The closer we got, the more people we started to see on the streets. It was weird to see so many people out so early, though I guess I didn’t normally start at work until nine o’clock, so I maybe this was normal.
Then I saw a group of people joining a queue around the corner from Main Street. I looked over at Tate, who hadn’t seemed to register the line. He had to have. There were so many people, what the heck were they lining up for so early in the morning?
We rounded onto Main Street and I saw where the line went. Tate sat up sharply, his eyes saucer-like and wide, filling with tears. The line was heading all the way to the front doors of Frostbites.
“Oh my god,” he breathed. “Is this really happening? I feel like I should ask you to pinch me or something but it seems like too much of a fucking cliché.”
We pulled up outside Frostbites and people started to cheer. They were lining up for the reopening. I looked over at Tate who was glowing, the smile on his face so bright it could have lit up the entire store on that alone. He looked so happy. I was so proud of him for what he had done, for the community of loyal people he had created. I hated that I had nearly messed that up, but look at him now.
He turned to me, a huge smile on his face. “Let’s get this place open, huh?”
We opened the front doors, Jonica inside looking more than a little bit stressed out.
“They started lining up about an hour ago,” she babbled. “I thought something was wrong but the line just kept getting longer and longer. They’re here for you, Tate.”
“They’re here for the store,” Tate corrected.
“No,” Jonica said. “I asked them, they said they were here for you and they were here for your reopening. Don’t let anyone take that away from you Tate, these people love you and they love your store.”
He took a deep breath. “We’d better make them happy then. Aren’t you glad I made too many bakes yesterday?” he quipped.
“I made more Danishes just in case,” she said. “And I made sure there was enough pastry and batter that we could make more stuff when there’s a lull.” She looked to the door, to the crowd of people waiting outside. “If there’s a lull.”
“Do you want me to open the doors, baby?” I asked.
Tate grabbed his apron off the hook and pulled it over his head, his pregnant belly protruding beneath it. “Open it up, Chasen. Let’s do this.”
I opened the door and people piled in, some hurrying to the counter, others hurrying to take seats at tables while their friends waited in line. I’d never seen anything like it, it was totally insane how busy it was. Tate and Jonica already looked stressed trying to serve everyone and get everyone’s food to them, so I grabbed a spare apron and hopped behind the counter.
“What are you doing?” Tate said, handing someone their coffee and a donut.
“Let me serve people,” I said. “I can do this part, you do the food bit because I have no idea what anything is.”
He kissed me on the cheek. “Look at you, saving me all over again,” he said. “You’re the best.”
“We made more money today than we made in the three months before Frostbites closed,” Tate said, sitting at a chair behind the counter cashing out the tills. “I can’t believe it.”
“I can,” I replied as I swept the floor. “I don’t think Jonica can.”
“Jonica wasn’t ready for any of that,” Tate laughed. He’d sent her home as soon as they’d closed. She looked totally wiped out, probably from coming in at five to get the pastries baked. “I still can’t believe we did it,” he said.
“You did it, Tate,” I said. “I didn’t do a damn thing.”
“You made this place as beautiful as it is,” Tate said, coming out from behind the counter.
“Only because you told me your dream,” I replied. “This is all you baby. And I hope all of your dreams come true because of it.”
He kissed me on the lips. “You’re part of my dream, Chasen,” he said. “They’ve been coming true from the second I found out we were fated. I love you.”
“I love you too, Tate,” I said, a grin spreading across my face. “Now how about we head home to celebrate?”
Epilogue
Tate
There was no way I was going to take any maternity leave now that I had my fancy new bakery to work in. I wanted to enjoy every single second of it. That and the fact that business was absolutely booming and I didn’t want to miss anything and Jonica probably would have had a heart attack if I’d left her working all on her own. I worked until my water broke, which just happened to be in the middle of a busy Wednesday morning rush.
“Did you spill something?” Jonica asked when she looked back at me from the other side of the counter. “Are you all right? Was it hot?”
“I think my water just broke.”
Her face went ghostly white. “You fucking what?”
“My water just broke,” I said, a little louder this time. “And don’t swear in front of the customers.”
“Erm, what do you need me to do?” she said, getting herself into a panic, running back and forth like a caged rat. “Do you need hot towels? Water? Do you need snacks?”
“I’m not giving birth in the bakery, Jonica, I need you to call Chasen.” I groaned and bent over as a contraction hit. It wasn’t too bad, but I knew they were going to get worse. The way Brent talked about it, I was probably going to die.
“What’s happening now?” Jonica practically screamed when she saw me bent over. “Is there a problem with the baby? Why are you in pain?”
“Did you even take biology at school, Jonica, it was a contraction?”
“What do you want me to do? How can I help?”
“Serve the customers, I’m going to call Chasen.”
