Wrong Number, Fated Gray Wolf

1. Stephen

STEPHEN

“It’s so romantic.”

“What’s that?” Remy, my boss, was staring at his laptop and didn’t look up.

“How you met Hari.” I gushed over the thought of making a phone call on a landline, of which there was one on my desk here at work, and finding the love of my life.

“Yeah.” He wasn’t listening, his monotone told me that. But he adored his mate and son, Huxley. He’d describe his little one’s antics, and the new words he’d learned and every milestone from the time he was born was noted on a spreadsheet.

I gave up on the conversation and sat at my desk in the corner.

I was Remy’s assistant and we worked from his home.

It was just the two of us, so there was no office gossip or chatter around the water cooler.

Not that I wanted any of that. I was pleased to leave that particular rat race behind in exchange for a quieter, more pleasant work environment and a boss who was my best friend.

As I waited for the coffee to brew in the kitchen, I looked out the window at the eucalyptus tree Remy and Hari had planted. Being a koala shifter, Hari needed the leaves that he called gum leaves. The tree was only a sapling, so he still had to order boxes of leaves for his beast to munch on.

Having the woods out back gave the house a more secluded feel than if we were in the middle of town. I often gave my fox his fur during our lunch hour and he either hunted or we just enjoyed being surrounded by woodland.

Thanks to my fox nature, I liked order and so did my boss.

Nothing was out of place, despite him having a young son who was at nursery school doing our working hours.

The plants were tended to, there was no dust on the photos, my chair was proper leather that Remy had picked up at an estate sale, there was a place for my mug on the desk, and the house was filled with love.

I felt it welcomed me when I walked in each morning.

I strolled back to our home office and placed a coffee, made just as Remy liked it, on his desk.

He hadn’t asked for one, but he always needed one mid-morning, and if I didn’t anticipate his needs, he’d reach for it and the mug would be empty.

That was one of the reasons why I was so good at my job, I anticipated and noticed what my boss needed.

He gasped and sat back in his chair, saying he hadn’t heard me come in. I apologized and said I’d make more noise next time. That annoyed my beast because being stealthy was a fox trait which was an advantage when stalking prey.

The house, including the office, smelled of varieties of wood.

Maple, oak, teak, mahogany were four I detected in the walk from the kitchen to here.

Hari made bespoke furniture, so the house was filled with exquisite pieces he and his craftspeople had made.

On the visits to his workshop, I’d envied his skills as he worked slowly, shaping wood and creating one-of-a-kind pieces.

My phone dinged. I had a rule that private messages were to be opened outside of work, but I’d left the phone on my desk and my sister’s name popped up on the display.

She’d included a photo of her son’s first birthday.

I opened the message and quickly scrolled through the pics of her little one with icing smeared over his face, my folks squabbling over who got to hold their first grandchild, along with aunts and uncles and neighbors in the background.

I came from a large loving family in a skulk an hour away, and I hadn’t been able to attend the celebration because Remy and I had been at a conference.

I loved my life here in the city, but those photos triggered a bout of homesickness.

Life in the skulk was loud, with everyone in every one else’s business.

Having a party line—where whole neighborhoods shared a phone line and each household had a different ring so they knew when to answer or ignore—was ripe for gossip.

Your neighbor could pick up the phone as you were chatting and listen in or tell you to get off the line as they wanted to make a call.

And that was how my grandparents had met.

My grandfather was home from college for the summer and talking to a former school friend.

Gran was waiting for a call from her beau, as she called him, and interrupted Grandpa’s call to tell him she was expecting an urgent message.

They argued but he got off the phone, but when Gran’s man called, it was to break off the relationship.

Fast forward, days, weeks, and months and she and Grandpa met, they disliked one another which turned to friendship, respect, and love. Who wouldn’t swoon over a fairytale come true like that?

With Remy and Hari meeting because of a wrong number and my grandparents' romance featuring a phone call, I figured the universe owed me a swoonworthy matchup with my fated mate.

Remy had told me countless times he was going to get rid of the landline because no one ever used it, except me on the off chance I’d misdial and my mate would be at the end of the line.

But whenever he suggested it, I’d hug the phone and beg him to keep it.

He’d roll his eyes and say the chances of the universe playing the same trick on me as it had on him was unlikely.

“And who’s going to call you? A telemarketer from 1990? Or an elderly lady who’s trying to call the library about a book she didn’t return thirty years ago?”

