Page 49 of Alistair

He nodded. After washing his hair and cleaning his skin, he switched places and watched his beautiful mate under the water as the droplets soaked her skin and rinsed off the suds.

“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he said.

She batted away his hands as he reached for her. “You said we need to feed the animals and work at the petting zoo, and I want to actually have breakfast before we do that, so keep your wicked hands to yourself.”

“Spoilsport.”

She smoothed the water from her hair and grinned. “We can take lunch together, though, right?”

“Most definitely.”

They dried off and got dressed, Maggie putting on one of his T-shirts with a park logo on the sleeve he lent her, and then they headed out to grab breakfast in the marketplace.

They ended up having great timing because he got to introduce her to the other alphas, as well as the people who ran the shops in the market and Jeanie, Joss’s mate, who ran the cafeteria along with several bears.

Maggie sat next to Alistair at a table with Atticus and Lori, plus Joss, Marcus, and Caesar. Jeanie joined them after grabbing a cup of coffee, sitting next to Joss.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Jeanie said.

Maggie smiled. “It’s really great to put faces to names. And this blueberry French toast is amazing.”

“Thanks! We’ve got blueberries in the greenhouse that are finally ready, so these are fresh picked this morning.”

“Everything’s great,” Alistair said.

“So let me ask you something,” Maggie said as she looked at Jeanie.

“Anything.”

“What do you tell your family about living at the park?”

“Well, I don’t have any family left,” Jeanie said.

“Me either,” Lori said. “But the ones who do have family tell them that they’re given an apartment as part of their salary.”

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said. “I didn’t realize.”

“No worries, the pack is my family now,” Jeanie said.

“And the gorillas are mine,” Lori said with a smile.

“The ones with families,” Joss said, “can use an apartment if their family wants to come for a visit. If that happens to you, Alistair can make arrangements to prep one of the apartments to appear to be lived-in. If you need mail forwarded from your current place, we have a PO box that you can use.”

“That’s great,” Maggie said. “I didn’t even think about my apartment or my mail.”

“Have you thought about what you’d like to do for work here?” Marcus asked. He cut into a steak that he’d paired with eggs and home fries.

“You can still work outside of the park if you want,” Alistair pointed out. “It’s just that normally mates stick close to each other.”

She gave him a sweet smile. “I’d like to talk to Jess and Auden about the aviary, but I also want to help with the norms and petting zoo, and be available for helping in the school too.”

“I think you could do all of that,” Caesar said. “They could all be done on a rotating basis to start, and you could decide what you’d like to do as you get to know the park and people better.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” she said.

Alistair agreed. “We’ll figure it out. There’s no rush on choosing a path in the park.”

She bumped his arm with a smile.

---