Page 19 of Moon Blooded Breeding Clinic (Cambric Creek 3)

Lowell snorted. “Real men can take the real thing. No fancy dresser drawer required, and I’m not running up anyone’s electric bill.”

They had all laughed, Trapp almost falling out of the leather banquette, as Grayson shook his head, shoulders shaking.

“That knowledge does not surprise me one bit. But it makes it even more pathetic that you’ve been here for how many fucking months and still can’t get laid.”

He knew if he didn’t make a point of being up and ready when Trapp pulled into the driveway at too fucking early o’clock a few days later, he would not be invited again. Lowell had set his numerous alarms, dragging himself out of bed at an utterly unacceptable hour, sitting bleary-eyed in the passenger seat of his brother’s truck, forehead bouncing against the passenger side window as he tried to sneak a few more minutes of sleep.

“Why does Liam get to hang out in Dad’s office whenever he feels like it? What do they eventalkabout?”

“Oh, Liam and Jack are great pals. They can’t get enough of each other. Dad’s gonna sob like a baby when he leaves next year, and mom will need to be the stoic one.”

Lowell snorted.

“Ourfather? Jack’ if you call me Jackson, I might eat your face off’ Hemming? That one? Jack ‘there’s a rumor I have a bunch of kids at home but I haven’t seen any of them in two weeks, I hope they haven’t killed each other’ Hemming? Him?”

Trapp, as good-natured as ever, only laughed.

“That’s the one. Youdoremember the fact that he was with two different Fortune 500 companies when we were kids, right? It’s different now that he’s retired. Semi-retired. Whatever.”

“What does he even do all day?”

“Grayson is convinced he doesn’t do anything. Catching up on two decades of sleep and shopping for property down south that mom won’t let him buy and playing online poker. Or at least, that’s what he was doing. Now he’s causing trouble at City Hall like he’s being paid to do so, but that’s only in the last year or two. Rhonda is so good at giving people the runaround, who even knows what he does all day? His clients aren’t complaining, so it’s not like we’ll find out.”

Their father had retired from the world of corporate finance the minute he turned forty, occupying an office at the center of Main Street in a building the family had owned since before the town had been incorporated. It had been his part-time office for years, where he ranfamily business, as it was referred to, but after his retirement, it became a second home. He allegedly did private financial investing for a select, privileged few — Sulya Slade, the Deliquesce heiress, and a few other members of the Cambric Creek elite.

Lowell had always consoled himself with the fact that he might not be his father’s favorite, but at least Owen wasn’t either. That dubious honor rested on the bickering shoulders of one of his older brothers, at least, he had always assumed. Jackson, who was so respectful and respectable, who had fully embraced his role astheJackson Hemming of the future, a community pillar. Or Grayson, smart and calculating and ambitious, so much like their father . . . It had nearly been a relief, not needing to worry about entering the rat race for Jack’s limited attention. He was Gray’s and, by extension, Trapp’s favorite little brother, which was more than good enough.

The knowledge that it may, in fact, beLiamwho was Jack’s favorite, Liam the baby who had everything handed to him, five elder brothers who had already gotten in any and every sort of trouble there was to be found, who had paved the way for him to coast to adulthood . . . Lowell knew he wasn’t supposed to care about such things, particularly as he had his own life, independent of the family name and the shackles of expectations that weighed it down in Cambric Creek. Still, he couldn’t help feeling miffed, as he had somehow been passed over for a promotion.

If you act like a petulant baby, you’re just reinforcing the assumption that’s what you are.He needed to school his face and tamp back his annoyance to get through breakfast.Who knows, you might even enjoy yourself. Gray was right. He needed to get out of the house, needed to dosomething that would take his mind off the fact that his phone had not rung in weeks — no call from work, no news from his office, and most frustratingly, nothing from the clinic.

An entire month had passed since he’d driven to the clinic, undergoing a battery of tests to determine his ability to participate in the donor program. Bloodwork, a physical, urinating in one cup and ejaculating into another, providing a detailed family medical history. Having his photo taken had reminded him of grade school picture day with its generic, gradient background, and then he’d been sent home, having done all he could do at that point.

“We’ll be contacting you if you’re selected,” the doctor in charge of the program had told him, “please refrain from all recreational drugs and follow our guidelines on alcohol consumption until then.”

He wasn’t sure why he thought his phone would be ringing the very next day. Perhaps hewasa typical Hemming after all — arrogant and over-privileged, expecting the world to cater to him — he pondered from his favorite sulking location, in the middle of the pool, laying atop the cover with his legs over the inflated cushion in the center. Grayson would have been wroth to find him there, so Lowell made sure he was back on solid ground well before the time his brother might come home, ensuring the cover was undamaged and tightly secured.

His mother had not come from the same world of open doors and easy privilege, and had ensured each of her sons knew the value of work and independence, at least, that was what she told people, but there was no denying their family name carried considerable weight. The Hemmings had been one of Cambric Creek’s first families, wealthy and in positions of power continuously. Business owners, presidents of the werewolf labor union, head of the hospital board. His grandfather had been mayor, like his father before him, and a great-great uncle before that. Lowell’s father had broken the tradition, the first Jackson Hemming in half a dozen generations to not pull the town’s strings in an official capacity, but his eldest brother was on track to set things to rights, having been elected to the city council the moment he’d expressed the vaguest interest in the job, and was now running to unseat the mayor who’d taken their grandfather’s place.

Lowell had always prided himself on being different, on having outrun the privilege of his name and forging his own path to success, but as he stared dumbfounded at the silent phone in those first weeks, he was forced to accept that he simplyexpecteddoors to open for him, at the very least when he was here, at home.

When Trapp’s phone rang again, the electronic melody overtaking the car radio, Lowell assumed it would be Grayson again.Probably found another hole in his dick.

Instead, their father’s voice cut through the music.

“Sorry boys, I’m going to need to cancel this morning. Something came up that needs my immediate attention. I’m heading over to the big house now.”

Trapp frowned, directing his pickup into the municipal lot across the street from their father’s office.

“Do you need me to go with you? Or is Jackson meeting you?”

Lowell listened to the rest of the conversation with half an ear, waving off Trapp’s overture about bringing him home to Grayson’s once the errand was complete. The historic Hemming family home, the house his father had grown up in, had been given to a foundation his father bankrolled and was now a halfway house for werewolves escaping packs, populated chiefly by young women running away from the same sort of circumstances his own mother had fled. Lowell had only ever been in the big house a handful of times, and he was glad that his father had never made them live there. Too big, too echoing, and extremely haunted if his elder brothers were to be believed.

“Go ahead, I know you want to get over there and help him, and I’m going to get a coffee since I’m up this freaking early now.”

The Black Sheep Beanery, just down the block, was already bustling as he stepped through the doors. As he stood in line, he wondered if Owen had ever been invited to join Liam and Trapp for breakfast with their father,if Jackson had ever sat with them before his early class. He was confident that Grayson would never voluntarily leave work for something so trivial, but he didn’t like the idea that everyone else was spending this quality time together without him.

Homesickness had always been the deciding factor in his previous visits, his throat sticking as he searched for flights, wanting to crawl into a ball of loneliness as he booked the arrangements. He missed his mother. He missed his twin, missed having someone there with whom he’d been on the same level since the time of their birth. He missed Trapp’s easy-going smile and Grayson’s non-stop ball-busting; he missed cooking that was familiar and streets he’d walked down a million times before, the smell of his father’s study, and the security that came with being part of a large, tight-knit family.

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