by Lisa Oliver
“Guilty about what?” Tanner reached over covering her hand. “Mabel, you’ve been amazing. I don’t know how I would’ve coped with all the paperwork and her apartment and everything…”
“I was the one who pushed her into moving into this complex.” Sliding her hand out from under his, Mabel dabbed at her eyes. “I knew she was sick. I knew she wanted to die at home, but selfish me thought she’d live a lot longer if she came here and got the medical care she needed, and now she’s gone.”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Tanner got out of his chair, and went around, draping his arm over Mabel’s shaking shoulders. “This wasn’t your doing. Aunty told me. The doctors wanted her to move to a facility like this months ago, and she stubbornly refused. This was before her fall. You know she’d be devastated if she thought you were carrying guilt like this. Moving here was Aunty’s choice and you and your friends made her so happy.”
“But she barely lasted a month.” Mabel turned in his arms, sobbing against Tanner’s shoulder. “She didn’t have a chance to enjoy any of the fun stuff here.”
Tanner let her cry for a while. He should’ve known she would break eventually. Mabel was so like his Aunt Julie it was uncanny – stubborn, always pushing forward. It was unlikely Mabel had taken the time to grieve one of her dearest friends. He had broad shoulders.
And typically, just like Aunt Julie would’ve done, when Mabel dried her tears, she was immediately up and out of the chair. “Your coffee will be cold. I’ll make a fresh cup and I have some lovely banana cake freshly iced this morning.”
“I really don’t…” Tanner started to say but they were interrupted by a heavy knock at the door.
“Get that for me, would you, Tanner, dear? It’s probably a delivery. And don’t go telling me you don’t want cake, because a growing lad like you always needs cake.”
Chuckling, Tanner got up to do as Mabel asked. Her apartment was the mirror image of the one his aunt had for a while, meaning it was only a half a dozen steps from the kitchen to the front door. Opening it, Tanner took a step back at the sight of Karl smirking at him. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that hugged him in all the right places, the man was walking sin. He’d also clearly been to his home first.
“What are you doing here?” Tanner glanced back at the kitchen, but Mabel was busy with her cake tins. “I thought you were going to text me, so we could meet up for a meal.”
“That might have been your suggestion. It wasn’t mine.” Karl stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I was disappointed I didn’t find you still in bed this morning. Very disappointed.”
Tanner dropped his voice to match. “Did it ever cross your mind that maybe you disappointed me in that bed last night and that’s why I wasn’t in there this morning?” In his more normal tone, he said, “Come in. I know you’ve met Mrs. Appleby. She’s making coffee and has a lovely banana cake to share. Mabel, can we have another cup please? My eager suitor has been stalking me and tracked me down.”
And yes, Tanner was feeling smug, and that was petty of him. I can make amends later, he told himself as he let a stunned Karl into Mabel’s apartment.
/~/~/~/~/
How the hell did my life come to this? Karl didn’t know what was upsetting him more – the fact that he was picking at a piece of banana cake in an old lady’s apartment, or that Tanner bluntly told him he wasn’t satisfied the night before. Okay, he did know what was making his guts churn. The cake was delicious. How could I have read things so badly with Tanner?
“So how long have you two men known each other?” Mabel’s eyes were alight with curiosity and Karl couldn’t blame her. He knew anything he said would be reported back to her daughter before they got to the parking lot.
“I met this delightful man the night of my product launch, actually.” Karl rested his fingers on the back of Tanner’s chair. “What can I say…? I was smitten at first sight. Thanks to you and Cindy, I knew Tanner was going through some rough times, so held off for a little while. When I felt it was appropriate, I made my interest known. Fortunately,” Karl allowed a soft look over his face, “Tanner returned the interest, much to my relief.”
“The sort of love story Julie would’ve approved of.” Mabel smiled, although she looked a little misty eyed. “When I met my Bob, it was the same – love at first sight, and Julie was smitten with her Alfie from the moment she laid eyes on him.”
