Work only supports iphones and I want to text like I can on android from my various computers from this phone. Seems like only way is from a mac? Maybe a mac VM?

Perhaps with Kde-connect

I have a bit of a setup; but it's worked reliably for years at this point: 1) matrix-synapse; 2) https://github.com/mautrix/imessage.git running on an old iMac ; 3) native matrix client on android, iphone, desktop and element-web. The old imac that i've been running the bridge on has been pretty solid, i imagine if you can get a VM successfully booted, it could also work.

Look up your carriers email for txting.

For example:
Common gateways:
number@txt.att.net
number@vtext.com
number@tmomail.net
number@messaging.sprintpcs.com

Then you send an email from your desktop computer and it arrives on the mobile device AA a txt message.