Chapter 14 Guy
Guy
My eyes were locked suspiciously on the human currently drilling a hole in my cabin wall.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked sharply.
The little pile of sawdust accumulating on my living room floor was starting to grate on me.
That was a perfectly good wall before he’d come along, and now I would have to seal that up tight or I would have chipmunks moving in by nightfall.
The guy sighed and sat back on his heels, drill in hand. “That depends. Do you want the internet inside the house? Or outside?”
I bit down on the growl threatening to sneak out, lips thinning beneath my overgrown beard.
“That’s what I thought,” he grumbled under his breath, bending over far enough that his pants slid down, revealing a good three inches of hairy ass crack. The drill started up again, and I had to stomp away before I physically removed him from my home.
The internet was important for so many reasons—building a website for my company, emailing contracts and negotiations with the small company that was interested in partnering with me on a sample batch of syrup to see how well it sold—but honestly, I could’ve done all that at the shared community building or even the Alpha’s house, both of which were set up with wi-fi.
But I wanted internet in my own home so I could be closer to Fable.
I followed him on social media and got regular updates from his blog, so I knew he was trying out new recipes, many of them with maple and fresh-ground nutmeg, but the connection up here at the lodge was so unreliable that the pictures wouldn’t always load on my phone. And videos? Forget about it.
I hadn’t laid eyes on him in weeks, not since he drove away from the lodge and out of sight, and it was slowly killing me.
We’d texted a few times, but between the time difference and his day job, there hadn’t been nearly enough contact.
We’d tried to do a video call, but the service out here was so awful that I’d barely been able to hear his voice, and the video was stuck on a pixelated view of his ceiling.
He said he was doing okay, but I swore I could still feel him on my skin, like the ghost of a touch, and he didn’t feel okay to me.
Or maybe that was just me who was a total wreck.
Mates weren’t meant to live so far apart.
There was this massive echoing cave inside my chest, filled with sharp-clawed monsters trying to dig their way out, and it made me snap at internet servicemen just trying to do their job.
I decided it was time to take a walk and let the man do his thing before I shifted and let my beaver throw his weight around.
It was still too early to tap the sugar maples, but I could feel the first hint of spring in the air, the days slowly getting longer, the sun warm on my face. I decided to do a quick lap of the maple grove to check on the trees’ health and plan ahead.
I walked through the trees, snow crunching beneath my boots, running my fingers over the bark in an attempt to ground myself, but I felt so lost. There were still a few random Christmas decorations lingering on branches, but January was so long and dark that we always hesitated on letting go of the holiday.
This year had been even darker and colder than usual, with my heart a whole country away.
Do you want to swim? I offered my beaver as we rounded the lake, but he wasn’t in the mood for anything either.
Non. Fable, he grumped, sulking. He hadn’t even formally met our mate in his fur, but any joy he’d ever found in going about our daily business had fizzled and died. Nothing but Fable could fix what was broken.
A splash brought my attention to where someone had hacked into the ice over the small lake that curved through the bottom of our valley. I saw a flicker of a brown-furred head duck under the water, the slap of a wide tail, before Pierre’s human head breached the water’s surface.
“What’s wrong now?” our lodge Alpha asked in thickly accented French, hauling his body out of the freezing water, naked and dripping wet. He wiped a hand down his face then walked over to where he’d left a towel and pile of clothes draped over a beaver-gnawed log.
“Nothing new,” I informed him tersely, trying to shut down the conversation before he could get started with his opinions of me and my mate again.
He knew some of what had transpired in Oregon, but he couldn’t understand why I hadn’t simply revealed myself to him, marked him, then brought him home.
If only it were so easy… He didn’t spend much of his time around humans, didn’t follow their customs and etiquette.
“You know, you should just—” he began, but I shook my head sharply, and he cut off with a sigh.
“It’s not healthy for you to be away from your mate.
Fate put the two of you together for a reason, and to ignore it is…
disrespectful. Not to mention hazardous to your health.
I mean, just look at you.” He waved his hand gesturing to all of me before he pulled his sweater over his head.
I looked down at myself. “What’s wrong with how I look?”
“Your shirt is untucked… and unwashed,” he added after taking a whiff, “your boots are unlaced, your beard looks like a briar patch. Is there a bird nesting in there?” He leaned closer, using his fingers to peek into the thick pelt I’d grown on my face.
I slapped his hand away. “No, there’s nothing nesting in there.”
“Well, there’s still time to prevent it. Nesting season starts in a couple months, so I suggest going to get your mate before the birds start looking to you for nesting material.” He laughed as he shoved his boots on. “I could make it an order, if you want?”
My shoulders sagged as I blew out a sigh. “No, I’ll be okay.” Pierre looked skeptical, and while I wasn’t sure how true that was, I hadn’t given up on winning Fable over yet. In fact, maybe enough time had passed for the serviceman to finish installing the internet.