“I know how you both felt,” Karl agreed with a smile of his own. “Are you going to think I’m rude if I whisk this man away? This banana cake is delicious, but I was hoping to spoil Tanner with a meal.”
“You spoil away.” Mabel flapped her hands at him. “Just remember, I’ve known Tanner a lot longer than you. He’s a good man with a big heart. If you hurt him, money or not, you’ll have the blue rinse army after you.”
“The blue rinse…?” Karl turned to Tanner who was sporting a wide grin.
“Mabel means her and her group of busybody friends.” Tanner pushed back his chair. “Even the Vice squad knows not to mess with the blue rinse army.” Leaning over the table, he pecked Mabel on the cheek. “I’m quite capable of looking after myself remember,” he said to Mabel fondly. “I do not want to hear about you ladies getting into trouble.”
“You’ll get us out of it.” Karl noticed Mabel didn’t say anything about not getting into trouble, but then he reasoned, how much trouble could old ladies get into? For himself, he was happy to say his goodbyes, making a point to praise the cake and coffee, before following Tanner out of the apartment.
“There’s a lovely restaurant about three blocks down from here,” Tanner said as they headed down to the parking lot. “Did you fancy a walk? My treat when we get there.”
Karl bristled. “I wanted to treat you to a meal.”
“You did that last night.” Tanner stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “We can walk or take our respective cars. Entirely up to you.”
“Tanner.” Karl grabbed his arm, gently, but it was a grab nonetheless. He should’ve known Tanner would pull away. “Tell me you didn’t mean what you said.”
“About last night?” Tanner tucked his hands into his jean’s pockets and sighed. “I can’t lie to you and I never would anyway. I was disappointed. I felt like a hole in the wall. But we’re men. We don’t talk things to death. Did you want to join me for a meal or not?”
“But…” Tanner was already walking off and Karl quickly fell into step beside him. “How can I make things right, if I don’t know what I did wrong?” There weren’t many people around – just regular Saturday traffic whizzing past. Karl didn’t want their business overheard though and kept his voice low enough Tanner would have to use his wolf senses to hear him.
“I get you haven’t been with a male before.” Tanner was glancing in shop windows, but he kept moving, so Karl kept pace with him. “I understand your instincts were riding you hard and you had been a model of patience until we got to my place after dinner. I also knew that your only experience was with copious women. However, I did think, given how you are older than me, that you’d have evolved to the point where you cared about the partner you were sticking your dick in, and could show it.”
“I…”
“I was also stung, call me overly sensitive but I was hurt, that the first words you said after binding us together for life, were to compare my ass to a woman’s vagina, and then you compounded the insult by making sure I knew your eyes were closed during our claiming. Oh, and then you started snoring.” Inhaling sharply, Tanner stopped at a window showcasing leather shoes. Karl got the distinct impression Tanner was upset and while he’d had women get upset with him before, they tended to yell, something Tanner wasn’t doing.
Stepping close to Tanner he said softly, “Is there any chance we can write that off as alpha hormones run amuck?”
“Only if you don’t make a habit of it.” Turning slightly, Tanner leaned on the concrete framing the window facing him, his features impassive. Karl really wished he knew what his m
ate was thinking. “Just because we’re two men doesn’t mean there can’t be some emotion shared beyond ‘halleluiah, I’m coming’. Sex isn’t all about the dick – I know that and last night was my first time. If you want a hole, I’ll give you a bottle to use, or curve my hand and you can fuck that. I wanted a man in my bed making love to me, not a super-speed dildo shoved in my ass.”
Karl’s cheeks flamed red – he could feel them hot enough to fry eggs on. “In my defense, you did bend over the side of the bed as though waiting for me.”
“I bent over to remove the top cover off the bed, so you wouldn’t be bothered with hairs. I shift sometimes at night.” Tanner’s voice was still calm. It was Karl whose guts were in a knot.
“Then I’m sorry. I misread the signals. I’ll do better next time. Is that okay?”
