Page 9 of The Good Boys Club

“Yeah, fine. You?” I sat in the fancy leather chair across from him.

“Wonderful. Things have been... wonderful. Matings are down this year, but subs are at an all-time high.” He thumbed through a stack of papers on his desk. I presumed they were the annual reports, but he didn’t examine them more closely or hand them over to me.

Howl Ya Doing was the leading werewolf and wolf-shifter dating website and app, and over the years its success had been measured in various ways—turnover, profit, the number of subscribers at any one given moment, the number of new subscribers per month, the number of resubscribers per month, the market share—but my boss James considered only one measurable statistic an indicator of success. Matings. Like human marriage but more permanent. James only cared for the number of wolves who’d mated as a direct result of joining his app.

He was, at heart, an utter romantic.

He’d founded the company ten years ago to help weres and shifters find everlasting love, and met his own wife in the process. Alice was one of the first to sign up. They hit it off, dated for a couple of years, mated, had kids.

A success story that had fuelled an empire.

I’d been working for Howl since I graduated from my master’s, and almost since the day of its inception. I’d helped mould this company. Helped bring it from a handful of notes scribbled on a napkin to a thriving, multi-million-silver enterprise.

Like humans with marriage, wolves these days were leaving mating until later and later in life—sometimes not mating at all. Which was perfectly fine. I considered myself amongst them. Mating wasn’t for everybody. There were old-fashioned connotations assigned to it, and for some of us, our first choice of mate wasn’t... available. And frankly, why settle for anything less? Didn’t mean we couldn’t still have fun with the app.

More recently, the business’s success had been defined in monetised values—i.e., the number of subscriptions we had and the amount of silvers we turned over. Users saw the app less as a way to find the love of their life, and more as a way to while away the evening. It became a hook-up app. Still, occasionally we’d have a mating to celebrate.

James would post the news of each one on our website, with a little write up and a photo.

He was still very much of the mind that love conquered all.

About five years ago, I had the idea to expand the subs from only werewolves and wolf shifters to all caninophiles, regardless of species. Overnight we multiplied the number of paid subs tenfold. And they just kept coming... and coming. We moved offices, across the city to the schmancy mid-rise we currently occupied. We took on more staff. And more. And more. And kept growing.

Until about eighteen months ago, when things tapered off into a seemingly natural plateau. James confessed he was pleased that growth had slowed. He told me he’d never intended to be this suit-wearing big-wig, exec-type guy, and all he really wanted was to move out to the Mythic Realms, buy a massive plot of land, and fish and hunt and pretend the city had all been one bad acid trip.

More recently I’d put together a manifesto of market growth ideas I’d researched to death. James had smiled and said,“Thankyou very much, I will consider your proposals.”Thenwhen I’d left his office, I’d heard the blades of his shredder churning.

“How’s work? How are the new interns?” James asked, regarding me over the top of steepled fingers.

“Fine, yeah, it’s all fine. They’re good, I mean, as far as interns go, I suppose. No weres or shifters, though.”

Jameshmmed.He was just over a decade and a half older than me, and still sometimes took an old-fashioned view on things. He wasn’t a speciesist, per se... it was simply that he was werewolf and well, werewolf could be very set in werewolf ways—the scenting, the pack dynamics, the mating and the mate biting.

I’d never been super into it, but no doubt that was because I grew up in the biggest city in all of Borderlands. Just Mum, Dad, me, and the staff in our red-brick, four-bed suburban townhouse in one of the wealthiest—human-centric—gated neighbourhoods. We didn’t have a nature reserve like Mash did, or a pack, or even a modest-sized garden.

There was a wolf inside me, but the only time I ever needed to shift was when I was anxious and had nervous energy to burn off with a decent run. In those instances, I’d head into one of the huge inner-city parks. My favourite was Jeckell Park. They’d had shifter booths near the toilets where I could change out of my clothes to save regular folk from getting an eyeful of my naked human ass. But I hadn't shifted in . . . over half a decade.

I also didn’t have a species preference. I’d dated all sorts in my younger years—weres, shifters, humans, fae. One time I even dated a mothperson after my colleague, Gideon, set me up with his brother Maverick, a super-hot but super straight-laced fire chief. And I was in agreement with James in that hook-up culture wasn’t for me, but alas, I had never found that one person who I’d give it all up for.

Or maybe I had, but things weren’t reciprocal, so it was by the by.

“Ci, I called you into my office for a reason. I need to chat to you about something, but this is strictly confidential until we know a little more,” James said, snapping my attention back to him. “I’m considering selling Howl Ya Doing.”

My hand hit the desktop. “Oh.” I bought myself more processing time by adjusting my position in the chair.

It didn’t come as a surprise. I’d known for a while this had been James’s end goal, but I hadn’t expected it to come so soon.

“I’ve been thinking about this for several years now.” Okay, maybe it wasn’t that soon. “And I thought you, of all people, should be the first to know. You’ve been a gods-send this past decade, and honestly, this company would not be where it is today without you.”

“Who will you sell it to?” I asked, unable to think of anything more personal to say.

“Both Mythic Match and Fur Daddies have expressed interest.” He sighed. “I’m told there’ll be a bidding war of sorts, and well, I don’t want any part of that, so I’m looking for suggestions.”

I nodded. Swallowed. Tried to summon some kind of emotion. Any kind. Sadness, excitement, nerves, whatever. Failed. “Mythic Match is your better option. Their ethos is more closely aligned to the original principles of Howl.”

“Thank you.” He placed his hands on the desktop, fingers overlapping. “So, let’s talk about how this affects you. I’ll admit I’ve been... holding this company back, and by extension, you. And I apologise for this. You are a fantastic employee and it has pained me to see you stagnate. This’ll be good for both of us, I feel.”

I nodded again, still at a loss for words.

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