The Good Boys Club (Mythical Mishaps #2)

1. Can I Pet That Dawg?

Can I Pet That Dawg?

Present Day

Cian

“Can anyone tell me the difference between werewolves and wolf shifters?”

No hands went up. Not that I expected any to. In a group of five interns, there wasn’t a single canine—no werewolves and no wolf shifters. I fiddled with my lanyard and made sure the newbies knew exactly who’d been lumped into giving their bloody induction again:

CIAN BARKER

SENIOR PROJECT ARCHITECT

I didn’t bother to learn any of their names. No doubt two-thirds of them wouldn’t make it to the end of their contracts. I simply started referring to them by their species.

Succubus was fuchsia-skinned, scantily clothed, a little jittery. Fae was ethereal, had blonde hair, icy-blue eyes, pointed ears, arrogant. Bear Shifter was tall, furry, hot as fuck, but far too young. Human One was masc, wore plastic-rimmed glasses similar to mine, with olive skin tone. Human two was femme, had more tattoos than I did—no mean feat—and had been very heavy-handed on the gourmand perfume earlier that morning.

“Nobody?” I sighed and pulled the cord on a roll-away poster we kept tucked in the corner of every conference room. The interns should have seen this poster a thousand times before. It was on our website, our app, and had been used in almost all of our social media campaigns. The infographic had become so ingrained with the Howl Ya Doing brand, we’d had it TMed.

The poster showed a sketch of two figures—two guys—one a wolf shifter and the other a werewolf. They stood side by side. The comparative differences had been printed in bold, all caps, with little arrows pointing to the diagrams.

“Now can anyone tell me?”

Hands went up . . . gingerly, but they still went up.

I pointed to Human One. “Werewolves are bigger?”

“Correct. The average height of a male wolf shifter is five foot ten, and a female is five four. The average height of a werewolf is almost an entire foot taller. Males are usually around six eight or nine, and females six three. This is in their human forms. In canine form, you’re gonna need to add an extra ten to fifteen inches to those measurements.”

The interns nodded along. They all already knew this information. If they didn’t, they were really in the wrong job.

“Anyone else?”

Succubus. “Werewolves always have some wolfish features even when in human form.”

“Such as?” I said, feeling like a teacher coaxing out the answers.

“The ears. Werewolves’ ears are furry and pointy. And the tails. They have tails in human form too, whereas shifters don’t. They’re human passing.”

“Yup. Anyone else?”

Human Two. “Wolf shifters can shift at will, but werewolves can only shift under a full moon.”

“Yes!” I pointed to Human Two. “Ten gold stars.” They beamed, obviously missing my sarcasm. “This is the main difference. Shifters can shift whenever they like and stay shifted for however long they like. Were don’t get that choice. Their shifts last between six and fourteen hours once a month when the Diana moon—that’s the big yellow one in the middle—is full.”

Of the three moons that hung over the Eight and a Half Kingdoms, Diana was the biggest and brightest. The other two moon cycles had no effect on werefolk. If you ever asked a werewolf why that was, they’d simply shrug and say something along the lines of, “It’s a were thing.”

I continued with my mini lecture. “I should also add that a shifter will remember every moment from the time they shift to the time they shift back, but werewolves usually can’t remember what’s happened during the full moon. Some werefolk can be very salty about this.”

“What do you mean, don’t remember it?” said Succubus.

“For werewolves, shifting is a bit like being drunk. Some remember it the next day, most don’t. Some remember only small bits. It’s a bit like going out on a huge bender and waking up in someone else’s bed.”

The interns shared looks with each other. I couldn’t be arsed to decipher any of their meanings.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Knots!” shouted Succubus.

I raised my eyebrow. Of course, out of all the interns, it was the sex demon who mentioned knots. “And what about knots?”

“Shifters have a single knot and were have a double.” Succubus spoke confidently, as though from experience.

I turned to the other interns. “And you all know the purpose of knots, right? I’m not going to have to explain, am I?”

They nodded. Obviously, they would do. None of them were lupine, but I’d wager an entire year’s salary on each and every one of them having a knotting kink. Why else would they take a job at a wolf-dating agency?

Human One raised their hand. “Doesn’t a knot only . . . erm, come out with a true mate? Like a fated mate?”

