5. Quitting Time
Quitting Time
Dakota
T he warehouse’s background noise dimmed as Kade and his mate entered the building.
I heard him announce he was leaving Mercury Delivers and felt relief that he wouldn’t be working here without me.
Maybe I could hold off on telling him my news until things were a bit more settled.
I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer any information to him about his papa unless asked directly.
I wouldn’t lie to Kade to cover for Jasper.
“Lunch sounds good.” Isaac agreed. Ugh, the sound of his voice was grating. I’d suffered through the whole of the previous day and part of this morning as I took him through the routines I’d implemented.
“We’d better go and speak to Dakota,” Kade spoke, his voice heading towards me.
He knocked briefly before entering. “Kota? Are you alright?”
“Hmm?” I looked up at Kade, pretending that I hadn’t been aware of his presence in the building since he’d arrived. “It’s nothing, just a few things on my mind.”
“You know we’re here for you if you need us,” Blake said, earning a doting smile from his mate.
The pair were good together. I thought I’d find it hard to see them like that, but every ounce of feeling I had for Kade was paternal.
He was my best friend, or the closest thing to it, and should be more to me.
It killed me that in denying our bond, Jasper was preventing me from having a family of my own.
I’d lain awake the previous night again, itching to find a way to contact Jasper to ask for another shot.
Briefly, I’d even contemplated heading over to Kade’s house to see if he was still staying there.
I hadn’t gone because I hadn’t wanted to wake Angelica if she was in bed.
At least that was my excuse, and not that I expected to be rebuffed again.
After a brief pause, I replied to Blake. This was an actual sign of his acceptance of my place in Kade’s life, not that he knew my true role. “Of course, thank you, Alpha.”
Kade handed over his things. “I might be quitting work here, but I’m not quitting our friendship, Kota.
You are my family now.” Oh, if only he knew!
It was a knife to the heart hearing him call me family when I’d been denied that.
“Thank you for all you did to help me over these last weeks. I’ll never forget it.
” I wouldn’t either. Janet’s words about my place in his life made sense.
I should have never doubted the ancient omega bear.
She often received visions from our goddess, The Luna, and was never wrong.
I could feel tears rising, and I stood, wrapping Kade in my arms. Needing the reassurance that I wasn’t going to lose him when this all came out, I gripped him to me. Where would he land when he found out? Would he understand whatever reasoning Jasper had for not even talking about our bond?
The unknowing hurt the most. If Jasper would just have a conversation with me, then I would try to understand his reasoning. Just to reject me without even speaking about it first? It was cruel. My anger flared, and I pushed it away, since it had no place near Kade.
I managed my goodbyes and sat looking at the computer without seeing a word on the screen.
Minutes passed before Isaac came into the office, an odd look on his face.
With him taking my job, for being the reason for losing my job by making those complaints, I just couldn’t find it in me to ask what was wrong. I had my own shit to deal with.
We sat in silence with him looking through something on the tablet he’d carried in. Why was I still here?
I stood without speaking a word and went out into the main depot and spotted Avery, one of the ogres we had on staff. “Hey, Avery, could you find me an empty box?”
“An empty box?” they echoed.
“Please.”
They nodded and went off in search of one.
I saw the other two ogres that we employed chatting with Shelby, the nymph that dealt with the customer side of things, pickups and the like.
I approached them and thanked Avery when they handed me a large empty box.
“Perfect. Okay, I’m about to go pack up my things and head out. ”
Four stunned faces looked at me. “What the heck?” Shelby finally stammered.
“Come on, you’re bound to have suspected what’s happening.” I thought for sure that the rumor mill had been having a field day over my name plate being missing. The ogres shared a look and said nothing. Ah, they hadn’t told Shelby.
“Suspected what? What’s going on?” Her voice became sharp, and I winced, my shifter hearing sensitive.
“They’ve fired me.” I told her simply. “Isaac is now your boss. He knows what he needs to do, so I don’t have to stay.”
“Fired? What the fuck?” Shelby looked so enraged it was almost comical. The profanity from her lips almost had a chuckle escaping. I wasn’t used to the language from her. Her anger was why the ogres hadn’t told her.
“Why Isaac?” Taylor asked. Out of the ogres, they were the most talkative and the leader of the bunch.
Their baby bump was showing and soon Isaac would have to put them on the customer service desk for their safety.
I made a mental note to remind him before I left.
Ogres were unique in that they could both carry babies and fertilize eggs, which is why they preferred non-binary terms. Taylor had carried since their partner was in the police force.
I shrugged, though I had a good idea why.
Isaac had been making complaints to management on the behalf of our coworkers, but the majority appeared not to have any issues with me.
Part of it was that he hated that I’d been interested in Kade.