Getting a call from the past or a stranger who had an interesting life story was appealing, and I told Remy to stop mocking me.

“It could happen,” was my usual response.

I skimmed over the calendar on my computer and frowned.

That couldn’t be right. I added most of the entries, that was my job, and if Remy put something on the calendar, it was a shared one, so I’d see it.

Tomorrow, there was a meeting in a downtown hotel with a supplier which would take place in the lobby at 10:30. Both my boss and I had to be there.

But at 11:00, Remy and I were having an online meeting with the accountant who’d messaged saying we needed to do an annual review. I hadn’t added that, so my boss was the culprit.

Hmmm, the hotel meet-up couldn’t be changed because that guy was already at the airport, waiting to board. So the accountant would have to be moved forward. That shouldn’t be a problem because he lived here in town, and because he was getting close to retirement, he had few clients.

I moved outside the office so I didn’t disturb Remy, though he was in his head and probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Albert, hi, it’s Stephen from Atler and Atler.”

His gruff voice drifted through the phone. “The only reason you’d be calling me is to postpone or delay our meeting. Which is it?” He got straight to the point.

“I was wondering if we could change the time to say 9:00 or push it to the next day?”

He grumbled that it wasn’t like me to make a mistake. Not wanting to throw Remy under the bus, I apologized and said I’d send him a box of his favorite candy from my skulk. He had a sweet tooth and could never resist the honey-infused candy my family made.

“That’s bribery and pretty sure it’s illegal.” He chuckled and agreed to change the day because he didn’t like getting up early, saying he’d done that all his working life and he deserved a sleep-in.

After I ended the call, I moved the little colored blocks on the calendar so everything made sense.

Nothing dramatic happened during the afternoon, and I left Remy’s home office just before 6 pm.

I picked up my dry cleaning, something for dinner, and a new plant, and when I walked in my front door, I surveyed my small haven.

I owned it and it was small and only had one bedroom, but it was mine, or would be in ten years when I’d paid off the mortgage.

I needed a shower before cooking and listened to a podcast as I chopped garlic, chili, shallots, and coriander that I was using to make a sauce to pair with the fish I’d bought. But as I added the ingredients and stirred, Remy messaged saying he’d misplaced the file for tomorrow’s meeting.

I yanked the pan off the stove and found what he was looking for hidden in an unrelated folder.

Pleased I’d sorted yet another little hiccup, I served rice from my rice cooker and spooned a serving of fish on top.

My boss interrupted my meal, saying he was talking about the printed report we’d done because our client was hands-on and liked a hard copy.

It’s on your desk.

No, it isn’t. It’s my fault. I was looking at it earlier and I put it somewhere in the office.

Remy wasn’t usually as forgetful, so he must have been with Huxley who was his priority. I knew he and Hari were out at a barbecue for the woodworking community and their son was with them.

Okay. I’ll go back to the office and get it.

I was working from home before the meeting tomorrow, so it was best that I do it now rather than have Remy be stressed in the morning when he still couldn’t find it.

One of the advantages in his home office was that it had a separate entrance even though it was attached to the house. When we weren’t working, the door that linked the office and the home was locked, but I had a key for the office front door.

I ate my meal because another twenty minutes didn’t matter. The report wasn’t going to get up and hide in a second location because I didn’t hop to it and leave after I finished texting my boss.

When I arrived, the house was in darkness as I expected, but there were solar lights dotted around the garden, and motion-sensor lights lined the path as I strode around to the side of the house and up the stairs to the office.

I turned on the lights and glanced around as my mind tried to mirror what Remy would have done.

Walking from his desk to the window, from there to the couch and coffee table, and then to my desk and the filing cabinet.

We still kept paper files of everything, even though most of our files were on the cloud.

Rifling through the filing cabinet and the bookshelves produced no result, so I sat in Remy’s chair and put my hands behind my head as he often did.

My gaze landed on the trash can beside my desk.

I always took the garbage out when I left at the end of the day, but there was something bulging in the bin.

After retrieving the report, I texted Remy. Found it. I’ll take it home with me.

Right, that was another item checked off my list. I loved finishing tasks, and I was proud of a job well done.

But as I was closing the outer door, a strange sound came from inside the office.

What the heck was that? That burr, burr sound?

Oh gods, no, it was the phone on the desk, the one no one ever called, the landline Remy wanted to get rid of.

It was fate, it had to be, and my mate was on the end of the line.

Racing over to grab the handset, I took a deep breath and thanked the universe for giving me my happy ever after.