Chapter 4 Remy
REMY
I woke up, once again, exhausted, wishing I could go back to sleep but knowing, even if I had the time, it wouldn’t happen.
My stupid koala was being a freaking butt.
He didn’t allow me to relax, to sleep, or to concentrate on my work…
nothing. He was pushy as fuck, and he would not settle.
I wasn’t sure what to do about it. He’d never been this bad. Not even close.
I gave him an entire bag of eucalyptus candy yesterday and he was still in a mood the entire time.
I took him for a shift. All he did was refuse to let me take my skin again for an extra hour and a half.
I’d drunk enough tea that I was probably going to turn into a tea bag soon.
It might as well have been water. I made up a new batch of shower bombs after going through all of the ones I currently had, and all I had to show for all my showers was dry skin.
Nothing was working.
At first, I thought it was the exhaustion from the trip.
Then I thought maybe it was being pissed about the airplanes or not having fresh eucalyptus.
I went so far as to have some overnighted, which cost more than my mortgage payment.
Fine, that was an exaggeration, but it was a few hundred dollars for what was not a few hundred dollars’ worth of eucalyptus.
Nothing helped, and it was impacting all aspects of my daily life at this point.
And to make matters even better, and by better, I mean a whole lot worse, I woke to a message from my boss saying I was needed in the office today.
I knew he hadn’t been happy with me using my comp time, but I didn’t think he was “drag me into the office” unhappy.
I reached into the back of my closet to get my office-appropriate clothing, already uncomfortable, and it wasn’t even on my body yet.
It was going to be a long day, especially if Kevin was there with all of his stinky cologne.
At least I didn’t have to be at work at my normal time, so I didn’t have to rush out the door. The first thing I smelled when I walked in was Kevin’s cologne. An omega had told him he smelled good once, and that was all there was to that. I suspected he had stock in it.
“Hey, it’s good to see you again.” He waved, smiling brightly. He was a good guy, just a smelly one.
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” I wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he was a happy guy, so maybe.
I wove my way through cubicle hell to my boss’s office. While I preferred home, objectively, it really wasn’t that bad here. But today, everything was that bad.
“You called, Jon?”
“Yeah. Come on in.” He motioned me in, and I made myself at home, sitting in the chair across from his table, hoping that if I acted like this was a relaxed, no-big-deal meeting, it would be.
“So here’s the thing,” he said, leaning forward.
“‘Here’s the thing’ never ends well, Jon.” Not in the history of ever.
“I know, but my hands are tied here. Kevin’s up for a promotion.”
That was so not where I thought he was going with this.
“That’s great.” I didn’t see what it had to do with me, I was already ahead of him in both seniority and position. It wasn’t like he was going to become my boss or anything.
“It’s great, but he has to nail his presentation in Kansas City.”
“Okay? Does he need help writing it or practicing, like an audience?” It wasn’t easy to be around him, but I was up for the challenge.
“You need to go with him.”
My stomach dropped. No. No. No. No. No.
“Really? Are you punishing me because I used my comp time? Be real.”
His eyes went wide, and I understood why. I didn’t talk to him like this. I didn’t talk to anyone like this. But my self-regulation had gotten up and fled. I mouthed sorry, grateful my boss wasn’t one to take it to heart.
“I was a little pissed at that because I had to take over your conference calls.” He smirked, letting me know he hadn’t been mad at all. “But no, it’s because Kevin really needs this. You’re the only one who’s good at it and doesn’t have a family.”
And that was what it boiled down to. Once you had a husband and kids, or a wife and kids, they weren’t picky which, then you got to avoid all these random extra trips. It wasn’t fair, but at the same time, I understood the reasoning.
“I’ll go on one condition.”
“Are you trying to negotiate with me?” He looked amused, which was good. It landed how it was supposed to, despite me being dead serious.
“Sort of, but it’s for Kevin’s benefit, too.” I couldn’t be the only one who hated his cologne.
“Fine. What is it?”
“You have to tell him that there’s no cologne allowed, that it’s like company policy or some shit. Don’t tell him he stinks. He’s a nice enough guy, but I cannot spend time with him… next to him, in an airport, in a taxi, in meetings. I cannot.”
“Done.”
He agreed to that too quickly. I should’ve negotiated a higher per diem, too.
“And when I’m gone, you’re doing all my conference calls.”
He gave me his version of an evil eye, one that was far more humorous than scary. “Done. Listen, why don’t you finish up the day here? You can use Bob’s old station.”
Bob had retired and they never backfilled his job, which made more work for all of us. Go corporate. The cubicle was on the other side of the office from Kevin and next to my work bestie, Steven. If I had to be here, it was the best place ever.
“Sounds good.” I grabbed my messenger bag with my computer and found my home for the day.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Steven asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Want to grab dinner and some fur after this and you can tell me all about it? Because now I really do need to know.” Steven did love his gossip.
“Yeah, let’s do it.”
Steven was a fox shifter and cute as could be. Unlike me, he could shift more freely where we lived because they assumed his beast lived there, even though his variety of fox wasn’t native to the area. People just saw a fox and assumed. No one saw a koala and did the same.
After work, we grabbed burgers at our favorite place and hit the state park together, using a trail entrance that had long been forgotten by the Parks and Rec department.
“You look like you’re upset about more than just the trip,” he said as we walked deeper into the woods, just in case anyone stumbled upon our trail.
“Yes. No. Yes, I don’t know. My koala’s being an ass lately.” Understatement of the year.
“When you say ‘lately,’ when do you mean?”
I described everything that was happening with him and how it went from bad to worse when we got home from my last trip, oversharing to the max.
“Did you ever think that maybe it might be connected to that phone call?” he asked and stopped walking. His fox was close to the surface, and my guess was he was ready for his own dinner.
“How could it be?”
“Look at the timing.” He then laid out his theory point by point.
“When did you get so smart?” He was right. It did all start spiraling from that.
It still didn’t make sense. It was a phone call that I made in my house. Sure, we were kind of flirty on it, but that was a human thing, not a shifter thing. What would that have to do with a koala?
“Well, all I’m saying is, one friend to another, what could it hurt doing a little furniture shopping?”
“What?” It took my brain a minute to catch up. “Hmm, maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it. But first, I have that tree to climb.”
There was no thinking about it. I was going to the store to meet Hari face to face. If Steven was wrong, no harm. If he was right? I wasn’t sure what that meant, but either which way, things with my koala couldn’t stay this way.
We tossed our clothes into a pile, and he took off running, probably to snag some prey.
I headed straight for the trees and stayed there the entire time, wondering if it was true, if maybe that phone call was more than just a missed call.
The longer I let my brain dwell on it, the more I started to believe it just might be.