Tanner nodded, his brief smile giving Karl hope he hadn’t totally fucked things up. “Fair enough. Come on,” Tanner jerked his head down the street. “This place does the juiciest steaks in San Diego, and if you’re up to it when we’ve finished eating, there’s a great market just around the corner that hosts all sorts of crafts and artists open all Saturday afternoon.”
Is that it? No demands for gifts, no tears or yelling, or calling me names? As Karl walked along, he found himself wishing he had been in a relationship with another man before, even so it was so he wouldn’t keep mucking things up with his mate. Clearly, if he kept expecting Tanner to react the way his previous partners did, then he was going to get things wrong.
Or maybe it didn’t have anything to do with gender at all. Maybe Tanner deserves the same consideration I’ve given other partners in the bedroom, even if he doesn’t have boobs. Karl would give it a try next time they were in bed together, but in the meantime, he would pour on the charm. That had always worked for him before.
Chapter Eighteen
Confusion didn’t smell good on Karl, and Tanner was pleased as they sat down to eat, that the tinges of it had mostly cleared from his mate’s spicy scent. Personally, he was amazed at himself, and how he’d managed to state the issue he had quietly and calmly and hadn’t had his head bitten off by an irate alpha. Not that Karl would behave like a rabid wolf on the street, but he could’ve snarled, got angry, and stalked off, expecting Tanner to chase after him.
“This is a huge adjustment for both of us, isn’t it?” Tanner commented quietly after their orders had been taken.
“It is for me,” Karl agreed. “I find you’re not acting the way I’d assumed you would, based on past experiences. I’d be interested in hearing your take on us.”
Tanner chuckled. “I could say the same thing, although my experiences aren’t the same as yours. Your…er… how should I put this… your lack of anger, is refreshing in someone like you.”
Karl smiled, and he really did have a lovely smile. His whole face lit up and his hazel eyes sparkled. “I went through that angry phase when I first left home. Believe me, you learn quickly to harness your temper when you spend your nights frequenting biker bars. Back in the fifties, they were real rough. Like you, I hadn’t been away from home before that time either. It was eye opening for me to see people arguing and throwing fists one minute, and then buying each other a drink the next, claiming to be best friends.”
“It was the lack of rankings or class structure that floored me.” Tanner remembered how he’d felt those first few months he was free from the pack. “The events around my leaving had kinda cemented this idea in my head that I wasn’t worth anything. To be free of that, and be wandering around, and people looking to me for protection because of my size, hiring me because of my muscles, and deferring to me because I was the biggest guy in the room – I struggled to deal with it, especially seeing as I was so young at the time.”
“You’re still the biggest guy in the room.” Karl reached over, his hand hovering over the table, as though not sure Tanner would take it. Tanner wouldn’t leave his mate hanging, and he couldn’t disguise the sense of relief he felt, just holding Karl’s fingers.
“We’re both going to make mistakes,” Karl said quietly, “but I was really pleased you told me what was bothering you straight out, no bullshit. I really believe if we communicate, we can make this work between us.”
Tanner looked up as there was a movement by the table, smiling at Sophie the waitress who usually served him. She had two hefty plates in each hand. “TC, it’s nice to see you bring friends with an appetite,” she said, setting down the plates, and pulling out the linen wrapped cutlery from her apron pocket and putting them down too. “If he tips as well as you do, you can keep him.” She winked as she sauntered away.
“Sophie’s putting herself through night school and working through the day to care for her special needs son,” Tanner explained as both men abandoned the hand holding in favor of getting the cutlery. “Her no-good partner took off years ago, as soon as he realized their son would need so much care. I try and eat here at least once a week, and make sure I leave something extra for her.”
“I’m constantly amazed at how much you do for others,” Karl said around a mouthful of steak. “Neither my dad nor my uncle ever mentioned people specifically like you before, and females similar to you were only considered good for breeding.”
“The spiel Allan spouted off would suggest things have changed where you came from,” Tanner said drily. He glanced around, but Sophie was out in the kitchen and the only other man at the counter had his head buried in a book. “Think about wolves in the wild. What drives them, do you think?”
