Chapter 16
16
CONNOR
"Holy shit!" I exclaimed once Ben had shut us both inside the tiny bathroom. "Wolfy's a Wonderdog 3000!"
If I'd have known that, I could have saved Ben all that time searching. I was lucky the clerk at Wolf Brothers had taken pity on me.
Now, I needed to strip down so I could become Connie the Friendly Wolf. I raised my hands to unbutton my shirt, but Ben knocked them aside to grab me in a tight hug.
"You're the best boyfriend," he said. "The best alpha. The best everything. Thank you so much."
I hugged him back, rubbing large circles on the back of his t-shirt. "Nobody deserves to be ridiculed like that by their own family. Especially not by a nine-year-old boy." I kissed the top of his head. "The rest of your family is cool, though. Your dad's awesome." His blood relatives had his same olive skin and dark hair, so it was easy to tell them from their spouses.
"My pops is around here somewhere, along with Josie and Alex." He pulled back, and I missed his warmth. "They're probably hiding from the kids."
"Do you want to hide from them?" I asked. Hide and Seek wasn't my favorite game, but I would do whatever Ben wanted.
He shook his head. "Not if Connie's going to make an appearance!"
I grinned. "There's a fun game I used to play with my kin. These kids should like it, too." I explained it to Ben while I unbuttoned my shirt, but he didn't hear me. He was too busy staring.
"Ben."
He had to look a long way up from my pants zipper. "Yeah?"
"I need your help."
He stepped back into my personal space and shoved my hands away. With a tug, he had my pants and shorts down around my ankles.
I shifted before he could reach for my cock. He groaned and grabbed his own through his pants. "Unfair."
I pranced out of my pile of clothes, still wearing my socks. My wolf hated socks. I sat down on the bathmat and pulled them off my hind paws with my teeth. Yuck.
I gave a low bark to tell Ben I was ready, and he opened the door for me. I charged through the house to the living room. I circled the couch, rounding up the children to come play.
The patio door was open, so I led them through it into the backyard, if one could call it that. It was mostly patio stones, river rock flowerbeds, and succulents. The river rocks were slippery, but that only added to my comedy routine. I made the little girl who liked dogs laugh several times with my antics before Ben joined us on the patio. He'd been busy ushering the other kids outside.
"We're going to play duck, duck, goose," he said, "but when I say goose, you're running from Connie, not from me."
What? Those had not been the rules. The game was called duck hunt, and I was the hunting wolf. Instead of goose, Ben was supposed to say "shoot."
Oh, shoot. That was a bad game to teach a bunch of human children, no matter how fun my wolf thought it was. Duck, duck, goose made a lot more sense. I barked to let him know I approved, and then it was on.
The first kid Ben "goosed" was the little girl who stood up to Jeffrey. One of the other kids squealed her name, Brandi, when she got up, and I bounded after her.
Brandi was fast, but Ben had remembered the one rule difference. Since he wasn't the one chasing, he immediately sat in Brandi's spot, so she had no choice but to keep running once she got all the way around. She almost made it twice around before I grew tired of running and nosed her in the back.
She turned toward me, laughing, and wrapped her arms around my neck. "You're slow for such a big dog," she teased.
"Woof."
"Looks like it's my turn," she said. "The running is the fun part, anyway. I like this game better."
"Woof!" I agreed.
We played until every guest had a turn around the circle. Some of the children weren't as fast, and one limped, but they all enjoyed running from me like their lives depended on it. I didn't smell fear on them, either. These human children were brave.
When I caught up to the last child and nosed him in the back, Ben stood, ending the game. "That was fun! Let's thank Connie!"
The children hopped up from their circle and rushed me with hugs, pets, and scratches behind the ears. I rolled over on my back, and Brandi tickled my ribs while the other kids gave me belly rubs.
"It's time for cake and ice cream!" someone I didn't recognize said. He stood at the patio door, ushering the children inside.
"You two looked like you were having fun," the man said when Ben and I reached the door.
"It was fun," Ben said.
"Where did your boyfriend go? I want to meet him."
"Um …" Ben glanced at me.
