Page 21 of Abel's Omega
“Grant applications. Save me.”Actually, don’t save me. We need this. I just suck at doing them, and Louise is already working more hours than a woman her age should be.He wished he had someone else with a talent, or at least an interest, in hunting down money for the pack. The old Alpha’s mate had been a meticulous, nit-picking bureaucrat who loved nothing more than searching the Internet for ways to benefit the pack. It was a shame that they hadn’t found anyone to replace her when she’d passed.
“I’d offer to help, but I’d just make things worse. Do you want me to take Bax around and see where he fits in? Is Gerald busy today? Because we should look at housing, and Gerald will have a better grasp of what’s coming available, or what can be made available soon. I love Macy, and Bax’s kids are cute, but having five of them in one house is just too damn much. I’ll go lunar on you if one more pup attacks my ankles this morning.”
“Are they that bad?” Shit, he hadn’t talked to Gerald about housing. He made a note on a piece of scrap paper and stuck it right in the middle of his desk so he wouldn’t forget.
“Just excited, I think. Bax is mortified, and Jason’s running interference. I need out of this house!” Mac laughed, though, taking the edge off the words. “But seriously. If you’re busy, I’ll take him around. Jason’s going to take the kids to Central Park and let them run off some energy. I brought the garden wagon back with me this morning so he can just pack them all in there.”
Abel cast an unwilling glance over the paperwork. He could do some of it over lunch. Maybe a break was what he needed—the lines were all starting to run together in his head. “No, I’ll do it. Give me a few minutes to get down there.”
“Why don’t I bring them up? It’s a nice day, and I don’t want Jason pulling that wagon with the kids in it. It’s not that far from Central Park to your office.”
So much for getting away from the paperwork. “Sure. I might get another line or two filled in before you get here.”
He could hear the grin in Mac’s voice. “You need another secretary.”
“You applying for the job?” But no, it wasn’t a secretary he needed, but a fundraiser and government-paperwork grunt. Abel sighed. He knew how to plan a project, knew how to bring it to completion, knew how to find bugs in code and fix them, but the paperwork was going to drive him as lunar as the kids were driving Mac. “Yeah, I’ll meet you in the office.” He paused, then added, “Hurry up.”
Mac laughed and they ended the call.
An hour and a half later, he thought he was finished with the form, or it was finished with him. Either way, he wasn’t sure who’d won. A single silver key rested to the side on his desk, dropped off by Gerald not ten minutes ago.
Just in time, too, because as soon as he put down his pen, his phone buzzed with a text from Mac to let them into the pack’s offices. He met them at the door. Bax stood back to let Mac go through before him, and Mac stood back to let the guest go first, and the two of them did an odd little dance until Abel reached out and pulled Mac through the door. “Come in, Bax,” he said, guessing that essentially being alone on unfamiliar ground would make the omega even more uneasy than he had been last night. Bax smiled uncertainly and ducked his head, slipping into the room with all the impact of a ghost.
Abel’s phone buzzed. He checked the screen. “I’m going to have to get this. I’m Technical Support this morning.” He waved Mac out the door and pointed Bax toward the chair in front of his desk as he answered. While he unsnarled an issue with their bargain basement accounting software, he wandered over to the window and gazed out over his pack’s home. He hoped it would make Bax feel more at ease.
The problem turned out to be easier to fix than he’d expected, just some setting that had been changed or had reset itself, and he was on the phone for less than ten minutes all told. Relieved, Abel turned back to the room, and froze. Bax was looking over his paperwork, in the process of lifting a pen from the paper.
“What are you doing?” Abel blurted without thinking.
Bax gasped and dropped the pen. He practically leaped out of the chair, spinning to face Abel. His skin had gone from its natural milk white to gray, an uncomfortable echo of last night. “I’m sorry, I used to help Patrick with paper work and I noticed…” His voice trailed off and he took a half step backwards, his head bent and his arms wrapped around his torso as if he expected to be hit.
