Chapter 32
L evy surprised him by volunteering with a youth group in the outskirts of Jiro.
“They don’t just do hockey, today I was helping them with volleyball, but I don’t mind a bit of variety either.”
Levy had actually surprised him by calling, and even though Kallen had picked up with a sense of dread, now he found himself smiling. Outside a few audio messages, it was the first time he’d heard his friend’s voice since he’d left.
“That’s really cool,” he said softly. He’d detoured to the living room for a little privacy, even though his mother was busy upstairs. It wasn’t necessary, especially when she already suspected his more than friendly interest.
But he still wanted to keep this to himself. Whatever little flame they’d managed to salvage from the storm.
“So far, I haven’t been overrun, so...” Levy replied, his clear joy like a spark that set something inside Kallen’s own chest aflutter.
Kallen snorted. “Pretty sure you if you can handle the Hawk’s d-men, you can handle some eight-year-olds.”
“Yeah,” Levy agreed. “But can I handle six- year-olds? They are so cute, Kallen, it’s unreal.”
Laughter bubbled up and came out of his mouth before he managed to hold it back. It felt weird, like he hadn’t laughed in a long time.
It’d been a nice chat, even if Levy had made a point of saying so at the end. He hadn’t pushed when Kallen had been vague about his own activities.
“It was,” he agreed. “You should send me some photos.”
“And call you again?” Levy asked, a little too gently for casual.
Kallen swallowed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to , of course he did. Just like he’d wanted to kiss Levy that first time and to fucking stay in Jiro to be close to him. He just didn’t see how it could be anything but painful in the long-term. “I could call you,” he said in the end, and shocked himself when it came sounding like a promise. It wasn’t, the verb tense made that very clear.
“Sure,” Levy said back, sounding pleased. As if he’d also heard it that way.
Dammit.
ANALISA HAD GOT THEM some tea and biscuits and they’d stayed for the second half of the meeting, but Kallen had still gone home feeling like someone had taken a bat to his head.
He must have looked it too because Analisa had offered to drive. He’d refused, needing something to focus on that wasn’t whatever was wrong with him.
It hadn’t become clear until a couple of days later, when he’d stepped out of the shower and suddenly realised that Taylor hadn’t told them what had pushed him past edge and made him quit. Not that he owed them the answer, but something in Kallen had got stuck waiting for that other shoe to drop.
Maybe because he’d spent the last eleven months of his own life waiting for the same thing. Knowing just like Taylor had known, that he was on edge of a precipice and that he was going to fall... Just not how hard, or whether he’ll be able to get up again afterwards.
He either wanted to go back to another meeting in hopes of finding out, or drink until he forgot the whole thing altogether.
After going through what he had with his own team, another omega’s story—sanitised as it’d been—shouldn’t have been so upsetting. But maybe from the inside it’d been much easier to insist that he could take the pain. From the outside all he wanted was to yank Taylor from the nightmare his life had obviously become.
And he’d been sleeping with alphas he knew . No one he was related by blood too, naturally, since that much teams would care about, but did that change much if he’d grown up with the guys? Called them uncles like Benny did Dr. Maslow?
Kallen shuddered and hurried to get dressed into his warmest clothes.
That night, his parents noticed he was out of it, but they stopped pushing when he told them he wasn’t ready to talk. Kallen could hardly blame them for worrying, given what he’d already told them.
He just needed a little time to recover. He’d been half worried they’d want him to stop attending meetings if he explained what had upset him, but maybe that was him too. His mother had looked at the link he’d sent her and sought him out to ask more questions. Not that he had many answers, but he must have said something right because she’d asked if he wanted her to accompany him to the next one.
It was hard enough to listen to that sort of thing with a friend next to him, he couldn’t imagine hearing anyone talk about their abuse with his mum next to him. She shouldn’t have to put up with it, she hadn’t been dumb enough to sign a contract that allowed people to treat her like—
“I understand,” she said again when he turned her down. “But I’m here if you want to talk. We both are.”