I bounded toward the fence gate, which would lead us back to the front of the house. "Woof."
"Right. He went to get his luggage from the car. He wanted to take a shower and change before dinner."
I was definitely looking forward to changing into some clean clothes, but a shower? That would be heaven.
"I'll introduce you then, Pops!" Ben called over his shoulder before helping me with the gate. The bad thing about my wolf form was no opposable thumbs.
Ben didn't have the keys to the trunk of his parents' car, though, so I waited while he ran back inside to grab them. Then, he hauled my giant suitcase from the trunk and lugged it up the two steps to the front stoop like it was nothing. My wolf pranced, proud to have such a strong omega. I followed him down the hall and into the bathroom.
I shifted back once the door was closed. "Are you sure it's okay for me to shower?"
"After the weekend we've had, we're both showering," he said.
"What if the kids need to use the bathroom?"
"This house has nine bathrooms. They can do without this one for fifteen minutes."
"If you think you're getting a repeat of this morning in your brother's house?—"
"No!" Ben swatted my arm. "Not at all what I was thinking, you perv!"
"Damn," I teased. "I was totally going to eat your ass if you wanted me to."
Ben moaned. "Don't tempt me."
We kept our shower under ten minutes. Then, we snagged slices of cake and scoops of ice cream and ate with the children before their parents picked them up at four.
Ben's nephew finally reappeared at the door to say goodbye to his guests. From the way the kids acted, it was hard to tell if they would remain friends after watching his meltdown.
Ben's brother Jake had supplied us with folding chairs in the living room while we waited for everyone to clear out. Before she left, Brandi stopped by my chair and studied my eyes. "You look awfully familiar."
I leaned forward and cocked my head the way I would as a wolf.
She sucked in a breath and pointed, but I brought my finger to my lips. "Our secret," I said.
"I'm not supposed to keep secrets for strangers," she whispered.
"You don't have to keep it a secret, then." I grinned. Either she would tell her parents the moment she was in the car, or she would forget all about me. Either way, shifters had been part of human media since the wolf man and the shaggy dog. Unless they knew about shifters, they would assume she'd watched a movie or had a vivid imagination.
"It was real, though?" she asked. "Not a trick?"
"No trick."
The huge smile she flashed me before running off to her parents' sedan was totally worth it.
Once the party guests were gone, Ben introduced me to his pops, brother Alex, and his wife Shelly and their beta twins, and his sister Josie and her wife Audrey. All his siblings were alphas, even his sister. Audrey was pregnant with their first baby. The only other omega in the family was Jeff's little brother, Jonah, who wasn't out of diapers yet. He sat quietly on Matt's lap and watched us with owlish eyes.
"What do you do for a living, Connor?" Ben's pops had insisted I sit beside him at the dinner table while we waited for Jake to finish grilling our steaks outside.
This was the moment I dreaded. Instead of leading with crypto, something I knew he would hate, I changed tactics. "I'm between jobs right now, but I'm looking for something in finance, like Ben."
The alpha's gaze turned wary. If he were a wolf, his hackles would have raised. "Finance?"
"Well, I'm more interested in investments than banking," I said.
"What's wrong with banking?" The other conversations around the table hushed and Ben's family turned as one to look at me. All except Jeff, who was still pouting and staring down at his hands.
"N-nothing's wrong with banking," I said. "Money markets are more my thing."
"Don't tell me you're into blockchain," Pops said.
"Not anymore," I said, glad it was the truth. I thought about sharing my experience with digital art, but decided against that, too.
Ben tugged my hand from my lap and squeezed it between his before slipping his fingers through mine. "Connor's the kindest person I know, and he could sell ice to an Inuit. I'm sure he'll find something to do here in Orange County."
"Where are you from?" Matt asked, starting a more comfortable round of questions.
When we were ready to leave, Ben's pops handed me a business card. "I know you said you had no interest in banking, but you might change your mind."
I blinked. I thought he'd hated the way I'd answered his questions. "Thank you. I'll think about it."
I didn't have to think too hard. Ben hated how much the bank controlled his family's lives already. I wouldn't add to that, even if it meant starting my own company from scratch.