I laughed. It was one of the more widely believed misconceptions, and had led to our largest portion of complaints from non-canine folk of all genders who’d been intimate with a shifter or were. Their companion’s knot or knots had popped, as they were so flippantly wont to do, and the human, or other species, had taken it as a celestial sign they were fated.

For those not in the know, it caused frequent confusion, and sometimes heartbreak. It happened so often—pretty much every time a person in possession of a knot or knots was about to come—that we had to put a disclaimer on our app. It’s not you, it’s not fate, it’s the wolf. Don’t read too much into it.

“No, not at all. Sometimes knots pop even outside of . . . sexual activities. Sometimes for the most random reasons and at the most inconvenient times.” Like at the supermarket, or on the U-Rail, or that one time during a funeral service. In my defence, I had been sitting next to the man I’d had a crush on for over a decade, and his scent kept wafting over to me. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Succubus turned to Bear Shifter. “Have you got a knot?” they said, with zero trace of HR awareness.

I began to correct them. “We don’t—”

“No knots. Baculum, though,” Bear Shifter said, not even remotely embarrassed. The younger generation was such an odd bunch. Bear Shifter looked at me. “Do were and wolf shifters have bacula?”

“Only while shifted,” I replied, turning my face a little to hide the heat crawling up my skin. I had no idea why; discussion on knots was an everyday thing here at Howl. I cleared my throat. “Well, those are the main differences between werewolves and shifters. Anybody have any more questions about that”—I pointed to the poster—“before we move onto the next part?”

Fae’s hand went up. “What are you? Were or shifter?”

Really? I’m gonna teach you all of that shit for you to still ask? “What do you think?” I said instead.

“Um, shifter?” they said. I nodded, and gave them my most impatient teacher expression, demanding a breakdown of their assumption. “Because . . . not super tall and don’t have fluffy ears or a tail?”

“Bingo.” I tugged on the poster’s cord and it flew back into its cylindrical container. “Right, let me show you the rest of the offices.”

The interns followed me around the Howl Ya Doing building. Well, the three storeys out of fourteen that the dating app occupied. I showed them all the important places like the fire escapes, the canteen, the rec room, the lockers, the bathrooms, and the shifting room—even though every full moon was an official holiday granted by the company. No employee, no matter their species, had to work the day or night shift during this time, so nobody was ever in the building to use it. But whatever.

“And this is the workfloor, so if you don’t end up in facilities or accounts or HR, you’ll be in here,” I said, moving through the large open-plan office, the interns trailing. “Technically, it’s a hotdesk policy, so in theory you can sit wherever there’s a free space, but you’ll find everyone’s already staked their claim on their preferred desk. We tend to sit together in departments because it makes things easier. Over there are the help-desk folk.”

Some of the help-desk folk wearing their headphones and mics lifted their heads and waved.

“The UX designers, the backend developers, the QA team . . .” I pointed to each micro cluster of people in turn. “And this is where the managers sit, including m—”

I cut myself off, stumbled over my own feet. My heart threw itself against my stomach as it did every time I saw him.

I stood up straight, cleared my throat. “And this is where I usually sit.”

“There’s a werewolf in your chair,” said Human Two.

“Yup.” I heaved out a sigh. “And how do we know he’s a werewolf?” Might as well continue with my lesson.

“Um,” Human Two squeaked. “He’s really, really massive, and has fluffy ears, and his tail is wagging?”

I finally turned to face the werewolf in my chair. His tail was indeed wagging. Thumping against my desk, actually, and edging my glass of water dangerously close to my keyboard. He’d propped his feet up onto my colleague Gideon’s desk, that’s how long the newcomer’s legs were.

Luckily, Giddy preferred the night shift, so wasn’t in the office yet. No doubt he was as fed up with Mash Cassidy materialising unannounced in the building as I was. Like, who was even letting him in? He didn’t work here, didn’t even have a lanyard or key card. He had no right or reason to be here.

And yet, here he was, and as always my traitorous heart was glad for it.

Mash beamed at me, flashing his perfectly straight, megawatt smile, his elongated canines glinting under the office-light fluorescence. Then he turned his smile to the interns. His gaze landed on Human Two. He brushed his sandy-blonde hair from his forehead, licked his lower lip, and raised a brow towards me. A silent question.

I gave him an almost imperceptible shake of the head, letting him know, in no uncertain terms, it was not okay to fuck my interns. Nor would it ever be.

