Page 37 of Grin and Bear It

“You fucks might be content to sit on your bloody hands…” I said, winking at my reflection. “But I’m going for a more direct approach.”

“You’re going to see Ellie?” Tyson stiffened, filling the doorframe, as if that was enough to keep me from my mate. “No, Nash went over there.”

“To ask her to help out with the boys.” I pushed him to one side, his muscles flexing to stop me, but mine did the same, insisting that he did. We were pretty evenly matched and we both knew it. My boots clicked across the polished wooden floor as I walked over to the kitchen table, picking up the bouquet I’d gotten at the florist down on the main street. I teased out the crinkles from the cellophane. “Our mate is not a substitute for Sharney.”

“I know that, but—”

“And I don’t want to treat her like that. She works her arse off all bloody week so she deserves some fun on the weekend. I am that fun.”

“Nash is gonna shit,” Ty insisted.

“Nash needs to get his head out of his arse in more ways than one,” I said and then grabbed my keys. “I might be back soon; I might not.” I shrugged far more nonchalantly than I felt, the bear inside me growling at the prospect of being near our mate again. Ty didn’t understand that this was the best compromise I could come up with. A bear shifter meeting his mate was the single most important moment in his life, and I’d be damned if I was gonna snooze on that. “I’ll let you know how this goes.”

“Linden…”

He used my full name, which always meant I was in the shit, but I just whistled a jaunty tune as I walked outside, the sound of a basketball being dribbled letting me know where the boys were.

“Uncle Lin!”Knox shouted. “Come and play one on one.”

“Can’t, boys.” I held the flowers up with a smile, and that’s when his faded.

“So you’re going…” Knox looked at the bouquet like it was filled with heads of decapitated babies or something. He glanced at Maddox, who frowned slightly. “You’re doing this? You’re gonna what… ask Miss on a date?”

“Of course I’m gonna ask her on a date. You’ll do the same when you meet your mate.”

“Nup.” Knox shook his head sharply. “No fucking way.” He shoved his hand into his pocket and yanked out his phone. “There’s a party on tonight at Declan’s,” he told Maddox. “Let’s go.”

“Knox, Nash grounded you,” I said. “You go out and you’ll just get into trouble. We talked about this.”

“No, you told us.” Where was that sharp-eyed little boy who used to follow me around like a shadow, always wanting to ‘help’ me? And the cocky kid with the easy smile? The one who asked me all sorts of questions about getting older and maturing, ones he was too embarrassed to ask his parents. That wasn’t the Knox I saw now, the boy standing tall, trying to match my height, but he wasn’t there, not yet. My bear sensed his, shifting under the surface, but not pushing through. “So I’m telling you we’re going out.”

“You know I can’t stop you, but…” I sighed. My dads were fairly hands-off guys.Shut up and do as your mother tells you, that was all I got from them, so I searched around for an appropriate response and didn’t come up with much. “This isn’t the same thing and you know it. There’s nothing making you go to Declan’s party or breaking the curfew Nash set, but you know why we have to do this.”

I tried to step closer but Knox stiffened, his fingers digging into his ball.

“I’m sorry she’s your teacher, but Ellie, Miss Jennings, she’s the only woman we’re ever going to love and you’ll know what that’s like when you meet your bears.”

I tried to break it to him softly, but there was no softness in Knox. There hadn’t been for some time, so when he shoved the ball away from him, I wasn’t surprised. And when it smashed against the wall, that made sense too.

“Our grandfather, Mum’s dad, he said we could come live with him if things weren’t working out here,” Knox growled. He glanced at Maddox, but not for long. “We’ll make the call, get out of your way—”

“Knox…” I tucked the flowers under my arm, moving to grab him in a side hug. “You’re not in the way. We—”

“What if we don’t want our teacher joining the family?” Knox said, jerking himself out of my way. “What if we don’t want Miss becoming our…?”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, I thought furiously, able to fill in the gaps and then realising what the issue was. If we were the surrogate dads, Ellie would become a replacement for Sharney.

“That’s not how it works, mate,” I said. “No one’s replacing anyone.”

“Fuck this,” Knox swore, his face screwing up into a grimace then he turned to his brother. “Let’s get out of here.”

I watched the two of them scurry off, throwing themselves onto their push bikes and riding away. I wanted to jump into the car and take off after them to stop them from getting even another metre away. But at the moment Knox was as skittish as an unbroken horse and any attempt to bring the ban hammer down just made him shut down harder, so I sucked in a breath and got my phone out.

I couldn’t call Cole. He’d just take off after them and drag them back by any means possible, then he and Knox would butt heads, hard, which would make things even worse. Ty might be able to reason with them. Their shared love of basketball gave him cred I’d never have, but in some ways I was reluctant to jeopardise that. In our family dynamic, Cole was bad cop, Nash was absent cop and Ty was good cop. Which just left me. I scrolled through my contacts, finding the number for Daisy, Declan’s mum. She was the mate of a sleuth we knew reasonably well.

“Linden! How’s single fatherhood going?” she asked when she picked up the phone.

“Sucks.” She chuckled at that. “Look, the twins are on their way around to your place. Apparently Declan’s got a party on tonight?”

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