Page 1 of Fur-Ever Home

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BENJAMIN

This was fine,I told myself. It was merely a minor delay between New Haven and LaGuardia. When we saw the weather forecast during our morning break, we left the fiscal planning conference early, before the last networking lunch and keynote speaker. We had plenty of time to make it to the airport before our flights left.

I glanced at my fitness tracker for the time, the third peek in five minutes. We'd been staring at the same set of brake lights from the backseat of our hired car for twice that long. We couldn’t see much else in the driving snow.

My colleague Brian Avery, CFO of Barclay Foods, was on a nonstop flight from LaGuardia to LAX. The lucky bastard probably told his assistant to book him a seat in first class, too.

As the manager of finance, I didn't qualify for nonstop or first class. My flight hopped all over the country. First, it dipped down to Atlanta to avoid the storm, then back up to Denver with the hope the huge system building behind it wouldn't be as bad. Finally, I would fly into the Orange County Airport, a half-hour drive from my little two-bedroom bungalow in Laguna Niguel. I might fall into my bed after midnight tonight if I were lucky, but with the time difference and the long layovers, it would feel like I'd been up for two days straight.

To make matters worse, I was supposed to work tomorrow, a Saturday, to offset my travel hours, and I still needed a present for my nephew's birthday party on Sunday. Jeffrey wanted a specific toy, one in scarce supply and fierce demand since before Christmas. Now, it was the middle of March, and they were still impossible to find.

I'd wanted to check F.A.O. Schwartz, since they had all the coolest toys, but that had been before the snow delay. We'd be lucky to make our flights on time without any detours into the city. Airport gift stores were my last hope, and I'd already harangued the store clerks when I arrived four days ago.

My phone pinged with a text from my omega dad."How's the weather?"

Another glance at my watch told me his morning alarm had gone off mere moments ago, thanks to the three-hour time difference. He worried about all four of us kids, but I had given him most of his early gray hairs.

Unlike him, I was a stubborn and willful omega, determined to make it on my own in the business world before I settled down, preferably with a beta. The alphas I'd met outside my own family were assholes.

My brothers were mated alphas. My sister was an alpha, too, and her mate was the sweetest beta I'd ever met.

Then there was me. Instead of working at the bank with the rest of my family, I'd chosen to take a job at Barclay Foods. Instead of marrying the first alpha who had proposed, I'd buried myself in my work and rejected all social entanglements.

My family would probably try to set me up with at least three alphas at my nephew's birthday party. I would politely decline, at first. The more insistent they became, the less I cared about decorum.

I sucked in a deep breath and cleared all thoughts of alphas from my mind. I needed to get home and find Jeffrey'sbirthday present before I could ruminate on imaginary worst-case scenarios.

To take my mind off the future, I responded to my dad’s text."Weather’s awful."I snapped a picture of the whiteout and sent it along.

"No cell phones." Brian glared at me over the top of his tablet, his grey eyes cold in his overly tan face. He looked at least ten years older than he was, thanks to long afternoons at the beach when he was supposed to be at work. From the way the window behind him reflected flashes between videos, I guessed he was catching up on the screen time he'd missed during our morning session.

"The conference is over," I reminded him with a forced grin. I withheld my comments on his double standard. That would only lead to an uncomfortable conversation with Human Resources on Monday morning.

"This is going in my report," he muttered under his breath. His reports went directly to our boss. I could avoid HR another week, at least.

As the CFO of finance, Brian got paid more than I did, but he was not my boss. I was the finance department manager, and we both reported to the CEO, Mr. Danbury. Brian could bitch about whatever he wanted in his report, but he wasn't my boss, and his word didn't matter.

I could fail on my own, thank you very much. It had taken me three weeks to catch up from the last impromptu conference, and here I was, assigned to another one. Mr. Danbury had asked me to network with other manufacturing planners. The only ones interested in me were horny alphas, and my surly refusals made for poor first impressions.

On top of all that, I was falling behind on my duties as assigned once again, thanks to the travel week. I would do my best to complete my most delinquent assignments tomorrow,but I already worked sixty-hour weeks. When was I supposed to find time to catch up?

My phone buzzed with another text from my dad."Safe travels!"

At this point, I could only hope.

Finally,we arrived at the airport after another slog through slushy frontage roads to our terminal. We had the same carrier but different flights. When we got out, Brian left me to tip our Keffiyeh-wearing driver and the young Black man who had removed our bags from the trunk.

Just when I thought Brian couldn't be more annoying, he insisted I help him drag his giant checked bag to his gate once we were through security.

"I don't have time to wait for a luggage cart," he said. "My plane leaves in thirty minutes!"

My plane left in forty-five, and fuck this entitled beta for thinking I should carry his gigantic checked bag with enough clothes in it for two weeks. I'd gotten by with a simple carry-on for the week, and did I ask anyone to carry it for me? No, Sir.

Instead of standing up for myself, I extended both bags' handles so they would roll behind me and followed Brian through the airport. A few feet before the entrance to the gate, he swiveled on his heel and tugged his suitcase from my grip. "I'll take it from here."

He slipped the handle of his carry-on, the one he'd insisted was too big to fit on top of the larger bag, through the handle and grabbed them both with his right hand. They fit together perfectly, as I knew they would. Instead of kicking his bag as itrolled past, I silently balled my hands into fists and watched him walk away.

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