His dad didn’t bring it up, but as far as Kallen was concerned, that was for the best. It helped to be normal with him in the mornings, lifting weights, getting tips, not thinking about everything that was different outside that room.
He needed that, the pretence that he was working for something. That the ice was there for him to return to.
MASLOW CALLED HIM TWO days later. Maybe Kallen had tempted the universe somehow, thinking he wanted to be doing something. Maybe it was just the same shit as always.
“I was hoping to stop by this afternoon,” the doctor told him, which a generous person could have interpreted as him asking for permission. Kallen’s mum must have made an impression.
“I’m in Terali,” he said, as neutrally as he could manage through his smile.
The pleasure of disappointing Maslow didn’t last. “Ah, I see. Of course, it is your break, after all. I suppose I simply expected you to stay around to keep up with your physical therapy.”
“I’m doing it,” Kallen said, voice thick in his throat. “I’m doing okay.”
“Mmm...” The doctor made a doubtful sound. “Well, nonetheless, we want you to be checked out by a medical professional. Let’s see... You are on Avintey Road 6090, correct? I’ll find someone close by for you.”
And Kallen hadn’t been able to say a word. Of course they had his parents’ address, it was the one he’d have given them. But it felt weird to hear it then. Terali was a decently sized city, but it wasn’t like it mattered if the doctor was close to him for a single appointment, was it?
He might have told Maslow he could walk again, except his throat was closed up and he was way too cold. So he didn’t, and half an hour later, he had a text with the appointment details for a doctor half an hour drive away.
It was two days later.
ONCE MASLOW WASN’T breathing down his neck, he managed to wake up enough to go talk to his dad, who told him to call his lawyer immediately.
But Mr Evans hadn’t given him the out he’d hoped for, instead he’d pointed out right now the best strategy was to keep the team thinking Kallen was going to go back to them when the season began. “The last thing we want is for them to get suspicious now, you know?”
And it made perfect sense, which didn’t explain why Kallen had parked his mum’s car outside the doctor's office and couldn’t get out of the car. He’d arrived early since he hadn’t been able to bear the wait and now was very much at risk of being late.
In the end, he’d pushed himself through it the same way he’d pushed himself to wake up every morning, to do ten more reps, to play with a damaged knee. Just a check up , he told the whiny part of him who wanted to turn the car around and go hide under the covers.
This pain was all in his head, but that only meant no one could see how much damage he was causing.
He’d been scared, but he’d tried to convince himself that he was simply reacting to his experiences with Maslow, which was fair enough, he didn’t need his legs to stop working again to take it seriously. The doctor was an alpha, but she was a woman, and that helped a little. No alpha women had ever held him down or called him names, for one.
She was older, dark hair going grey, so he hadn’t thought much of it when she had kept her eyes on her computer screen and not met his own. Some alphas were like that with omegas, especially in a professional setting. They did it out of respect, supposedly. It was better than the ones that stared at you until you dropped your eyes, anyway. “I see here you were presenting with paralysis when Doctor Maslow last saw you?” her voice rose in surprise.
“I got better when I came home,” he lied.
Her eyes flickered down his body. “We will check that. And he wants me to do a full blood work...” She listed some stuff that made no sense to him.
“Urine?” he repeated.
He could only think of a reason to test his urine and that was drugs, and if they could tell he’d taken a pill to suppress his last cycle... Except they had no reason to imagine he hadn’t just slept with an alpha outside the team, did they? It was perfectly legal in the off-season.
“It’s standard for omegas.”
He frowned, trying to remember if any of the regular check-ups had included peeing in a cup. “What does it check?” he asked, trying his best to sound curious.
“AMH, Anti-Müllerian Hormone.” He got the answer, but he could also feel the alpha growing tense. A doctor wouldn’t use will in a professional setting, but Kallen could tell she wanted to and every instinct demanded he back down.
