by Aiden Bates
He didn't worry about that when he woke up. It was a big house, and he still wasn't used to it yet. The illusion of companionship was comforting, and it had nothing to do with Carter himself. It was just hormonal anyway. That would fade along with the lingering traces of Carter's scent, and Finn would be able to return to his focus on profits.
He went through his usual round of weekend activity with renewed determination. Carter crossed his mind, but he fought the image away. He had work to do. The whole point of sex with Carter had been to make it easier to get work done, for crying out loud. He checked in at the hospital on both Saturday and Sunday and put out some figurative fires, and one literal fire in the cafeteria, and then he headed over to the country club.
This was why guys like Carter couldn't succeed in administration. Guys like Carter, however beautiful they might be, wouldn't even make it as the chief medical officer. Sure, Carter was brilliant. He was a dedicated physician and surgeon. But he had no idea how to get deals done.
The country club offered a gym, and a nice gym at that. Carter made use of it every day. That wasn't the reason he joined. On Saturday he hit the links with his own CFO, Robert Gerig, and with the dean of the medical school up at the university. The dean of Harvard Medical School was joining them too, having flown out just to talk to some of the hospitals in the Rust Belt about taking residents and interns.
They had a more formal meeting scheduled with the rest of the hospital's executive board on Monday, but by the time Monday came around everything would have been sorted out between both deans and Finn. And they would have done it in a friendly atmosphere, doing something that they all enjoyed.
On Sunday, Finn went through the same song and dance with the deans from Duke Medical School and Stanford Medical School. The dean from Stanford asked about one of their best and brightest alums, of course. Having to listen to the dean from Stanford wax rhapsodic about Carter Idoni didn't help drive the omega from Finn's mind, especially when Finn only wanted him gone out of necessity rather than desire.
Maybe in another time or place, things could have been different. Of course, in another time or place, Finn wouldn't be Finn.
Besides, if Carter wanted a partner he'd have had one by now. Finn shoved all thoughts of omegas, Carter, and tenderness away from his mind. He didn't need those things. They didn't contribute to his success—quite the opposite.
On Monday, he went into the regular status meeting with the executive team with at least the appearance of his usual focus. Each department reviewed their progress against their goals and brought up any pressing issues that had come up during the previous week so that they could be addressed with the group. This week there weren't many pressing issues except in human resources. HR reported an uptick in resignations in several departments that had been hit by cuts, billing in particular. "The people who are resigning are saying that they can't handle the increased workload, sir." The Vice President of Human Resources, Steve Kaplan, shrugged.
"Go to IT and see if we can't find a way to automate at least part of their roles." Finn didn't sigh and he didn't pinch the bridge of his nose. He hadn't anticipated that so many people would defect from the hospital, not in an area with such high unemployment. Sure, the workload on the people left behind after the cuts had increased, and that sucked, but that was the way that the world worked. No one said that they had to get it all done in one day. "Also, have Marcia schedule a meeting between me and the billing supervisor. Let's see if we can't manage expectations a little bit better, shall we?"
IT had one minor issue that they felt compelled to bring up. "It's not a huge issue in the scheme of things." Their director, Ted Nifterick, told the others. He fiddled with a pen as he spoke but looked at a tablet. "We've had some interesting glitches in the payroll system that we don't seem to be able to get rid of."
Both Kaplan and Finn raised an eyebrow. Finn steepled his fingers in front of himself. "Anything involving payroll usually becomes a major issue pretty quickly," he said, shifting his eyes toward Jason Delancey.
Nifterick nodded. "The thing is, sir, it's a weird little glitch that hasn't pinged anyone's radar. A hundred dollars is taken out of each paycheck in an entire department. Then it's put right back in. It only came to our attention because someone in Orthopedics gets their wages garnished for back taxes. He checks his pay stubs with a fine-toothed comb, sir."
"Understandably. And he picked up on this?" Gerig, the CFO, narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. "Why wasn't I informed?"
"Well, there doesn't seem to be any net effect on the finances." Nifterick looked at Gerig out of the side of his eye. "I mean, the code on the explanation is always the same, going in and coming out. It's a different department every week. It seems to just be a glitch. I've got a guy working to track down what's going on right now, and I'm positive that it relates to the merger and joining our legacy system with Regent, but I wanted to make sure you all knew in case it comes back to bite us later on. Sir." Nifterick looked back down at his tablet.
Finn nodded. "Okay. Well, thank you. That's good to know. Keep me posted about your progress with status updates say, Tuesdays and Fridays until the situation is resolved."
"We'll look into things on our end in Finance." Gerig glowered at Nifterick. "I'd hate for the hospital to lose even more money because someone couldn't follow the accounts properly."
Nifterick snarled, baring his teeth at Gerig, and Finn cleared his throat as loudly as he could. Gerig was right, but he'd been a colossal ass about it. "Thank you, Mr. Nifterick. And it would be great if the folks in Accounting took a look-see and made sure everything balanced, Gerig. It never hurts to make sure." He poured himself a drink of water. "Would folks like to take a ten-minute break before we meet with the deans?"
