Page 9 of Age Gap Wolf's Second Chance Mate

I see his face in my mind and I feel giddy and silly.

He’s become so much a part of my consciousness.

I love him, every messy bit of him.Actually, the man doesn’t really have messy bits unless you count an overactive sense of honor and misplaced misgivings about our age gap.

But I have messy bits.

Now, does he love messy me? That question ties me in knots for the rest of the evening.

Chapter Seven

Jonah

Hi, Honey. Your baby brother is here.

The text confuses me for a moment. “At your place?”

She doesn’t answer but Marvin, a lion on loan from a fire department on the East Coast, asks, “What at my place?” It’s his first day here and I’m essentially his Company 417 guide.

I feel my cheeks grow warm and I imagine I blush a little bit. “Just thinking out loud,” I say. “Last day of my four-day shift so I go home in a few hours.” The two of us are sitting in the lounge area. All of the station work is done today.

We’re essentially waiting around for a fire or for some new tasks that might be assigned. Until then, I’m the one assigned to bring him up to speed. I hold off on replying to the text so it won’t be apparent that I spoke to a message instead of texting a reply. I put my phone in my breast pocket and ask, “So what do you think of this place?”

“It’s crazy,” he says. “A whole company of shifters. No hiding.” He smiles and says, “I think across the U.S., there are probably more shifters in firefighting than anything else but you run across them just being a fireman. You don’t see a bunch of them in the same place.”

“Well, only a few people know that Company 417 is all shifters. So, it’s not as open as you think but I get what you’re saying. There are always extra clothes in the engines and trucks. You don’t have to immediately change the subject when the wrong person walks by. Since non-shifters aren’t stationed here for very long, though, yeah, you’re right.” I dial my brother’s number. “Hang on, Marv.”

“Are you one of the brothers who’s dead to me or are you one of the brothers I love?” Benjamin says over the phone line.

“That’s a tough question to tackle without a hello first,” I reply. I’m his only brother. We have five sisters, all younger.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Of course, it is. When did you get in town? I’ll be free in a few hours.”

“I’ve been here,” he says, “when did you come home?”

Nothing makes sense, and I finally say, “Hang on. You’re not at my house?” I quickly scroll back to the texts. “Mara said you were.”

“Tina and I were just talking about how we’re glad you came to your senses about that girl.” I don’t respond. I’m too busy looking at the picture Mara sent. It’s an Irish Wolfhound puppy. She’s been talking about getting one for a while. “But I’m not there. No idea.”

“No,” I say. “you’re not.” I chuckle and say, “She got a puppy. She was teasing.” Ben doesn’t chuckle at all. He laughs uproariously.

“Laugh it up,” I say. “I got to get back to work.”

“You got a human girl who can tease you about being a wolf. She’s your dream girl, man. You better get a ring on that finger.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, “thanks for the advice.”

“Don’t you dare cancel Thanksgiving this year. You have to show up. Hannah will blame me. I don’t need that drama.” Hannah is our youngest sister. This will be her first time in charge of Thanksgiving. She’s also the sweetest, most drama-free person you can imagine.

“I’ll be there. You’ll lose. Look, I have to get to work. I only called you because I didn’t get the punchline of Mara’s joke in time to stop myself.”

“Get out of your head and marry that girl, Jonah.”

“Now who’s in whose head?” I laugh. “Seriously. Goodbye.”

“Later.”

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