I called him, telling him I was in labor, and he was out the door before I’d even hung up. He barreled into the bakery, a smile so broad I thought it was going to split his face in two.
He came behind the counter.
“Did you bring my overnight bag?” I asked as I waddled towards him.
“Christ, Tate, look what you did to the floor!”
“Overnight bag, Chasen. Do you have it?”
“It’s wetter than you were that first night we were together.”
“Chasen! There are customers!” I barked as another contraction hit. “Do you have my overnight bag?”
“Yeah, Tate, chill, it’s in the car, has been for the past two weeks just in case,” he said, hurrying forward to kiss me on the forehead. “Everything’s going to be fine. Let’s get you to the hospital and,” he took a deep breath. “Let’s become parents.”
I didn’t have time to freak out, I didn’t have time to panic about whether or not we were ready, or worry that we had the right things or that we’d baby-proofed the house enough because it was happening, and Chasen was driving at way over the speed limit so I didn’t have to give birth in the back of his car.
He grabbed a wheelchair from the front of the hospital and got me into it, wheeling me down the corridors to the maternity ward shouting at the top of his lungs. “I’m going to be a dad! You’re looking at one proud papa here because in the next day or so I’m going to be a papa!”
“The next day or so?!” I exclaimed. “If we could hope for something with a much smaller time frame, I’d really appreciate it!”
I was in labor for about twelve hours and, as Brent had said, the contractions hurt so bad by the end that I thought I was going to die. I was just thankful that I had Chasen there to look after me while it was all happening. Though I fear I may have crushed his hand beyond repair.
It all felt worth it when I saw our beautiful baby boy for the first time.
“He looks just like you,” I said almost immediately, looking up into Chasen’s eyes. He was tearful, beaming with pride at what I’d just done, at what we’d just done. I couldn’t believe it. “Hold him,” I said, offering the baby to Chasen. “We still need to pick out a name you know. You s
aid you had ideas.”
Chasen held the baby, rocking it back and forth, not able to take his eyes off him. “Tavian,” he whispered. “That was the name I had in my head.”
“Pretty,” I said. “Tavian Ewen. It works, don’t you think?”
There was a light knock on the door, Slater and Jarrett poked their heads around the door, grins on their faces, sleep weighing heavy on their eyes. Well, specifically on Slater’s. He looked like he’d not slept for weeks.
“Hey guys,” Jarrett whispered as he tiptoed in. “Everything all right?”
“Better than all right,” Chasen hissed excitedly. “I’m a dad, you guys!”
The three of them silently cheered, and it was so adorable.
“Congratulations man,” Slater said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. He looked over at me, a broad grin on his face. “And congratulations to you too Tate. How was it?”
“Oh, really fucking painful,” I said, flatly, which made Slater laugh and then yawn. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Chasen said. “You look more tired than Tate and he’s just given birth. What’s up?”
“Oh gosh, guys, I really shouldn’t be talking about my problems right now, you just had a baby and-“
“Slater, tell us,” I said.
Slater sighed, his gaze turning to the floor. “Look, I don’t want to make a big thing out of it okay, it’s just that the guy next door-“
“The party animal?” Chasen interrupted. “He still keeping you up?”
“Yeah,” Slater replied, yawning again. “I’ve not slept in weeks and it’s killing me. It’s certainly killing my art. I can hardly stay awake during the day to get anything done.”
“You can stay at our place if you want,” Chasen said. “I mean, I’m going to be here the rest of today and most of tomorrow anyway with Tate. If you want to stay there you can.” He turned to me. “You don’t mind do you, Tate?”
“Oh God no,” I said. “The house is just sitting there empty, go and sleep, you look like you really need it.”
Chasen handed Tavian back to me, and I marveled out how small he was the smallness of his hands, of his feet, of his little scrunched up face. He really did look a lot like Chasen but the scent of him was an omega for sure.
Chasen passed Slater the keys but Slater didn’t leave, he just hovered there in the middle of the room. “What else is it?” Chasen asked. “There’s something else isn’t there. Did you sleep with him?”
“No,” Slater exclaimed. “Well, not yet.”
“Slater!” Jarrett hit him on the arm.
“No, I don’t mean it like that,” Slater sighed. “I caught his scent the other day. The next door twink might just be my fated mate.”
“Fuck,” Jarrett said. “So he will be keeping you up all night in the good way!” Jarrett and Chasen started to laugh, high-fiving across a yawning Slater.
“I don’t have the energy to come up with a quip right now,” Slater groaned. “Thank you for the house guys, I really appreciate it. Jarrett, can you give me a ride back?”
“I brought you here buddy, I wasn’t about to leave you stranded,” Jarrett said. “Congratulations again you too. Brent said he was going to stop by tomorrow while I look after the kids, didn’t want to bombard you with the whole family Ewen at once, that comes later.” Jarrett slipped out of the door, leaving Chasen, Tavian and I alone. Our little world had gone silent, just for a moment.
