back against the firm pillows and tried to catch his breath. He wasn't in his own house. He was at Allen's, playing along for ICE.

  It was far too early for Allen to be awake. Was he an insomniac? Was he one of those gym-aholics? That would explain that incredible body of his, despite the atrocious diet.

  Brantley's phone showed a notification. He had two texts from Allen. He'd turned off all audio, but he could still see the message indicator. He picked the phone off the nightstand and checked the messages. Had a patient start his labor early. Going to work now. Then, Don't worry about Sadie. She'll be fine until I get home.

  Brantley frowned down at the screen. Brantley had no intention of worrying about the spoiled dog, but he couldn't be all that enthusiastic about the hours. Maybe they should rethink this whole living together thing, if Allen was going to be waking him up at all hours.

  No, Brantley would get used to it. Brantley had lived with others before. It had been a long time, but he'd get used to it again. He wasn't so rarified he couldn't learn to live with another person. He rolled over and closed his eyes. After he heard the front door close, he drifted back to sleep in moments.

  Allen still hadn't come home when Brantley woke up at nine. Brantley knew just enough about delivering babies to know they took their time coming into the world, so he didn't worry about it. Instead, he showered and got dressed. He had plenty of work to do, and he could probably get more done on his own than he could with Allen's help.

  He headed down into the kitchen to find the coffee. The dog, Sadie, was there. She ignored him, except for one baleful glare. That suited Brantley's needs just fine. He didn't have any trouble finding the coffee pot, but finding the coffee itself was more of a problem. He pawed through three cabinets before he finally found a glass jar on the highest shelf in the house. Then, of course, there was no cream or sugar in the entire place.

  He threw his hands up in the air. "Who doesn't keep cream or sugar in the house? Have I moved in with some kind of barbarian?"

  Sadie grunted. She didn't seem interested in moving. She just looked at the door.

  "You're no help at all." Brantley turned back to his task. How was he supposed to wake up if he couldn't make his coffee drinkable?

  Ten minutes later, the coffee had finished brewing. He found some powdered hot chocolate. It would have to do, since Allen didn't have anything normal in his house. He didn't even have any spices to add with the powdered chocolate, but Brantley could live with that for a day.

  He pulled out his phone and added spices and milk to the list.

  Allen had been right to chastise him the night before. Brantley had indeed narrowed his definition of what made an omega's life worthwhile. Maybe Gottlieb was right. Maybe Brantley hadn't assimilated as well as he'd thought. He'd fled one set of assumptions, but he'd brought others with him.

  That said, it seemed absurd that anyone, of any gender, wouldn't know how to feed himself in this day and age. Maybe, if Brantley hadn't been on his own for so long, he'd be in the same boat. Maybe not. Either way, he couldn't understand how a medical professional would be so willing to take so many risks with his health.

  He looked down at Sadie. "I don't know how long I'm going to be gone."

  Sadie didn't care. She looked at him for a second and flicked her eyes back to the door.

  "Look, do you need to go and do your dirty business or not?" Brantley felt a little absurd, talking to a dog like she was a person, but what option did he have? He walked to the door and opened it. Maybe Sadie would take the hint.

  Sadie picked her head up, the first interest she'd shown in anything, and then she walked over to a small basket under the table in the front entry. She stuck her head into the basket and pulled out a brown leash. Then she padded over to Brantley and nosed at his hand until he took the leash.

  He wiped his hand on his pants. "That's disgusting." He hadn't wanted to have to touch the dog, but he supposed she wasn't allowed off leash. He hooked the leash onto her collar and took her outside.

  Sadie was well-practiced, even if Brantley wasn’t. She went straight to a bush and peed, then she slouched back to the house. She didn't go back to her vigil, though. She sat in front of her food bowl and stared at i
t.

  "I'm not supposed to be feeding you. That's Allen's job." Brantley washed his hands in the kitchen sink.

  Sadie barked once and brought her paw down on her dish.

