Epilogue
MILES
Our sweet boy Gray had finally been sleeping through the night and was just waking up when I looked down at the bassinet his dad had made. Stellan had done a great job of designing it, and it had been growing with him, but despite that, it was almost time to move him to a crib.
“Good morning, sweetie. Your dad has a surprise for us today, and we need to get ready. What do you want to wear today?” I said, tapping my chin.
“I’m thinking something cute.” It was our daily joke because everything looked cute on Gray and he didn’t have a preference on his clothing yet.
As long as it was easy to move in, he was happy.
Indie was being very loud in her room this morning, which was unusual. If I’d been in my old complex, I’d worry we would get a noise complaint and ask her to be quieter. There was no need here. The place was alive, which meant noises were par for the course. I loved that about it.
“Indie, where’s your dad?” I called into her room.
“He’ll be back. He went to get coffee.”
That was a lie. The coffee pot was full. He was up to something.
Gray and I ate our breakfasts, his mostly nursing with handfuls of Cheerios as I nibbled on my toast. The closer it got to eight, the more the anticipation built.
Stellan came back a few minutes later and said, “It’s go time.” He held out his hands for Gray who giggled at the sight of his dad. “You’re going to have so much fun today.” He kissed Gray’s forehead.
”You didn’t bring me coffee?” I teased, and he shook his head and chuckled.
Indie grabbed my hand and nearly dragged me out the door and downstairs into the courtyard. Everyone who lived here was already gathered. It wasn’t unusual for all the residents to be there, but it was unusual for it to be happening at eight am on a Saturday.
Someone had set up long tables and lots of chairs. One of the tables was filled with food and another with drinks. It looked like a community dinner or a party, which again, while not unusual, was not normal for this time of day.
Not one resident was missing, except for the building owner whom I hadn’t met yet. Apparently, he kept his apartment empty but available. At first that had me super curious, and now it wasn’t except in situations like this that it crossed my mind.
Jon whistled, calling us to attention. “Today’s project is Operation New Bedroom!”
There were some whistles and claps, and then all eyes were on me.
It wasn’t uncommon for us to have community projects, but since I’d moved here, they had all been around community spaces, like the garden. This was different.
“Surprise, honey!” Stellan spoke low and close to my ear.
It wasn’t a secret, and if it was meant to be, whispering in a space filled with shifters wouldn’t accomplish that.
No, he liked to do that because he knew his breath on that spot just below my ear did things to me. Such a naughty mate. Gods, I loved it.
“We’re gonna make up a room for baby Gray.” Indie jumped up and down. “It’s gonna be part of my room and part of the living room, and it’s gonna be perfect! I have everything packed up. All you have to do is stay down here, eat food, and run after Gray.”
If someone had seen her from a distance, they’d have assumed she was going on her dream vacation or had been given a pony, not that she was losing part of her room to a baby sibling.
“You have the hardest job,” Stellan teased, handing Gray back to me. “I guarantee you’re getting your steps in today.
My mate wasn’t wrong. Gray had recently begun crawling, and that boy could power crawl like a boss. I was exhausted just thinking about it.
“We’re really building a new bedroom in one day?” It didn’t sound possible, but then again, we weren’t doing it alone or relying on a third party to care about the final product as much as we did.
We’d talked about needing to come up with a plan for Gray.
He was going to outgrow his bassinet sooner rather than later, and our bedroom didn’t have enough room for a full-size one.
I hadn’t expected it to happen already. Only in a shifter apartment complex could you decide to just change the layout of an apartment, get the help of all the other residents, and do it on such short notice.
Jon explained who was doing what task and how we were going to make sure to get it all done in one day.
It took him a few false starts to clarify everything, as his clipboard checklist papers weren’t in order and his pen went missing every few seconds.
How a man could lose a pen in his hand was beyond me, but he managed.
Indie was happy about losing some of her bedroom, and that gave me comfort. Most kids getting a stepdad and a new sibling and losing some square footage of “their space” would be, at the very least, disappointed. Not here. The girl was giddy. She loved being a big sister and doted on her brother.