I shuffled over on the bed, invited Chasen to join me up here, which he did, wrapping his arm carefully around my shoulders and looking down at Tavian. Here we were. After all the ups and downs, we’d managed to make our perfect little family. I snuggled up a little closer to Chasen, resting my head on his chest. It couldn’t get better than this. It really and truly couldn’t.
Book 3
Furbitten Neighbor
Furbitten Falls Alpha’s: Book 3
Furbitten Falls Alpha’s: Book 3
Preston Walker
© 2019
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).
1
Slater
Today was going to be a great day. I could feel it.
Last night I’d been at an art showcase downtown and actually managed to sell all of my paintings. I couldn’t really believe it, my heart beat a million miles a minute and my palms sweat like there was no tomorrow, but I had to play it cool. It was the hardest thing in the world pretending, like it wasn’t a big deal for me, when really it pulled everything together in my head and told me that what I was working on was definitely the right thing.
I sprang out of bed, eager to get back to work, to get back to a blank canvas and start the creating process all over again. This was the best bit in a lot of ways. While it was fun to sell a painting and to bring people joy with my art, when I could just get lost in my music and throw paint onto a canvas. That was what I loved.
I’d turned the apartment into an art studio almost the second I’d moved in. The living space was a huge open plan with exposed red brick walls and was the perfect place for me to work.
When I’d first looked at it, I’d pretty much jumped on it. What really got me was the amount of light it got. It got a lot of daylight from the huge bay windows and the balcony, which was great for mixing paint and taking photographs of my works in progress for my Instagram, and it was spacious, huge in fact. It took up a lot of space but I was fine with it. My art mattered.
I grabbed my headphones from beneath a pile of sketches on my desk and set my phone to play “The Reflex” by Duran Duran. The second the music started, my senses came alive. I closed my eyes and watched colors burst behind them like fireworks. It had always been this way. Music had always inspired me, even from a young age. I wouldn’t see images in my head when I listened to it, nor could I really just listen to a piece of music and not let it affect me in some way. Every time I played something, I could just close my eyes and the music would guide me and tell me exactly what to do, it would fill up my body and, I know this is going to sound crazy, but it would just tell my hands what to do, what colors to choose, where the paint needed to go. It was exhilarating. There was nothing else in the world that took over me like that, that ran through my bloodstream, through every nerve and right to the tips of my fingers. It was like the art of these musicians was speaking through me. I was just a vessel for the art being made, and I sort of loved that.
I turned up the music and put a blank canvas up to start painting. First a little bit of red, splattered across from corner to corner. Some broad strokes, some dots, sometimes just flicking the edge of the brush so paint splattered all over my fingers then dotted itself into the canvas. Creating was a messy process when it came to me.
Something caught my attention in my peripheral vision. Wandering along the window ledge without a care in the world was Fishstick, my black and white tuxedo cat, his eyes bright green and curiously watching my every movement. He did that a lot. He was the reason I switched to headphones (he wasn’t a huge fan of super loud 80s music) and the reason I switched to a non-toxic paint because there isn’t a canvas in the studio that doesn’t have his paw prints on it somewhere. It had become a signature bit of each design and I sort of loved it.
“Good morning, Fishstick,” I said, probably a little too loud because of the music pounding in my ears. I looked back at the painting, the orange and
red mixing with the purple and pink to create a sort of distorted sunset on the white background. Fishstick tilted his head to one side, his eyes seeming to flash a little brighter as he stared. “You’re right,” I said. “It needs something else.” The song in my ears had changed to ‘Rio’, also by Duran Duran, the techno feel of it suddenly making me feel all kinds of neon and bright.
I moved away from the canvas and grabbed my neon paints, squeezing them into a tray and dipping in a clean brush, sweeping an electrifying shade of green through everything. There it was. Who knew a cat could help me feel inspired?
My two brothers, Jarrett and Chasen, were always big supporters of my art. I was even working on a commission for Chasen’s other half Tate to hang in his bakery, Frostbites. They were both younger than me and both of them were settling down with children. It made me feel uncomfortable that I was still single at thirty-nine, living some bohemian, artsy lifestyle while they were looking after their kids and trying to hold down steady jobs. It seemed a little backwards and I couldn’t help but wonder what Dad would have said if he was still around.
He was not so supportive of my want to be an artist. While he wanted me to be happy, he wanted me to have something a little more stable, and he wasn’t so sure that art would pay the bills. I was lucky enough to have managed to prove him wrong, at least so far. There were some months that were a little leaner than others, but I seemed to do okay locally. I could support myself quite well.
I should have been the one to settle down first, surely, being the oldest. And it’s not like I haven’t been trying. It’s just a little more complicated when your family is cursed and there are fated mates involved.
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