Chapter 6
MIKA
I'd committed meerkat mischief on sleepovers before, usually midnight refrigerator raids, but never like what had happened the night Gabe stayed over. My meerkat decided he wanted to come out and play while Gabe was sound asleep on the loveseat. "Mate. Mate. Mate." There was no denying it.
I probably should have prodded Gabe awake and driven him home, but he looked so peaceful, sleeping on my loveseat, a far cry from the nervous omega who avoided alone time with alphas.
I'd curled up on his chest and stayed there until morning. I slept better than I had in weeks, but I'd wanted to crawl beneath my weighted blanket and die when he asked me to explain.
When he said he felt the pull of fate, too, it took everything I had not to shift back into my meerkat.
My little buddy wanted to dance around him.
I'd heard human mates were hard to convince, but something about the tattoo on his arm was almost magical.
It wasn't shifter magic, but I could sense it, especially in my animal form.
If my human mate accepted me faster than most, I was here for it!
Thankfully, neither of us had to be at work until nine, but it was a half-hour drive back to his apartment, and another half-hour drive home.
I didn't have time to shower before logging in.
Thankfully, Shannon had given us permission to work from home after the trial.
She'd even offered me the day off after our win, but now that the court case was settled, it was time for the intense work on the energy plant to begin.
I spent the rest of the week drafting plans and working with scientists, engineers, and contractors to confirm the thermal plant's layout and overall design.
By Friday, when our group met to discuss progress, we were back on track to break ground next spring, as planned.
Thanks to our success with eminent domain, the California Energy Commission wanted us to scout three more locations for geothermal plants.
I balked when I recognized the topographical layout on the map. "The Wolfcat Nature Reserve?"
"It's land the state already owns," Shannon explained.
While I understood their desire to avoid further lawsuits, that patch of land was off-limits.
Our family and the local wolf pack, bear sleuth, and mountain lion pair shared it.
If the state built an energy plant there, they would eat up pristine hills and run another highway through a redwood forest that had once belonged to wildlife alone.
I didn't want to see the trees uprooted for an energy plant, no matter how green the energy was.
I loved the redwoods so much, I'd considered taking Gabe out there after Bruce and Becca's wedding. If we were still dating, of course. It wasn't unheard of for a human fated mate to reject the bond, especially if he denied the existence of mate bonds.
So far, I'd been lucky, but we still needed to talk about what it meant to be a meerkat's mate. My mom would always have the final say in our relationship, and some of my past partners couldn't handle an alpha accepting anyone else's influence.
I'd bring it up tomorrow, on our hike. I didn't usually hike so close to the city, but I wanted to break Gabe into my favorite pastime slowly.
He'd been delighted by my offer to pay for dinner at Northie's, an upscale restaurant on the coast. He'd sounded hesitant before I threw that in, like he was on the verge of saying no.
I sighed. If he didn't like hiking, camping, and being outdoors, it wasn't the end of the world. Meanwhile, I loved looking at art, but I would probably annoy him when he wanted time to draw. Maybe I could shift into my meerkat and be his muse, but that would only work if the prints sold.
He'd mentioned wanting his own art studio one day, where he could teach others to sketch and paint. As his mate, I wanted that for him, too. That meant selling many prints and making a name for himself. I doubted he wanted to be known as "the meerkat artist."
Saturday morning, I showered, dressed, and left my apartment before the sky had turned from navy to purple in the east. I texted Gabe when I was five minutes away from his apartment. No response.
I pulled up in front of his building, car idling as I texted again. "Hey. I'm here. You ready?"
After two minutes with no response, I called his cell phone. It went straight to voicemail.
Door knocking time. I pulled around back to the parking lot, turned into the only two-hour temporary spot left, and dashed up the concrete stairs to the building. The door was locked, so I pressed the intercom button for Gabe's apartment.
Still no answer.
A lady carrying a small dog held the door open for me, and I thanked her with mild trepidation. My mate lived in a building where they let strange alphas enter for no reason.
She headed down a first-floor hallway, and I took the stairs to the right two at a time. Finally, I was at Gabe's door.
I knocked and listened for movement. When I didn't hear anything, I knocked again. "Gabe? You home?"
"Huh? What?"
Now I heard mad rustling and steps in my direction.
"Be right there! I'm … oh shit! I'm even later than I thought.
" The door swung open, and Gabe stood before me in nothing but a pair of boxers.
His hair was still disheveled from sleep and he had a bit of dried spittle at the corner of his mouth.
Even so, he looked damn good first thing in the morning.
"Hi."
"Hey. Come in! I'll be a minute." He pointed, extending his tattooed arm. The ink was even more vibrant after a week of healing, and the little meerkat looked happy to see me.