At least it would get Gerig and Nifterick away from each other. Unfortunately, that ten-minute break meant that Gerig came straight for him and complained about "local yokels" messing with things they didn't know anything about instead of letting him get more coffee or use the restroom.
Carter showed up eight minutes later, escorting the dean of Stanford Medical right up to the conference room door. He was dressed for patient appointments, in black with a white lab coat, and all that Finn could think about was getting his mouth on that long, strong neck.
"Finn Riley!" the Stanford dean exclaimed, dragging Carter into the room. "Thank you for giving me the chance to catch up with this alumnus! Would you mind terribly if we borrowed him in October for a career day? We need to encourage more men like him to go into his field, we really do. We'll give him back after a couple of days." He smiled over at Carter and put an arm around the doctor's shoulders. "Probably."
Jealousy surged through Finn's body, a physical presence, at the thought of Carter leaving the state. Jealousy had no place in Finn's life, so he ignored it. "Of course. Just send me the dates. He won't even have to use vacation time." Finn forced a smile to his face and hoped that it didn't look like as much of a rictus as it felt.
Carter blushed and shook his old dean's hand. Then he made his excuses and fled. Finn watched him go. It would have been something, to be able to put his hands on Carter again.
They got through the meeting, and just as Finn had planned, the allocations of residencies went to the schools as they'd discussed the day before. Other schools would also have residency opportunities, but Silver Oak had such a good reputation that people wanted to do their residencies there. They would get great exposure to both rural and urban health issues, and if Finn could keep them at the top of the list he'd consider his job well done.
Finn didn't see much of his omega for the rest of the week. He did wonder when he'd started thinking of Carter as his omega. One night together—not even a night, one round of sex—didn't make them a couple. It didn't make Carter his, even though Finn's sparks of jealousy obviously disagreed with him on that.
He saw Carter a few times in the cafeteria, sitting with his friends and chatting. Sometimes he engaged in seri
ous discussions, which put a knot of fear into the pit of Finn's stomach. He wasn't arrogant enough to think that Carter was actually talking about him all of the time, but technically they shouldn't have done what they had. He had enough to lose, if news of their tryst got out, that his squirming didn't come from paranoia.
Sometimes Carter laughed. Those were the times that Finn thought his heart might break.
Finn's mother called on Wednesday night. He hadn't heard from either of his parents in a while, so the call took him by surprise. "Mom!" he said, accepting the call. "Is everything all right?"
"Everything's fine." His mother's Irish lilt turned sharp. "Don't you think that a mother has a right to call her son once in a while?"
"Of course, Mom." Finn smirked, here in the privacy of his office where his mother couldn't see it. "We just hadn't spoken in a while, so you startled me. That's all."
"Well maybe you could call your parents more than once every six months. We're old, Finn. We won't be here forever and then when we're on our deathbed you'll regret not being closer to us." Sheila Riley huffed. "Of course you haven't been to visit us in three years. It's not as though Cleveland is that far away."
"Oh. I'm not actually in Cleveland anymore. I moved to Syracuse a couple of months ago. Maybe it was the beginning of May? Middle of April?" He shrugged. "No idea."
His mother harrumphed in his ear. "Syracuse? Why in the world would you move there? I thought all of the companies were moving out of places like that?"
"That's not entirely true, Mom, and besides, I don't work in manufacturing. I work in healthcare. They made me the CEO of one of the hospitals around here." He braced himself and waited for the inevitable blast wave of derision.
"Yeah, right. You? They might have made you an accountant, but you're not management material. Don't exaggerate, Finn. We're your parents. We have to love you, even if you're not a successful engineer." She scoffed. "CEO indeed. Why don't you just tell us that they made you Pope?"
Finn bit back on every angry retort that had ever sprung to his lips. Someday, they would believe him. Someday, he'd have proof of his success, proof that they would accept. Maybe they would come up to Syracuse and see his big, beautiful house. Maybe he'd just fax them his bank statement. "You can go to the Silver Oak Hospital website. My name and picture are right on it."
"No one has time to go on a wild goose chase, Finn. Everyone knows those things can be faked. Let's talk about something important now. You're not getting any younger, no more than we are."
Finn leaned his chair back as far as it would go, just like he had when he'd been a little kid. "Are you for real?"
"I'm deadly serious, Finn. Your father and I have been looking forward to grandchildren for thirty-five years, ever since we brought you home from the hospital!" His mother's voice went up an octave, like she was fighting tears. Finn had no idea if they were real tears or crocodile tears, and he'd heard both so often in the past couple of years that neither held much fear for him anymore.
"Wow, sucks to be you, doesn't it?" Finn sat back up.
"That's incredibly selfish of you, Finn. Your father and I have poured everything into one thing—you. The least that you can do to pay us back is give us a grandson to love."