Easy there, Alpha.Fuck, how could people treat each other this way? Didn’t they get enough shit from the humans?Damage control.“I hate these forms,” he said in a self-deprecating tone. “It usually takes me submitting them three or four times before I get them right. Louise handles the financial stuff for the pack, but she’s tied down keeping me organized and keeping track of the budget.” He wandered casually over to the desk and picked up the form, acutely aware of the tension in Bax’s body. “Why did you change the category for the project?” It didn’t seem logical, but Bax must have had a reason.
Slowly, cautiously, Bax sidled up beside him. “I know it looks like it should be the right category, but the projects that get approved for that funding are usually bigger and are focused on trade. Packs hardly ever get them—I think the only one that ever did was the one in North Carolina. In this category,” he pointed toward the next one on the list, “If you change the project to have a cultural slant, they’re more likely to approve it, because they hate to think they’re making us more independent, but they still need to look like they’re doing something so we stay content behind our walls. Culture is a good compromise.” He glanced up, met Abel’s eyes, then stared down at the floor again. “I used to call sometimes, pretend I was a human who’d been hired to help the pack fill out the forms. You get more information that way, and less hassle. Patrick didn’t know—he just liked that he could sign and have the work done. Not that he did much.” Bax’s eyes widened and Abel clearly heard his sudden intake of breath.
Careful.“I like the way you think,” Abel said, keeping his tone neutral. “Maybe it won’t be hard to find a job for you after all. If you’re willing to handle the government forms, that will mean I have more time for other projects. And maybe you can help Louise with some of the bookkeeping. Heaven knows, she’s getting too old for all this crap.”
It seemed to be the right thing to say—Bax’s eyes went wide and the color flooded back into his face. The corners of his lips turned up in a tentative smile that grew larger when Abel smiled back at him. He very obviously wanted to be useful here, to prove that he was worth keeping. And if Abel were in his situation, he’d probably grasp at any opportunity to make himself valuable.
Bax looked down at the form, then back up to Abel, spearing him with those beautiful green eyes. “I haven’t done any bookkeeping. Patrick didn’t think omegas were good with money.”
Abel snorted. “I’d like to see him say that to my grandmother.” His words coaxed a small gurgle of laughter from Bax. “Would you be willing to give it a try? Louise will know what would help her best.”
“Yes, I would. I won’t disappoint you.” Bax’s eyes shone with hope.
“I can’t imagine how you could.” Abel decided that he liked how this emotion looked on Bax. He had to do his best to make sure Bax had more good experiences here at Mercy Hills—the young omega looked in desperate need of them. And then, maybe, some day in the future, once they knew each other better… Who knew? But he wasn’t going to rush it, not too much. He had two weeks until Bax’s travel documents were no good anymore, and a lot could happen in two weeks. Not everything, but if Bax was willing to see where things went, Abel could talk to Roland about letting Bax stay.
He’d need some help—he’d never really courted anyone before. Good thing he had friends to help him figure out the best way to woo a wary omega.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Abel took me on a tour of his offices and of the small part of the building where he and about half a dozen other young shifters worked intently on computers to make…something. Like most packs, any money that came in went to pack coffers, so it wasn’t like they were doing this to get rich, but the work ethic I saw, on a Saturday morning, was impressive. Of course, I wasn’t making much sense of it all. My body kept noticing Abel, and my brain kept wishing that I could be sure he’d always be like this, and that I had a chance with him. Because he was kind, and sweet, and funny. Anything I even glanced at in curiosity got explained, anything I showed the slightest interest in, I got a tour of.
It was…different.
I was used to being invisible. Being so completely noticed was both exhilarating and unnerving. I kept waiting for him to see something he didn’t like, but it never happened, and eventually I grew bolder. Not that I was more certain of my treatment, but I needed to find the boundaries, needed to know what behavior would get me punished.
And it never happened.
