Page 11 of Omega’s Forward

Still, my mind keeps circling back to Callahan. My god, he was big. Alphas run to the large side obviously, but he was something else. The thought makes me want to squirm in my seat.

I’m going to see him this morning when he arrives for the first compliance meeting with the Bureau representative. Then we need to spend two weeks together somewhere. That’s going to be tricky. We’re both going to need to come and go, Callahan in particular. He can’t just disappear from the team for two weeks without a lot of questions.

Publicly, I need to do a meet and greet with the team, him included. That’s expected. But nothing else. Everything else we do should be away from the prying eyes of the public and the press.

The Bureau wanted us at their downtown office this morning. I’ve managed to negotiate our way out of that at least.

The Bureau claims it respects the privacy of its matches. That’s bullshit. It most certainly does not.

Somehow, prime matches keep walking out of that lobby into cameras that just happen to be waiting. Happy couples, government-verified. It’s free advertising for the whole program. We’re not doing that. I’m not a walking billboard for some government department.

The new owner of the Barons, walking out of the Omega Match Bureau shoulder to shoulder with the captain of the Barons. That clip would run for a year.

So I’ve done the thing I am actually good at. I worked the phone and by Thursday we had terms.

Match law is old. Nothing in the statute stipulates where a compliance meeting has to happen; venue sits at caseworker discretion, and discretion can be negotiated.

The meeting moves to my suite. Participants arrive separately, unlogged, no venue notation in the file.

In exchange, I accepted an expedited compliance schedule I will no doubt come to hate. Nobody photographs the two of us walking into the same building and if news gets out about the match, then the Bureau has some stiff financial penalties to pay.

I did look at refusing outright. Obviously I looked, but the easiest way to get out of this is by not resisting. The Bureau is like sinking sand. The more you struggle, the more they trap you. The penalties escalate. Fines. Compliance orders. I’d almost certainly have my passport revoked.

The Bureau is lovely and friendly and match makes true love until the second you say no and then it becomes an unrelenting government machine. The harder I push, the harder they’ll push back. It’s just not worth it.

I take a deep breath. This is going to be difficult, but it’s only a few weeks. Once it’s done, it’s done.

I proposed meeting in my hotel room because it’s a place I control, it’s discreet, but now that Callahan is due any moment, it feels like the worst idea that I’ve ever had.

A hotel suite is a bedroom with a sofa in it, and everybody who walks in knows where the bed is.

I do not want to be in the same room as Callahan and a bed. I’m going to be thinking about the wrong thing.

Yes, there’s some Bureau guy coming too. His name is David Sun. I’ve researched him too. He’s responsible for prime matches at the Bureau. He’s been at the forefront of every famous prime match of the last ten years. I do not trust him an inch, but if I play this right by not fighting the battles I’m going to lose, I’ll wrap him up in a contract tight enough that no one will ever need to find out about it when I am finally free to leave.

Sun is arriving at ten. Callahan at ten past. I’m not going to be alone with that brute in this room.

The knock comes at two minutes to ten. The man is prompt. That fits what I know about him.

I open the door and Callahan’s scent comes through the gap before the door is half open, and every thought I have flies out of my brain instantly.

He’s in a charcoal overcoat with the collar up and a baseball cap pulled low, and none of it works. There is no version of six foot six that reads as inconspicuous.

“Mr. Rourke.”

“You’re early.”

“I didn’t want to be late.”

I don’t want to let him in, but having him stand outside in the corridor would be even worse.

“Come in.” I step back to let him in. It feels like a controlled retreat that keeps six feet of carpet between our bodies. It is.

He moves past me, carefully keeping his distance. I shut the door.

He stops by the window with his hands pushed deep in his coat pockets. I recognize the strategy.

My own hands are locked behind my back. Between us there is a sofa, a coffee table, and, behind me, showing in every reflective surface in the room, the bed.