Karl chewed and swallowed his mouthful, clearly thinking. “Survival, I guess. Instincts, definitely. They strive to build large family groups. The stronger animals in a pack protect the young from others. I know they have very tight family ties within a pack structure. It’s basically feed, fuck, and fight to protect their territory, I guess.”
“Which works for wolves and any other animals in the wild. And yet humans have the potential to have or do so much more. We still need to work, to survive and pay the bills, but we also have the ability to educate ourselves, create companies,” Tanner waved his fork in Karl’s direction. “We can choose whether or not to have children. We can create art, invent gadgets – humans are the only species on earth who have the capacity to move beyond the situation they were born in, which is quite incredible, don’t you think?”
“As far as we know.” Karl nodded. “Humans are also the only beings aware of their own mortality pretty much from birth. I always figured that’s what drives us to do more. But how does this relate to us building a relationship?”
Putting down his knife, Tanner reached for a glass of water, taking a sip before he answered. “I like to think we both broke the mold – we both left our homes, under different circumstances to be sure, but in our own ways, we moved beyond the roles assigned to us at birth and made decent lives for ourselves. There’s a very strong part of our heritage in us that can’t be denied, and shouldn’t be, but I think when it comes to us, we need to forge our own paths in this as well – together of course, but perhaps different to what maybe your uncle might’ve expected for you.”
“This is very different to what my uncle expected.” Karl pushed his empty plate away and patted his belly. “That definitely deserves a tip. Can we walk and talk? Maybe try and work out some guidelines that will work for both of us. When you’ve finished your meal, of course.”
Realizing his plate was still half full, Tanner finished up quickly, before reaching into his pocket for his wallet. Leaving a pile of bills on the table, he only grinned when he noticed Karl leaving another fifty-dollar note on the heap. The air was warm when they pushed through the doors, standing on the sidewalk.
“The market’s just around the corner, this way,” Tanner pointed to the other end of the block, “if you’re interested.”
“Too many people in a market right now,” Karl said, looking around. “I’d rather we got the chance to talk without people jostling us and yelling around us. Is
there a… What the hell?”
Tanner looked in the direction Karl was glaring in, a chill running down his spine as he spotted Allan leaning on a pole on the other side of the road. He wasn’t alone and from the scruffy hair styles, and bulked up muscles, he guessed Allan’s company were wolf shifters too.
“Any chance you can ignore him?” He asked, already knowing what Karl would say. “It’s a public street, on a Saturday afternoon. There’re too many people around for them to do much.”
“Is there any chance you’d head to your car, and get back to your place, leaving me to handle this alone?”
Tanner could see his point. “There’s a park, down a side road, a block back from where we came. It’s not that big, and there’ll be people there…”
“It’ll do.” Karl turned swiftly, and then Tanner felt his mate’s hot hand on his lower back, moving him around so that Karl was between him and the road. The hand didn’t drop as they headed for the park.
Shit. Karl’s claiming me in front of the wolves. Tanner’s wolf side basked in the gesture, while Tanner’s human side worried.
Chapter Nineteen
Seeing Allan’s smug face, surrounded by enforcers reminded Karl of how much money the pack had siphoned from him, just in the six months he knew about. The ten-million-dollar check had been presented to the bank the Monday after Karl had handed it to his uncle – the pack couldn’t be hurting for money.
And yet, there was Allan and his friends – their mere presence meant to intimidate him. They were a threat to his mating – Karl knew that the same as he knew the exact location of the freckle on the top of his shoulder. But Karl wasn’t going to hide Tanner or his mated status. Hell, the scar on Tanner’s shoulder was probably still healing. It was tempting to ask Tanner to call a couple of his friends from the precinct, to run the guys off, but for the moment the other wolves hadn’t done anything wrong. I just have to cope with this without getting furry, which wasn’t going to be easy when his wolf was pushing to get out.