He had to remind himself it was still only a test; it wouldn’t hurt him for them to know whatever it was they wanted. And if he refused, that would be much more suspicious than whatever the heat suppressing pill might have done.
But no matter how much he might have wanted to, there was no need for anyone to explain to him what was happening when she made him lay back on the stretcher and lift his shirt to expose his belly. The gel was cold, but he didn’t even flinch as she pressed the scanner to his middle. He could hardly breathe.
This test he remembered.
They’d done it a year ago before hiring him and called it part of his initial health check and he’d shut his mouth, kept his eyes on the ceiling just like he was doing now and pretended to buy it.
He’d stumbled out of the room into the toilet. It’d taken him a good five minutes to be able to pee despite the pain of his full bladder, but he managed, and afterwards he didn’t ask any questions about the six vials of blood the nurse had taken from him before giving him a biscuit and sending him home.
HE KNEW HE SHOULD TELL Mr Evans, but he didn’t. He didn’t tell him, and he didn’t tell his mother, or Analisa. Or anyone.
BEING AROUND SO MANY omegas was odd. So odd that it wasn’t until the third meeting that he realised that being in a room with only two alphas, and both sitting quite far away from him, had left him so relaxed he was getting a little sleepy when the omega across from him kept stopping her story to clarify completely irrelevant details.
The idea made him straighten and take stock of his surroundings. One of the alphas was the mum of the eleven-year-old footie fanatic, Francesca, and being an alpha had probably given her a bit of height and bulk, but Kallen would have towered over her if they stood up.
Besides, he did have lure as a tool in his arsenal now, didn’t he? And no one here could fire him if he used it. He didn’t see how it could be made illegal when alpha will wasn’t. Although that was somewhat regulated, which was why what McKinley had done was rape.
And then he suddenly tuned back into the story the older omega was sharing, and he spoke up, “You know you could have used lure, right?”
The woman stopped, staring at him.
“Sorry!” Kallen said, realising he’d interrupted. “I didn’t mean... Only I didn’t know, until recently.”
She was squinting at him over the rim of her glasses. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, young man.”
“Kallen,” he said, though it wasn’t untrue that he was young. “Lure is...” His eyes travelled to Taylor, unsure, but he just got a nod. “The equivalent of alpha will, only it’s...” He lifted a hand and pulled at an imaginary rope mid-air. “Magnetic, not a push but a pull. It makes alphas... Well, it makes them want to do things?” He wasn’t completely sure about it. “Or at least makes it more appealing for them to do things. I don’t know how strong it is, I’ve only...” He bit his lip, then turned to Taylor. “I don’t know the rules for this. Someone told me it was a thing, and I just used it a few times, to keep myself safe.” He shrugged, dropping his gaze. He hadn’t meant to speak today, much less this much or about something that might not be completely legal.
“Lure is also known as omega magnetism,” Taylor added, his voice carrying easily. “And it’s considered legal to use for safety purposes. In the same way alpha will is legal to use on children to keep them from doing something dangerous. Anything else gets tricky, because depending on the strength of the omega, it can make people do things they don’t want to.”
Kallen’s heart jumped at that, but other than Levy, who’d invited him to use lure and who’d been enthusiastically kissing him ever since, he’d only ever used it during heat with alphas who’d consented to have sex with him. And if they hadn’t wanted to have exactly the kind of sex Kallen had used lure to convince them to have... Well, it’d the best he could do while keeping himself safe.
It still made him uncomfortable to think of it as power he held , power that could presumably hurt someone like he’d been hurt, even if less overtly than alpha will.
“I have heard stories about it, but surely if this was true everyone would use it?” Kallen glanced up to catch a different woman’s sceptical expression, but before he could say anything, someone else piped in.
It wasn’t like no one knew what lure was, but in a matter of a minute there seemed to be several small groups arguing quietly about it around the room. Analisa had missed this meeting to go to the cinema with another childhood friend she hadn’t seen in months as opposed to years—Kallen wasn’t sure if that made the current situation better or worse. He’d said nothing but the truth. An important truth at that, lure wasn’t a magic wand, but he knew for certain it’d made a difference for him in a situation that could have easily turned ugly.