  "Fine." Brantley rolled his eyes and went for the plastic tub of dog food. He had no idea how much to feed her, but found Allen had left a note for a woman named Janine on the lid. Janine: Two Scoops, no more, even if she begs.

  "Okay then." Brantley gave Sadie two scoops of the kibble inside and covered the tub back up. "I'll see you when I see you, I suppose.” He backed away as Sadie ate and headed out to his car.

  He drove back down to his house in Onondaga to get some more of his things. He saw a dark, unmarked SUV following him and gripped the wheel, but he ignored it. He couldn't do anything else. It wasn't like he could just make them go away.

  Yesterday, he'd brought some of his clothes. He had more that he wanted to bring, and given the sorry state of Allen's supplies, he decided to pack up his pots and pans, too. He brought his spices and dried herbs, and his favorite cooking appliances. By that point, his trunk was full. He would need room for groceries, so he locked up again and headed for Wegmans.

  Funny, he thought. The house had never seemed so quiet before.

  He had a list for Wegmans, conveniently stored in the app on his phone. It helped him get through the store faster, even if he did have to dodge other customers and ill-mannered children, and by one o'clock he was on his way back out to East Syracuse.

  He'd just finished unpacking when Allen pulled back up to the house. Brantley had been on the verge of resenting Allen. He would have welcomed some help with the groceries at least, and wasn't a fan of being covered in sweat as he was. When he saw Allen, though, his irritation died in his throat. "Are you okay?"

  Allen gave him a wan grin. "Yeah. Just tired. Thanks, though." He blinked at the sea of bags around the kitchen. "You went shopping." Sadie bounded up to him and leaned into his legs, desperate for the affection he lavished on her.

  Brantley snorted. "You didn't even have cream or sugar." He watched the way Allen rubbed Sadie's head and shoulders, and all of his resentment returned. Why should he resent Allen's relationship with his dog? It wasn't as though Brantley had any kind of relationship with him. There was no reason for Brantley to feel jealous. Not that he would mind having those hands on him, under other circumstances.

  Allen ducked his head. "Sorry. I'm a lousy host. I guess I just forget that anyone uses that stuff." He sighed. "Here, let me give you a hand with all of that."

  Brantley's heart melted. "Go sit down before you fall down." He waved a hand and smiled at Allen, to soften the blow. "Rest a little, play with Sadie, and when I've unpacked I'll bring us a couple of drinks. Then we can start your first cooking lesson. Don't worry. It will be so easy even Sadie could manage it."

  Sadie wagged her tail.

  Allen chuckled and scratched her behind her ears. "I should feed her."

  "Oh, I took care of her this morning." Brantley felt his cheeks get hot. Thankfully, his dark skin would most likely keep Allen from noticing.

  "I thought you weren't willing to do that." Allen frowned.

  "I wasn't. But she seemed so sad, just sitting there waiting for you. I had to do something." Brantley turned away so Allen wouldn't see him smile. "Go on, go sit outside and enjoy the summer. Try not to get a sunburn, you know what they lead to."

  Allen snickered and headed out onto the back patio.

  Brantley finished putting the groceries away and made a pitcher of rum punch before heading out onto the patio. Allen hadn't done much to decorate inside, but the deck outside was a nice enough place to sit. He even had some mosquito netting out here. Brantley took in the sight and nodded with approval. "You must spend a lot of time out here."

  "As much as I can." Allen accepted the glass Brantley held out to him with lifted eyebrows. "This looks like it's going to knock my socks off."

  "It's Saturday, and if they try to call you back into work I'm going to yell at them until they cry. Hey, I'm supposed to be your boyfriend. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?" Brantley sat down in the lounger next to Allen's.

  Allen relaxed and smiled. It was a real smile this time, not just a grin or a smirk. Brantley had seen him smile at Sadie, but Brantley himself had never been the target. He found some kind of warmth soothing all of the little aches that came from packing and unpacking, lifting and carrying. One smile shouldn't be able to cause that.

  "That's sweet." He sipped from his drink. "Oh, that's very nice."

