Page 38 of Arrivals & Assets

I glanced dow,n and my fingers drifted across my middle. Was my baby already growing there?

Linden chuckled. “I know that pose. Ryan often looked at himself like that in the early days.”

There was a beat of silence, during which I could only smile down at my middle.

“Ok,” Linden said. “Dylan, show me your unicorn.”

My alpha laughed. “You got it. The unicorn is already equipped and has basic furnishings. People can start moving in over the next couple of weeks.”

I followed the three alphas as they toured the building.

One door in my life was closing, but maybe Alan—who was a billionaire known for building businesses—was right, and another was opening.

∞∞∞

~May~

“I can’t wait for you to meet Adam and Taal,” Dylan declared as we waited outside the secure area of the small airport. “We started out as work besties, but eventually just became regular friends. They’re going to love you, and I hope you like them, too.”

I smiled. My alpha was so excited for his friends to arrive and officially get his branch started.

“Oh! There they are! Adam! Taal!” he called and waved above the crowd.

Two men strode over, and I blinked.

“Flynn,” Dylan started, then motioned to the omega of the pair. “This is my friend, Adam. Adam, meet my new mate, Flynn.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said almost absentmindedly as I stared at the other man.

“And this is Taal. Taal, Flynn.”

“You’re… white?” I blurted out.

Taal laughed. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I mean, alot, a lot. Most people take one look at my name and assume I’ve got Middle Eastern or Asian heritage. What I’ve got instead are two white parents who decided it was fun and quirky to pick two letters from each of their names.”

I started laughing. “Really?”

He nodded. “Mama’s name is Tammy, and Dad’s is Albert.”

“We give him shit all the time,” Adam said. “Especially when we’re testing résumé and application systems. I plug in his details to look for inherent bias. We make bets about how bad it’ll be, and he usually walks away with a pile of sweets.”

“Office Guinea pig right here,” Taal said with a grin. “My name gets used for testing, and I get rewarded with treats.”

“Ummm…” I glanced at Dylan.

My alpha chuckled. “Programs are only as smart as the people who write them. Sometimes bias happens and it’s not intentional. If I feed a program a spreadsheet of a thousand hires that worked out for a company, and it sees a lot of ‘white’ names, some then boost white names because that’s the data it has. It’s not somebody in HR tossing applications, but just a computer doing math.”

“But if we can identify that problem,” Adam said, “then we can figure out a way to make things more equal… or recommend a different system.”

“I think I get it.” I paused. “Has it been a problem for you?”

Taal smiled. “Yes, and no. It’s weird. My last name is Marin. It’s pretty ambiguous. There have been times when I’ve felt like I’ve been passed over… then…”

Dylan snickered.

“Asshole,” Taal chuckled.

“What?” I asked.