Kallen glanced at Taylor, at a loss. The older omega smiled at him and stood up to approach his seat. He stopped a couple steps away, probably so they could still look each other on the face—the other man wasn’t bulky, but he still had an athlete’s frame, subtly muscled, posture straight. From an alpha, it would have been a demand for submission. But from an omega, it was just slightly awkward to look up at him. Taylor’s smile turned wry. “My knee is not great,” he explained, and Kallen immediately nodded his acceptance. “How good are you at it?”
“Lure?” He glanced away, then looked back and shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I’m okay, I could do it from the first time I tried. I just imagined that I wanted someone to come closer and for that I had to be appealing, but not pushy, if that makes sense?”
Taylor was nodding. “It does.” Then he asked, even quieter, “Could you show us?”
“I’d like to see,” said someone to his right and Kallen discovered it was a boy, maybe all of sixteen, still gangly and awkward in his body. He didn’t look like an athlete, but what did Kallen know? Maybe this boy knew better than to wake up at dawn every day to force his body into a shape it didn’t want to go. He didn’t look away when Kallen focused on him.
“You ever done it?” he checked.
The boy shook his head, and his dark straight hair flew around his round face making him seem even younger.
Kallen turned to Taylor. “I don’t know if it’ll work. And I mean, who...” He glanced around, but didn’t make eye contact.
“Me, if you are game.” That made sense, Taylor had known about it beforehand, and it wasn’t like Kallen was that strong anyway.
“Oh, can I...? Would it work with another omega?”
Taylor hesitated. “I don’t see why not, and worst-case scenario nothing happens, right?”
QUIETING EVERYONE WAS only a matter of clapping his hands a couple of times for Taylor. Once he had regained the room’s attention, he explained that he’d used lure himself successfully on occasion but that he was certainly not expert. Like everything else in life, it was a skill some people excelled at, and others didn’t.
“But all alphas can use will,” Suri said.
“Yes,” Taylor allowed. “But not all alphas can use will well , can they? Often, they use it when they lose control. When we kick a ball off the field, we hardly congratulate ourselves, do we?” he added with a soft smile. “And lure seems to be harder to master anyway.” He turned to Kallen. “But Kallen’s agreed to give it a shot.” He plopped back down onto his chair with a dramatic frown. “He’s gonna try and get me to stand up.”
Kallen swallowed, suddenly understanding what he’d agreed to do. When he’d done it with alphas, what he’d been offering had been sex, but what was he supposed to have that Taylor would want at all, let alone enough to stand when he consciously had decided against it?
He inhaled deeply and as he exhaled the question twisted; what did Kallen want to offer? And the answer to that was easy enough because he’d been holding back from it since the group leader had told them his story that first time. Kallen wasn’t normally physically demonstrative, especially not with strangers, but after hearing that story, Taylor hadn’t felt like a stranger. No, he was a fellow survivor, someone to whom Kallen needn’t said a word about what he’d gone through himself, but who he knew with profound conviction would understand it. No judgement, not even pity, just righteous anger. Exactly what he needed.
Except of course anger wasn’t enough. The anger was for the outside world that had led them like lambs to the slaughter to put themselves in harm’s way, pretending it was normal and acceptable. Taylor and Kallen and any omegas who’d played professionally were part of an unspoken inner circle of people who understood what it was like, and for them, without knowing their names or even having seen their faces, Kallen had no anger, just his own strength to share, fully knowing it would grow when they leaned against each other.
That’s what Taylor was doing here, offering others a hand so they could get out too—if they were brave enough to reach for it.
He thought about the oasis, but he didn’t melt into his chair this time. What he wanted to offer wasn’t submission. No, he wanted... safety. That was it. I’m here for you; all you need to do is come to me . I’m safe , he promised, softening his gaze but not looking away. I got your back, and you can stay there on your own and I understand that, but I’m here and if you come, you will feel less alone.