We were very careful not to let her take on tasks that were ours, despite her asking for more “big girl” jobs. She was a tween, not a second parent, and that was a line I insisted we draw.
The moving crew went up first, their job was to get everything out of the way for demolition.
I was happy to be on Gray duty, because watching that would have had my nerves on edge.
My guess was that was why Stellan helped arrange it the way he did.
This was going to be the least stressful way to make this happen for me.
I’d adjusted to new fatherhood fairly well, but there were a few weeks where sleep deprivation paired with hormone chaos had me not doing so well.
Rudy recognized what was happening and talked to me about it.
Having him explain why I was feeling the way I was helped me a lot.
No longer was I asking what was wrong with me and hoping my mate didn’t notice.
Instead, I was recognizing my funk for what it was and working around it.
As each task group did their thing, one at a time, I stayed in the courtyard and hung out with the neighbors, played with Gray, ate lots of food, and had a blast. Rudy had made his famous cake, and now that I’d had it, I 100% agreed it deserved all of its glory.
I may have had three pieces. Fine, it was four.
There was so much food, from cinnamon rolls to cookies to sandwiches, and all sorts of drinks. It was a good thing I ate as much as I did, because I needed energy to keep up with Gray. He loved the courtyard and explored every inch of it.
I don’t know how they did it, but they managed to get the items moved, the demolition done and cleaned up, the new wall framed, and drywall hung before dinner.
In theory they had heavy-duty fans that were going to have it good and dry in hours.
We would have to see about that. But already they had managed a miracle.
A few extra days before it was usable wasn’t an issue.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine the dust that was up there and refused to think about it, pushing it away every time it resurfaced. Cleaning was something that could be done later. The entire complex agreed I wasn’t allowed to see our apartment until it was completed. They knew me too well.
For dinner we had a barbecue, and everyone shared stories either about their childhood, the first time they moved here, or where they came from as we once again ate copious amounts of food.
My neighbors no longer guarded their words around me.
I was no longer “the human who moved in.” I was one of them.
As the night wound down, Stellan went upstairs, coming down with Marmalade in her baby carrier. She loved being in there, which made it extra cute.
“We’re sleeping over at Rudy’s tonight.” He then announced the final work crew for the day was going to finish painting and the apartment aired out so we could put everything back where it belonged in the morning. Moonridge Place had really come together to think of everything.
That night when we went to bed, camping style in Rudy’s living room with Gray in his play yard they had set up, I held Stellan’s hand and replayed my time here at Moonridge Place.
I drifted off, thinking about how I’d come here looking for a new start with a new career and had found so much more. This wasn’t just a place to live, it was a home with my new family, and the community I never realized I was missing.
Also by these authors…
Fate doesn’t use dating apps to pair true mates...except when it does.
Human Omega Colin Soames has finally made it.
Investors are clamoring for his new hit dating app and then things get weird.
Now he’s on a mission to figure out who’s co-opting his app and why; by going undercover as a potential date.
Little does he know that the oddities he discovered weren’t designed to sabotage the app as he first thought.
No. Shifters have figured out a way to use it incognito, and he’s about to go on a date with one.
If only he knew shifters existed outside of fiction.
Pack Alpha Bentley Shaw likes being single.
He doesn't have to answer to anyone but his pack. He likes it that way even if he is lonely and even if his wolf is restless. Why bother putting your heart out there if you are only going to get hurt? But one drunken night he lets his Beta talk him into trying the new dating app all the shifters are using—just once. How bad could one date be? It couldn’t be worse than the time he tried to date a human—except that’s exactly what Love and Hate sends him.
Sparks fly, feelings grow, and their worlds are turned upside down in the very best of ways.
Matched To His Wolf is the first book in the sweet with knotty heat Dates of Our Lives M/M Mpreg Shifter Dating App romance brought to you by the popular co-writing duo of Lorelei M Hart and Colbie Dunbar.
It features a human who stumbles into a world he never knew existed thanks to a silly little soap opera, an alpha who didn’t want to date—full stop, two powerful men trying to figure out how to come together as one, and an adorable baby.