Finn rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You think it's selfish that I'm not out there making babies, when you're the one who's trying to force me to make unwanted babies that you'll never see just to satisfy some weird age-driven urge. Sorry. It's a little late for that stuff now."
"We have a right to be grandparents!" his mother screamed into the phone.
"Maybe you should have had more than one kid and made sure that would happen." Finn shrugged. "Anyway, good talk, but I'm still in the office and this isn't really appropriate for the workplace. Have a good night, Mom. Say hi to dad."
"You're stabbing your father in the heart!"
"Good night, Ma." Finn hung up the phone and shook his head. For a second, he wondered what his parents would think about Carter.
They wouldn't think anything about Carter. There wasn't anything to think about. Finn didn't want there to be anything to think about. He wanted to focus on his job. Anything else was just hormones.
Chapter Seven
Carter showed up to work on Friday—one week after his tryst with Riley—after a long night of more of the same. Part of him thought that he might as well not have gone home the night before, but the intellectual part of his brain understood that he was better off for having gotten at least a couple of hours of sleep and a shower.
The rest of him was certain that getting out of that bed had been against the Geneva Convention.
He fixed himself a cup of coffee and headed toward his office. Another day, another dollar. He made himself smile at the department receptionist and waved at Indah Glover. He slipped into his office and grabbed his tablet, steeling him to start the day's business.
Fortunately for Carter, he only had well-parent appointments scheduled today. If an emergency cropped up he could step in, but Huntington would be in by two and they had regular obstetricians and surgeons on staff. He should be okay to work.
He scanned through his caseload. His patients today were about equally divided between women and omegas, and all of them were indeed well parent appointments. He didn't have anyone coming in to talk about infertility issues or sexually transmitted diseases. Hopefully everything was going to be good news and Carter could coast into the weekend.
His first appointment disabused him of that notion right away. He knew the sound of their voices, of course, but he still stood up when Tom and Paul walked into the exam room. Well, this would teach Carter not to check the names on his schedule. "Tom, Paul, it's good to see you." He gestured to the exam table. "You obviously know the drill by now."
Tom beamed and helped Paul up onto the exam table, even though Paul was perfectly capable of getting up onto the exam table himself. Carter struggled to keep his face neutral, but inside his brain screamed. Why was it that he didn't deserve that kind of solicitous attention? What was it about him that made him someone to cast aside, someone good for meaningless no strings attached sex and nothing else? "All right. Since you're here, I guess that you've already done the test thing and gotten a positive result."
Paul met Carter's eyes and leaned into Tom's side. Tom put an arm around him. "We did," the omega told him. A little smile played around his lips. The way he looked up into Carter's eyes gave the smile a cruel cast, but Carter tried to pass it off as a trick of the lighting. "A couple of days after the party. I wonder that you didn't pick up on any of the symptoms, actually."
Carter kept a neutral expression on his face. "Well, you know, there was a lot going on at the time, and we didn't spend a lot of time together. Anyway, congratulations. Let's take a listen and try to get a sense of what we're dealing with."
He grabbed the machine that would let them all listen to Paul's baby's heartbeat and put it up to the omega's suddenly bare abdomen. "Okay, here we go." He didn't have to fake his grin when he heard a heartbeat coming through, clear and steady and strong. He would never get enough of that sound. "Oh, isn't that the most incredible sound you've ever heard?"
Tom smiled at Paul and quickly looked away. Paul frowned, but recovered quickly. "You bet. You'd think you'd get tired of it, though. Hundreds of babies, none of them yours."
Carter pulled the listening device away. "Well, you know. I've made my peace with it. Anyway, do you want to look at pictures of your little bean today, or wait until twelve weeks when we can get a better look at the heart?" He didn't blame Paul for his misdirected animosity. He didn't know if he'd behave any differently, if the situations were reversed.
"Why can't we get another one if you suspect a problem in a month?" Tom's grin was broad and cheerful now. He took Paul's hand, but met Carter's eyes.
"I guess that there's no reason not to, if your insurance will cover it." Carter shrugged. Somehow Tom's eyes didn't make him yearn the way that they usually di
d. Maybe his terrible decision with Riley had its advantages after all. "I don't know the first thing about insurance."
Tom helped Paul down from the exam table. "Why don't you go on down to the ultrasound room, sweetheart? I know that you know the way. I'll meet you down there in half a second, okay?"
Paul's responding smile looked forced, but he nodded and left the room. Tom closed the door behind him, and Carter tensed up.
"Please tell me that this discussion involves patient care." Carter hung his head.
"Sure, if you're the patient." Tom put his hands on Carter's shoulders and rubbed. "I mean come on, man. You look like ten miles of bad road."
"Thanks for that." Carter didn't want Tom's hands to feel so good, but the massage did knead some life back into his miserable back and arms. "It was a long night, you know?" He forced himself to step away. "But I'm fine, or I will be after a decent night's sleep."
"I'll give you better than a decent night's sleep." Tom waggled his eyebrows at Carter.