It was, he realised in a bit of a daze, exactly what he wanted from another omega. And he wasn’t even sure he’d known he could get anything like that from a friend before Brad, but he did now. And when he went to his own mental oasis, he realised that this kind of love was something he could give as well. It was already inside him, and if he let it out, if he provided it for someone else who was thirsty and desperate for comfort—
Two things happened at once, Taylor sprang to his feet and something fell to Kallen’s right that made him turn, startled. It was the boy. He was kneeling by Kallen’s chair, one of his hands grabbing at one of the knees, forehead bent, back trembling. Kallen didn’t mean to do it, but he placed his hand on the back of the boy’s neck. “Hey,” he whispered, and it came out, that calm inside, that promise he’d been making in silence made sound. “It’s okay.”
The boy pushed against his touch with a little gasp. And any other day, Kallen would have panicked, he had no idea what to do with a child and he was pretty sure he’d just lured this boy by accident, which was messed up as hell. But he was all too aware of how small and delicate the boy’s neck was under his hand, and that was only the physical stuff, they were open to each other well-beyond skin. He breathed in and out slowly, completely focused on continuing to project calm and since he could only project what he was feeling, he had to stay in the oasis.
He was safe there himself, and he could keep the boy safe too. Just for now.
And then Taylor was there, bending a knee by Kallen’s side to get closer to the boy. “Hey, Kami,” he whispered. “Breathe with me for a minute, yeah?”
He was close, but not touching either of them, Kallen noticed absently.
Kami’s breathing was evening out already. “Would you like a hug?” the facilitator offered and Kallen grimaced as he realised that of course that was what had been on offer, so irresistible to this young boy that he’d picked up on it even when it wasn’t him Kallen had been focused on.
It broke the détente just like that, the boy twisting towards Taylor and nearly toppling him over as he threw his arms around the older man’s neck. Kallen reached out with his free hand to steady Taylor by the shoulder and felt the stab of pain going through his knee as he did.
Taylor’s arms went around the boy, his arms huge around the slight frame, but it was his softness the boy sought. Kallen could feel that too, the tenderness with which he was offering comfort, fully aware of his own strength. Except he was still hurting, and if he hadn’t been told earlier, he’d have thought he was making it up, but those casual words were enough to get him to his feet. “Let’s get you up,” he told them both and put a hand on each of their backs, waiting until he felt them start to struggle to their feet to grab their upper arms and help tug them upright.
He was close enough then that it felt only natural to cross the final distance and envelop them both into an embrace. Their warmth a rush going through him but not disturbing him. He’d thought of the oasis as a trap of sorts, a promise he didn’t need to fulfil. But of course that wasn’t true. He could stop once the person came at him, but he could also stay here, letting the energy pour out of him and into them. Only not, because it wasn’t coming out of him, but through him. It wasn’t finite and it didn’t need replacing; the more he offered, the more that flowed through him in turn.
It could have been minutes or hours. Taylor’s pain had faded, and Kami’s fear had dimmed to almost nothing in their arms. He knew he was safe, but he wasn’t letting go of whatever had made him feel unsafe in the first place. Maybe he couldn’t. Kallen had been there, comforted and loved but knowing he’d go back to being alone and couldn’t allow himself to fully believe.
Kami was the one who stepped back, swallowing hard enough Kallen could hear it and rubbing at his face with the back of his sleeve. His eyes were still reddened and so was his delicate pale skin, but he seemed to have got himself somewhat together.
Taylor and Kallen followed his lead, giving him space. Taylor lingering only to squeeze Kallen’s shoulder and nod his approval. They were still open enough for Kallen to know that’s what he meant, but now that he was coming back to planet Earth, it was also quite strange.