“Gods,” Succubus whispered to Fae. “He can get it.”

“Right, folks!” I said, slapping my hands together. I checked my watch—ten thirty, way too early for lunch. “Break time! There’s a five-silver credit for each of you behind the cash register at the canteen, so go get a latte and a doughnut or whatever, and we’ll reconvene in twenty minutes. After I’ve called Animal Control.”

The interns nodded and turned in the direction of the canteen.

“Outta my seat,” I said to Mash the moment the last intern had vanished through the lift doors. I didn’t need to ask why he was here at my office on a Monday morning at half past ten. Again.

“Hey Bangers, I brought you coffee.” He held up a takeaway Ichor mug, which I accepted with a resigned huff.

I sat in Giddy’s empty chair, tested the temperature of my plain black double-shot coffee by placing my lip against the lid’s drink hole. It was still scalding. Perfect. I took a sip.

Mash noisily slurped his iced latte through a paper straw. The plastic cup was nearly as big as he was, and topped with cream. My shifter nose picked up every syrup variety in known existence. Ice cubes clinked against each other.

“Did you at least leave her a note? Do you know her name? I’ve got inductions all day so you can’t hang around here. Plus, James is in later.”

He slurped his drink again. “I wanna say Dara. Or Daria. Or . . . no, wait, was it Lara? Maybe Laura.”

“Laura was the last one,” I reminded him.

“Lots of girls are called Laura.”

“So why are you here and not at the uni?”

“Ah . . .” That one syllable said more than an entire speech.

Dr Mash Cassidy worked at Remy University. He was technically a research fellow and a lecturer of dendrology and environmental sciences, but I never really heard him talk about his work. He seemed to spend most of his time avoiding the place, though that may have more to do with avoiding his female colleagues, and a few of the students too.

I didn’t need Mash to tell me Dara-Daria-Lara-Laura was probably still asleep in his bed. I didn’t need to ask Mash where he found this one, or who she was, or what she did for work. No doubt he wouldn’t have any clue himself.

And I didn’t need to ask him how he’d managed to convince her to go back to his place. Mash didn’t need to convince any of them. Mash simply smiled, flashed his dimples, flipped his blonde hair, flexed his enormous biceps, and women would fall at his feet. Literally.

I’d seen it happen hundreds of times.

His favourite pick up line was, “You’re so clumsy for a supermodel.”

Also, “I’m sorry, I don’t do this very often, but I saw you from across the bar and . . . wow.”

Also, “Have we met in a previous life?”

Also, “Okay, this is going to sound really weird, but my cards said I’d meet someone special tonight.”

Also, “I’m just so fucking lonely. Will you hold me?”

Also, “Hi.”

I’d never seen him fail.

Which was fine, good for him, whatever. The man liked no-strings hook-ups. Fucking was his hobby, and according to all sources he was damn good at it. But it often meant I was forgotten about the moment a pretty face came along. I’d get left in the bar, club, wherever, by myself. Completely on my lonesome. A sad little gay hipster in a straight bar—all alone. Awesome.

He’d been my best friend for fifteen years, but sometimes Mash Cassidy could be such a selfish asshole.

“Fine, you can stay here until lunch, but then you have to leave. James is in the office this afternoon and I don’t want to get security in trouble for letting you in again.”

James Bradshaw, werewolf and Howl Ya Doing’s chief executive officer. He’d pop his head in once every few weeks, tell us we were all doing amazing, buy us a pool table for the rec room, then bugger off again not to be seen until the following month.

And besides, even though Mash was a pain in the ass, I’d never been great at saying no to him.

The werewolf slurped his coffee. “Deal. Oh, there’s a new Lucy Stirling movie out. Wanna go watch it with me?”

“Who’s the male lead?”

“That short, skinny guy you like with the Jacob’s ladder,” he replied.

“How do you know Brad Whitlock has a Jacob’s ladder?”

Mash shrugged. “Not like I wanted to see it or anything. Just that someone might have typed ‘Brad Whitlock dick piercing’ into my search bar, and I might have accidentally looked at it.”

“Sure,” I said, pursing my lips, nodding my head, letting him know how little I believed his story. “I’ll go watch the movie with you. You didn’t by any chance screenshot Brad’s piercings, did you?”

“Yeah, wanna see?” Mash said, whipping his phone out of his back pocket.