Chapter Ten
Kyle
Last night had been amazing. Falkan and I got along really well, and not once did I feel like I was less than. Not for my beast, not for my job, and not for the person I was.
When it was time to part ways, I hadn’t wanted to say goodbye. I kept reminding myself that there were two alphas my beast claimed as mine, and it was only right to get to know them both equally before jumping into anything. Not that I was ready for jumping in, but I had been ready for a kiss.
After I was back to my hotel and alone, I climbed into bed and replayed the night over and over again until I fell asleep, not waking until the morning.
Zevo had been great about rescheduling the meeting I missed when my maned wolf took over my body. Not embarrassing at all. Nope.
We were meeting for breakfast at the club. This was extra great because the continental breakfast at my hotel was day-old grocery store muffins and burnt coffee. Thanks, but no thanks.
There was definitely a different vibe to Animals in the morning.
The parking lot was empty, and when I walked in, I was greeted by Zevo, the place eerily quiet.
He was definitely not the only person there, but there weren’t many others.
He led me to his office, and we went straight to work, with our breakfast being delivered about ten minutes into our conversation.
He understood our product and was more interested in how to utilize it to its fullest than he was in fixing anything or figuring out the basics.
Honestly, he did not need me here for any of this, but I couldn’t be unhappy that I came.
Not after meeting my alphas, the ones I still hadn’t told I felt the same way too. I needed to get on that.
I had plans with Griffith for lunch and was counting down the seconds. If Zevo needed a lot more explanation, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to give it to him because my mind was hyper focused on my plans to spend time with the sexy bear.
“Have you had enough to eat?” Zevo set his folder down, his eyes on my plate.
“Oh, plenty. It was delicious.” They might not be a breakfast spot, but their cook knew how to cook an egg, and I was picky about my eggs. Anybody could make something passable, but these were delicious.
“It feels like you have this under control,” I said, indicating his computer.
“I thought so, too, but Karma told me I should have you come on in.”
There was something I was missing about that.
“Karma?” The name rang a bell.
“Yeah. She and her mate own Animals.”
“The one in the desert or the one in Louisiana?” I heard they were opening another on the East Coast, but that could easily be a rumor.
“All of them. Anyway, she called and said I needed to have you come in and go over all of this with me. So I agreed.”
“So, she’s your boss?” I supposed it made sense since she was the owner, but how could she micromanage three places at once—and telling him to have me come in sure seemed like micromanaging to me.
“Pretty much. But even if she wasn’t, when she says things need to happen, there’s always a reason. I’d be foolish to ignore them.”
“Is she human?” Something gave me fae vibes about what he’d just said.
“In theory, yeah,” he said. “But between us, she knows a bit too much to be just human. But that’s neither here nor there. For whatever reason, she thought you needed to be here, which was why it didn’t surprise me too much when you didn’t show up yesterday.”
“Wait, that doesn’t make sense. She told you I needed to be here, so you weren’t surprised I wasn’t here?”
“More like, it was no surprise you found some people you wanted to spend time with.”
If we had been anywhere else, I could not be having this conversation, but this was Animals, where shifter was the norm. It was easy to talk to him, and I decided to open up. I admitted all that had happened from the time we were to have our initial meeting, until now.
He responded by telling me how happy he was for us.
“Don’t get too happy yet,” I warned. “We haven’t figured out anything.”
“Logistics aside, you figured out the important things. You three are mates.”
“Maybe, but it’s not like I’ve told them yet.”
“And are they pressuring you to?”
“No.”
“Then you’re just where you need to be. Don’t worry about it. When do you see them again?” He grabbed his coffee, leaning back in his chair, the work long forgotten.
“Griffith is gonna meet me here for lunch before we go to our afternoon meetings. I don’t know the plans after that.”
“Did you want me to cancel the meetings?”
“You would do that?” This was so unlike any work meeting I’d ever been on.
“Sure. Do you want me to?”
“I guess I wouldn’t hate it, but I do need to put in the hours.” My boss was less flexible than Zevo. “I don’t want to get stuck paying for my hotel room.”
He laughed and laughed before he realized I was serious. “They would make you pay?”
“Yeah, my boss is kind of a dick.”
We went back to work, stopping only when my alarm went off. “I’m gonna go find my date, if that’s okay with you.”
We made a plan to meet up in two hours, and I wandered back to the front entrance, where Griffith was already waiting.
I wasn’t sure what the correct etiquette was for a first date, especially after they’d already seen you as your beast and you’d already dated their boyfriend. So, I went with a hug. He hugged me back, and his chest vibrated, his bear growling. Freaking hot.
“I have two hours. Should we just eat here?” Being in San Diego, there were plenty of options, but every foot away from here we went, we’d need to take back. That was precious time I wasn’t loving using on transportation.
“Here sounds great.”
We found a seat, ordered burgers at the server’s suggestion, and talked.
He told me about his work and how it had all gone to crap.
I told him about mine and how it, too, had gone to crap, just in a different way.
I still had my job; I just didn’t like the new direction it had gone in.
He, on the other hand, did not have a job because his employer went out of business.
He also told me a little bit about his life growing up, and I opened up about mine.
I refused to agree to be their mate if they didn’t know what they were getting into. I had a lot of scars from over the years, none of them visible.
But mostly, we just talked about movies and favorite foods and different kinds of vacations we’d like to have.
It was so very different from my date with Falkan, who apparently had more money than the entire state did, but it was equally nice.
I didn’t need nice, fancy things. Heck, I didn’t need nice, juicy burgers.
Just spending time with them would’ve been enough.
But I loved to see that I could fit into both of their worlds, one-on-one like this.
The question remained. Could all three of our worlds fit together?