“Alicia?” Taylor asked, and Kallen saw it was the older omega to whom he’d suggested she use lure in the first place. “Could you walk Kami to the toilets and get him a cup of tea? Extra sugar, and a biscuit.”
She nodded and approached the kid, who remained silent as she started talking too low for Kallen to catch.
Taylor sighed and clapped his hands. “I apologise for that, folks. It was rather unexpected to find myself so overcome, and on reflection, I should have done my research before suggesting it.”
“But it was real?” It was the alpha mum. “An omega can do that?” Her dark eyes found Kallen’s, who stiffened but stayed his ground. There was no hierarchy here demanding he pretend submissiveness.
“It was,” Taylor said simply. “Kallen can do it, apparently.” He shot Kallen a half-baffled look.
Kallen shrugged, looking down now. “I’m sure other omegas can, too.”
The scepticism became a sequence of muffled comments among the attendants as soon as he’d spoken.
And then, to make matters worse, it turned out they were right.
AFTER YEARS OF BEING sexually active, it was a little weird to go back to his right hand. He hadn’t done it while he’d been paralysed, and not just because of the difficulty of getting any privacy. He just hadn’t wanted to, even when he’d woken up hard, the sole idea had made him tired and despondent. Like someone had offered him a pale imitation of what he truly wanted.
But things were getting better, and he was only nineteen, so while his heat hadn’t come just like the pills had promised, his libido was back in force. Since for the first time in years he was surrounded by omegas, there wasn’t anyone to inspire him. It didn’t seem to matter, though. Most days, he had a morning shower after training with his dad and took care of it quickly, but today he didn’t want that, and why shouldn’t he indulge? He hadn’t had a real holiday in years, not since he’d started training in earnest.
Since he was still getting paid, that’s precisely what this was, a holiday. And he was more than willing to make it holy with slow lingering strokes up and down his cock, neck thrown back, so the hot water pounded at the tight muscles on the sides of his throat.
He was close, and then he clenched into a thrust and the zing of pleasure up his arse nearly sent him sliding down the wall at his back. He let go of his cock at once, slapping his hand against the tiles and shuddering hard as that left his erection exposed to the unrelenting fall of the shower.
And then, very slowly, he arched his lower half away from the wall and reached behind himself for where he was already growing slick. The tip of his middle finger went in easily and he instinctively pushed back for more, getting most of it inside where... fuck , he was so empty . He bit at his lip, cursing himself for how long he’d denied himself this. Other than stretching himself before heats, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d done this for his own pleasure. As if he’d decided it was something he could only have with someone else, for someone else.
Fuck that noise. He pulled his finger out and then went back in with two, sliding as deep as the angle allowed and barely muffling a groan by biting his opposite shoulder. As he curled his fingers, he had to scramble for the ceramic soap dish to keep himself upright. He wanted a third finger so fucking badly. Almost as much as he needed a hand back on his cock. For a moment, he contemplated letting go and hoping for the best.
But he realised he could just wedge himself into the corner of the shower and brace his leg against the tab instead.
He must have looked absolutely ridiculous, twisting around his own body, panting under the hot water streaming on his face and front, eyes closed and face red from exertion and desperation both.
He couldn’t have cared less because he had his hand back on his cock and it was perfect . His tight grip a counterpoint to his arse squeezing around his fingers, pleasure that bounced back and forth until it was elevated into ecstasy. He was whimpering against his own skin, little shudders growing closer and closer together, and he could have fallen. Or shattered into pieces.
It couldn’t have possibly mattered more than the way his whole self was fizzling, a light show of sheer joy travelling through him as he started spilling, holding himself tightly coiled together as it rushed through him like a tsunami.
The remains of his seed still hadn’t washed away when he clumsily allowed himself to slide down to his knees—head bent, but lips pulled back into a grin.
AT FIRST, HE HADN’T wanted to believe what he’d done had been all that special. But even if he’d wanted to believe that Taylor was exaggerating and that the other omegas—and alphas, really—simply didn’t have experience with lure, it turned out the research pretty much confirmed it.
