Page 94 of Abel's Omega
Surprised, Abel asked, “Why not?”
“Hold on.” Bax jumped off the bed and scurried off out of the room. A few moments later, Abel heard the banging of doors and drawers as Bax looked for whatever it was he wanted. Then a triumphant, “Aha!” floated through the door, closely followed by Bax himself. “Kind of my mating present to you. But kind of my job too.” He handed Abel a sheaf of papers, then crawled back into bed. “I should warn you, I heard noises coming from Fan and Noah’s room. We probably don’t have much alone time left.”
“I’d better take advantage of it then.” Abel set the papers aside and rolled over on top of Bax. Making out was a far more interesting experience when done naked, though he had to admit there was something to be said for the mystery of clothes. But the feel of Bax’s skin against his made him forget everything waiting for him outside that door, and made the future he imagined so much brighter.
A rustling thump sounded from next door, then the pit-pat of little feet on the floor, getting closer.
“Damn,” Abel whispered in Bax’s ear, making him snicker.
“Welcome to Pappyhood,” Bax whispered back and kissed him lovingly. “Did I mention he’s a morning wolf?”
“Dabi!” came Fan’s voice.
“Nope,” Abel replied, and rolled off Bax. “Good morning, Fan.”
Fan stopped dead. “Why are you in Dabi’s bed?”
Bax sat up. “Abel and I are mated now. Mated people sleep in the same bed.”
Abel watched as the wheels turned in Fan’s head. He glanced back and forth between them a couple of times, then said, “I don’t want to get mated if I have to share my bed.”
“Then you don’t have to,” Abel told him gravely.
“I’ll go start breakfast,” Bax said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You come with me, Fan.”
Fan went obediently to his bearer, though he still seemed troubled by Abel’s presence in Bax’s bed. Bax snagged a pair of jeans off his dresser as he went out the door and Abel could hear him hopping down the hall as he tried to get into them. Abel snorted and decided he might as well get up too—he still needed to go see Orvin. As he got out of bed, the papers Bax had brought him caught his eye. Curious, he picked them up and scanned over the first page, then stopped and read it over more closely.
The first pages were an application to incorporate a business, like he’d done with GoodDog. The rest of the pile was a business plan and applications for grants and business loans, already mostly filled out, with just a few lines still waiting empty.
SunWolf Solar.
The last page was notes from conversations with different government agencies, detailing the costs and requirements to set themselves up to build a small factory and start producing the solar panels, to get them certified by various agencies, to make sure that the business was a success.
Sometimes he got so lost in Bax the beauty and Bax the organizer and keeper of schedules that he forgot how smart his mate was.
“Oh, Bax, I do love that mind of yours.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
On a sunny, beautiful day at the end of June, I was sitting at my desk trying not to think about blackberries and baby tomatoes when the email arrived from the company we’d hired to do the official power production and stress testing on the solar panels. My hands shaking with excitement, I opened it.
Okay, the numbers didn’t make a lot of sense to me—I’d have to send it to the two guys who’d designed them so they could translate it into something I would understand. But my eyes scanned down the page until I found the one number I would understand.
The percent efficiency.
“Whoo!” I shouted and forgot all my pregnancy cravings. I hit the button to print the page and practically danced over to the printer.
“What’s all the excitement?” Louise asked, her eyebrows raised in amusement.
“The power specs came back even higher than we’d hoped.” Solar power was cheap to produce once you had the panel, but notoriously inefficient compared to other energy sources. Most panels didn’t even give back twenty percent of the energy in the sunshine that hit them as power. Ours had come in at just over twenty-five percent. I grabbed the paper off the tray and raced into Abel’s office.
“Look,” I shouted, before I noticed he was on the phone. I staggered to a stop and whispered a sheepish, “Sorry.”
He waved at me and beckoned me over, pulling me down onto his lap. I suppressed a giggle and held the paper up for him to see, pointing at the efficiency rating. His eyes went wide and we grinned crazily at each other.
“Actually, I have that information for you right now. It just hit my desk.” He pulled the phone away from his ear to whisper, “Can you email that to the regulatory agency?”
I nodded and trotted back to my desk to forward the file, then came back to stand in the doorway and ogle my mate.