I think he preferred it when Kade was mooning over him and he didn’t want competition.
We all knew about Kade’s crush on the vampire.
Isaac just loved the attention, even though he had two mates.
Ugh, my blood pressure was rising just thinking of the snake.
“Look, I’m not going to draw this out. I’m just going to grab my stuff, leave some notes, and get out of here with as little fuss as possible.”
“But —“ Shelby tried to cut me off. Since she wasn’t a shifter, I didn’t reach for her and try to reassure her with touch, but she sort of leaned into me like she needed it.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you all at the pack run, right? Kade invited you?”
“Blake did.” Alex said.
Nodding, I took my box and headed back to the office. Inside, Isaac was in my chair, or rather his, looking at the computer. His cheeks darkened when entered. “Uh, sorry.”
“No,” I told him, “it’s cool. I’m just going to pack up and head out. There’s nothing left for me to take you through. You’ve been working on this for a while now.”
He flinched, but didn’t deny it. A thousand words flitted along my tongue.
I bit them back. There was no point. In a few brief minutes, Isaac would be out of my life for good.
He’d won this battle, he’d gotten my job, gotten me fired, but he wouldn’t get Kade any more. I was going to protect Kade from Isaac.
My phone rang with a video call just as I’d managed to relax into the football game playing on the TV. I’d given up on the supernatural league, the vampires making me think of Isaac and work, and I’d settled for a human team I’d loved as a child.
Although the call said Dad, I couldn’t help the suspicion that this was Papa calling. I’d never known Dad to use a video call willingly. I didn’t let it ring for long before I picked it up. Arranging my face so I wasn’t frowning, I greeted him, “hey Papa.”
“Son.” Shit. It was Dad, and he didn’t look happy. A frown marred his face. “You’ve been avoiding your papa and have hurt his feelings. He loves you, son, and he’s worried. The most important thing is, are you okay?”
Dad wasn’t the softest man. It came from being the healer and sometimes having to hurt someone to heal them properly. He saw humans and shifters in all stages of life, and it had naturally hardened his shell. The only time he was that soft inner was for his family, me, and Papa.
“I’m sorry, Dad. Sorry, Papa.” I knew he was listening.
He and Dad worked together since Papa was a nurse.
They didn’t like to be apart. It was sweet, really.
“It’s been a rough couple of days.” I outlined the silence from Jasper.
They knew about the second rejection and then explained about work and that they had fired me.
“What the hell? They can’t!” Papa’s face was full of indignant fury.
“They can. I was on warnings.” I tried to shrug it off.
“You never said.” Dad’s face didn’t show any judgment.
“There wasn’t any point. I ignored it as best I could. Maybe I should have fought the warnings, the complaints wouldn’t have stood up to scrutiny —“
“Of course they wouldn’t.” Papa said loyally.
“I just thought it was Isaac gunning for my job and causing hassle at work. Then I was off and left without notice.”
“Ah.” Dad said, nodding.
“They fired you because you went to get Kade back?” Papa’s mouth dropped open.
I couldn’t restrain my chuckle. Sometimes it was impossible to tell that he was nearly ninety.
He looked late thirties, early forties maybe.
I was a terrible gauge when it came to ages.
I was in my fifties but looked like I was still in my late twenties.
One of the many perks of being a shifter.
“Yeah, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Dad gave me a smile, making me fill with pride. “What are you going to do now?” he asked.
“I’m going to use up the leave I had and take my time looking for something else. There’s no rush. Thanks to you both, I don’t have a lot of bills and plenty of savings.”
I’d always had a job of some kind, even if it was just helping Dad’s assistant with paperwork and invoicing. College wasn’t for me, so I’d taken distance learning classes around working on a few subjects. My parents had given me the money they’d saved for college so I could buy my house.
“I meant about Jasper, son. You need to sort things with your mate. If he’s going to reject you formally, you need to know what his plans are. If he’s staying in Sweetwater, it’ll mean you going away for a while until your bear can cope with the rejection. You need to make a plan.”
My mouth went dry, my heart thudded in my chest. I hadn’t thought about the long-term plans. Fuck. My. Life. I needed to talk to Jasper.
“I don’t know if I can,” I finally admitted.
The fear of being formally rejected closed my throat.
It felt like a rock was sitting on my stomach.
My bear grumbled at me. He didn’t truly believe that we would be rejected properly.
We had too much to offer. My eyes surveyed the room, taking in the light and airy space.
The house was too large for one person with four bedrooms, the same amount of bathrooms and a massive open-plan kitchen and dining space, a formal dining room and comfortable den.
I’d gotten it for a steal since it was so close to the border of the compound and farther out from the sleuth land than the other bears had liked.
“I’m sorry, Son,” Dad spoke into the silence. “You can’t move on until you know either way.”