Omegas could use lure, just like Levy had told him, but of course most of them didn’t get taught about it. Or maybe they did in the most perfunctory of fashions, and while Kallen had picked it up in minutes, it turned out most of his fellow omegas couldn’t pick it up in less than ten guided sessions.
[So weird question,] he texted both Analisa and Brad. [Do you know how to use lure?]
Analisa texted back after a few minutes:
[Noooo
It’s that what you did last meeting?! :(]
[Damn! I always wanted to learn!]
[So you can’t do it?] Kallen checked.
[I can do a bit. DUBIOUS EMOJI The whole get an alpha to look at you in a bar thing. But mostly I just ask nicely ;p]
Ask nicely? Kallen thought. It sounded like she didn’t truly understand what lure felt like, because asking nicely was the equivalent of a glass of water... compared to an oasis.
When Brad responded, he was actually out shopping with his mum, and he was just glancing at their shopping list on his phone. “Um, sorry,” he told her with an apologetic grimace. “Can I meet you by the car? We can get lunch in the coffee shop by the corner?”
His mum raised both eyebrows. “We can,” she agreed. “But you don’t need to do that, baby. I’m happy you have friends.”
It hadn’t occurred to him to think about it that way. Of course, Brad and Analisa were his friends. Levy, too, in a very different way. He couldn’t remember when he’d lost track of everyone his own age he’d had by his side growing up. It was like hockey had eaten his whole life, both inside and outside himself, leaving no room for other people. Or himself.
[Yes] Brad had said at first, but messages kept arriving as Kallen hurried to his mother’s car (his own was still in the building back in Jiro).
[My dad taught me.]
[I can make an alpha behave, if you know what I mean ;)]
[Is your dad an omega too?] Kallen asked back.
[Yeah, don’t think an alpha can teach it]
[You trying to learn?]
Brad seemed a bit more confident about it, enough to make an alpha behave had to be, well, enough, right?
[How long did it take you to learn?]
[Mmmm 2 months maybe]
Two months ? Kallen stopped in the middle of the street, almost getting bumped into by someone with a million bags.
Okay, so maybe Taylor wasn’t full of shit.
HE COULD HAVE EASILY missed the text message notifying him that his test results were back and had been sent to his primary care physician.
It was not even something he could point out as unusual, he hadn’t asked for any of his medical information from the team.
He hadn’t wanted to know. Even though he did know; if he hadn’t been able to have children, they wouldn’t have hired him.
If the pill he’d taken had shown up, there was little he could do about it, but something in him rebelled at the idea of looking away and leaving it to Maslow to make sure he was healthy.
The guy was either useless at his job or didn’t give a fuck about Kallen’s wellbeing. Not beyond his ability to get pregnant anyway.
He was just about angry enough to call the doctor’s office and ask.
“The results have been sent to your doctor,” the receptionist told him mechanically.
“Sure,” he agreed, and he was calm, too calm if there was such a thing. It was crazy, but he found himself relaxing against his chair. “But could you also send them to me, please? For my records,” he added, soft and self-deprecating.
“I...” He remembered the beta, only a bit older than him, blue eyed, copper hair kept short and neat.
“Should I give you my email?” Kallen asked, pretending distraction. He was anything but, he was wide open and focused.
“I can’t actually send them. If it’s not on your records...” And it made sense it wouldn’t work on the phone. Of course it did.
Except it was still working on him , he was still confident in his task, unflagging in the face of the frankly absurd objections.
“Ah, of course,” he agreed. “Could you check if it is? Or maybe my phone number?”
His number had been on file, and within minutes, the guy had given in and sent him the results.
“Thank you,” Kallen told him, easy. “I appreciate the trouble you took, really.”
And when he’d told Kallen he was welcome, it’d sounded like he meant it.
Kallen hoped he didn’t get in trouble for it, but if he did, he was going to have to deal. It was his body and his life, and he was done letting others run it for him.