  "Thank you." Brantley lifted his drink to salute Allen and sipped. "So. Do you want to tell me what happened?"

  Allen closed his eyes. "It was a long and difficult birth. It was this patient's first time. His husband had been helpful throughout the whole process, you know? And then, just before we saw the baby's head, he told my patient he was leaving him." Allen took another, deeper drink. "I'm not a violent guy, but I did give some serious thought to inappropriate use of the forceps at that point."

  Brantley winced. Most men would have. "Yeah. Totally justified, if shockingly creative. What happened next?"

  Allen shrugged. "Asshat left. The baby came out, not that the patient was in a position to do much to help by that point. I got his permission to reach out to a sister, who's coming to stay with him, and to Jason Delancey, who's trying to protect the patient and his baby's legal interests until he can find his own lawyer." He looked over at Brantley. "I just can't understand it, you know?"

  Brantley settled back into his lounger. "There's a lot we don't see," he said after a moment. "We see the patient, and we might see the spouse. There's a lot going on, though, they never let us know about. They don't want us to judge them, so they keep secrets. We can't do anything about it. I do wish it could be different." He took another sip from his punch. "I had a patient suddenly stop all treatment. She went into palliative care, even though her cancer was completely treatable. There was no reason for it that I could see. I tried to argue her out of it, and her husband seemed completely distraught.

  "It was only at the funeral, when I saw her friends and the way they refused to even speak to her husband, that I thought something might not be as it seemed. When he married another woman less than a month after his wife passed, I tried not to pass judgment. After all, it's not like they didn't know the end was coming. I had one of the lady's friends as a patient about two years later, and she was more than happy to spill." Brantley looked into his drink.

  "The wife had found her husband having an affair with the woman he'd later married. She didn't believe in divorce, and she'd been unhappy with the man anyway. So rather than do something she didn't believe in…"

  Allen recoiled. "That's terrible."

  "Isn't it? I had no way of knowing that was going on at home. She was perfectly calm and placid as she came to every office visit. She died with a smile on her face." Brantley chuckled. "Maybe that's because she left most of her assets to animal rescue groups."

  "Good for her." Allen scratched Sadie on the head. "I mean about that. The rest of it is making my blood run cold."

  "That's what the punch is for." Brantley took another drink.

  "Excellent point." Allen followed his example. "What is it that makes all of these people so unhappy? Of course, we couldn't have known. And we couldn't have done much about it, even if we had. I'm there to deliver babies. I'm not exactly equipped to play relationship counselor. I don't have a lot of successes under my belt."

  Brantley tilted his head to the side. "I can't say as I do either. Of course, that's force of habit in my case. A lifetime of hiding my relationships so no one dies doesn't set one up for success once the danger is past."

  "Good point." Sadie brought Allen a tennis ball, and he tossed it off of the deck. She chased it, and Allen looked over at Brantley. "Still, I can't help but wonder. What makes someone so unhappy they'd rather take those extremes than work it out, or in your patient's case, just leave?" He rubbed at the back of his
neck. "I can't imagine just walking out on someone like that, at a time like that, with no warning or explanation."

  "Neither can I. But I guess we can't know what we'd do until we're in that situation ourselves." Brantley lifted his glass again. "Here's to never letting it get that bad."

  "Amen." Allen clinked glasses with him, just before Sadie brought the ball back. She dropped it into his lap, a sodden and disgusting mass of whatever it was tennis balls were made of, and barked once. "And on that note."

  Brantley sat back and watched as Allen tossed the ball again. No, he couldn't imagine what would lead someone to behave like those people had. He was starting to see what could lead a person to commit, though.

  Chapter Six

  Allen looked around at the children running around his house. "What exactly happened at day camp again, Janine?"

  "Oh. Well, the camp had a measles outbreak. Three kids came down with it, all at the same time." Janine made a face. "My kids are vaccinated, and they've tested negative, but they shut down the camp because apparently there were just too many unvaccinated kids to risk it. So now I get the joy and wonder of trying to find a new option for them for the summer."