“I have to go, Pierre, but thanks for the pep talk.” If you could call it that, which I didn’t.
Sure enough, by the time I got back to my cabin, the guy was packing up his truck. “Are you all done?” I asked, tromping up behind him.
“Yup, all done. Kinda surprising you guys have been living out here without basic necessities, like the internet. This really is the boonies. I barely found the place even with my GPS. My phone kept dropping the signal.”
I didn’t know how to explain to this man that basic necessities didn’t really include cell phones, but considering how desperate I currently was to lay eyes on my mate, my argument didn’t seem valid anymore.
I quickly paid the man, and as soon as he was off my property, I raced back inside, connecting my phone to the brand-new wi-fi.
Then, with quivering finger, I pressed the button for a video call.
The screen went black for a second while it rang, and I held my breath, waiting for the call to connect. And then, with a flare of light, there was Fable! “Hi!” I burst out immediately, and his responding smile was enough to ignite a flush of heat through my body.
“Hi!” he said back. “You got your internet fixed!”
I’d told myself that if Fable was happy without us that I could let him go.
If that was what he needed, I would sacrifice whatever it took to ensure his future was perfect.
Looking at him now, though, it looked like he’d been sick.
There were deep bruises under his eyes, and he’d obviously lost some weight, his cheeks hollow.
“Are you okay?” I asked without thinking. “I mean, you look… Are you okay?” I repeated dumbly, because it was what I needed to know.
He laughed, shaking his head. “Wow, thanks. You look… great too.” He made a face, and I glanced at myself in the inset video and laughed too, smoothing a hand over my unruly beard, trying to tame it—a pointless attempt, it was untameable.
“Yeah, I know.” Our laughs died down, and I smiled sadly at my mate, still beautiful regardless of the haunted look. The distance was clearly impacting him just as it was me. “I miss you,” I whispered.
“Me too. I hope you don’t think this is too clingy of me to say, but I’m having a hard time being at work again. Anytime something happens, I think, ‘Guy would think this is funny,’ but then it hits even harder that you’re not there.”
“You can text me, you know. I want to hear it all,” I assured him.
“I know, but it’s not the same.” He sounded so sad, and I found myself replaying Pierre’s opinion of the situation—reveal myself to him, mark him, and bring him home. I couldn’t do the first two options yet, but maybe the third one was a possibility.
“You should come,” I blurted without waiting for the idea to coalesce into a full plan. “I mean, I know you probably can’t book any more time off so soon after Christmas, but—”
Fable’s eyes lit up. “YES! I have so much overtime banked, I can take a few days around a weekend. Wait, you’re serious, right? You weren’t just offering to be nice?”
“Of course I’m serious!” My heart was thrumming, my beaver’s mood perking right up. “How soon can you be here? I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
On the other end of the call, Fable got to work checking flights, and by the time it was dark outside my windows, we had a plan in place for a visit in two weeks’ time.
“You have no idea how excited I am for this,” he gushed.
“Trust me, I have a pretty good idea.” My fingers twitched with the urge to run them through his hair and over his body.
I could perfectly recall his sweet scent ingrained in my very soul, but to know I would soon be able to breathe it straight from the source set my heart at ease—not to mention my beast.
My view of my mate shifted as he crawled into bed, his smile sleepy. “And I’m assuming you have a kitchen, so I can finally cook for you. I hope you’re feeling adventurous, because I have all kinds of new flavor combinations I want to test on you.”
“I can’t wait. And with my new internet, you can even update your blog from here if you want.”
“Ooh! Does that mean I can write this trip off as a business expense?”
I laughed. “I’m no tax expert, but it sounds legit.”
Whatever Fable had been about to say next was interrupted by a huge yawn, and even though it was hours earlier for him, I knew I needed to say good night. He clearly hadn’t been sleeping well lately. “You’d better get some rest,” I told him.
His lower lip stuck out in an adorable pout. “Okay, but only because the sooner I get to sleep, the sooner it’ll be until I can see you again.” I wasn’t sure about that logic, but just in case, I decided it was my bedtime too. “Can I call you tomorrow?”
“Absolutely. Anytime, I’ll be here.”
We said our goodbyes, the L-word hovering in the space between us. And when the screen went dark, the silence that was left felt suddenly suffocating. My body felt heavier, a pressure on my chest making it harder to breathe.
Bient?t, my beaver said, coaxing me to get to bed, the sooner to see our mate. Right now, though, in the dark of night, the promise of soon didn’t feel like nearly enough.
I trudged toward bed but paused, catching sight of my reflection in the mirror. I laughed, thinking of Fable’s reaction to it. First, I had to get rid of this beard.