"Mika?" He waved to get my attention.
"Sorry!" I followed his pointing finger to a kitchenette table in the corner just past the door. Beside the table sat a loaded scroll-back chair that looked like it belonged on a patio. I shuffled a pile of sketchbooks and a few loose drawings from the seat to the crowded tabletop and sat.
Gabe's apartment was organized chaos. It was hard to call him a hoarder in such a small space, but he had a ton of stuff and nowhere to put it.
The couch looked like a pull-out, but there was no space for the bed.
He'd said it was an efficiency, so what I saw was all he had.
He'd disappeared into the bathroom, the only other door besides the entrance.
The sound of a shower running seemed overloud in the tight space.
A stack of unwashed dishes filled the sink in the opposite corner. I wanted to make myself useful, but at the same time, I couldn't steal his hot water. He needed it more for his shower.
I sighed. I'd spent my youth telling my siblings to pick up after themselves. It was only fair that my mate was a packrat and a bit of a slob.
I turned my attention to the drawings I'd displaced.
Both were of me. The first was a courtroom drawing.
Instead of sketching the full judge's bench, he had focused on my face.
He'd captured my energy perfectly. I must have been talking about the importance of clean energy in California, or maybe the alternative plans that would keep two coal plants active for another ten years.
I couldn't tell from the sketch if I was happy or angry, but my gaze was intense.
Gabe was an excellent sketcher, and fast. He'd completed the drawing in minutes, flipping the page to start another sketch the moment I left the stand.
The next loose drawing was on the same paper, larger than the sketchbook beside it. This one was of a meerkat curled up on a man's chest. I recognized the linen dress shirt Gabe had worn in court that day. In the background, a meerkat sat up on its hind legs on the television screen.
Gabe opened the bathroom door, and a cloud of steam billowed out. "Five more minutes, I swear."
"These are really good," I said.
He looked fantastic with his hair slicked back and wearing a pair of blue boxer briefs that left nothing to the imagination.
"Yeah?" He paid me no mind as he hopped over two stacks of books to stand before a plywood dresser.
When he cracked the bottom drawer open, the stack closest to him toppled.
I'd expected coffee table books, or maybe art theory, but these were all true crime dissertations and courtroom dramas.
As the pile skidded over to me, I caught the title of the one on top, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
"You read true crime books?" I asked.
"I read a bit of everything," he countered as he pulled a pair of cargo pants up over his briefs. They looked a little too tight to be comfortable.
"We're hiking four miles," I said. "Are you sure you'll be all right?"
He flashed a grin over his shoulder and opened the next drawer. "They unzip into shorts. It's fine."
"I was more worried about your balls having enough room."
He laughed. "Thanks for thinking of them. These are stretchy. I'll be fine."
I didn't argue. He knew his wardrobe better than I did. He pulled on a blue t-shirt that matched his underwear, and then a lighter blue dress shirt with wide cuffs. Over that, he pulled on a blue and black plaid jacket with a fleece hood.
"Okay, ready!" He bounded to me, leaping over the stacks of books, magazines, and a pile of dirty clothes by the arm of his couch.
"Well. Almost ready." He grabbed a pair of blue boots and thick brown wool socks from the rack by the door and pulled a stool over from the corner.
The stack of books tottering on the seat toppled to the floor.
There were the coffee table books I'd expected.
"Sorry the place is such a mess," he said as he tugged on his socks. "Saturday's my cleaning day, and I've missed two in a row."
It looked like he'd missed a calendar year of Saturdays to me, but I kept my mouth shut. "If you miss a Saturday, you could clean on Sunday."
The nasty squint he flashed in my direction said no, he could not. "I teach a class at the art museum on Sundays."
"Monday evening?"
"I was out with you."
"Tuesday evening?"
He sighed. "I get it. I could clean anytime, but it's hard. I find a book I want to read and before I know it, I've finished the book, and it's time to go to bed."
"On the couch?"
Instead of fighting me, he slumped over his knees and rested his chin on his hands. "I know it's not fancy."
"Now I wish I'd moved you to my bed. I felt bad for leaving you on the loveseat."
He laughed. "You shouldn't."
"But you deserve to sleep in a bed at least one night a week." I crossed my arms in front of me. "Next Saturday, we're cleaning your apartment. Together."
"Nope." The little half-grin and shake of his head intrigued me, but I couldn't explain why. "It's Becca and Bruce's wedding."
He had me there. The drive to protect my mate kicked in. "Do you even like hiking?"
He shrugged. "I haven't really tried it."
"That settles it," I said. "We're staying in and organizing your apartment."