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Chapter Thirteen

Silver

“Charlie seems sweet.”

I glared at Clay. “My mate is incredibly sweet. What about it? Why are you mentioning Charlie?” I was…

struggling today. My gorilla was on edge because Charlie had gotten up at the ass crack of dawn this morning and gone off to work.

I’d been unable to go back to sleep and instead had come into work.

I’d been able to catch up on some things that I’d missed yesterday, but as the day had gone on, I’d started to struggle a bit.

“Whoa,” Clay said, holding his hands out in front of him and taking a step back. “I didn’t mean anything by it, just stating what I noticed yesterday when we were helping you two move his things into your place.”

“Our place. It’s mine and Charlie’s home now.” That reminded me that I needed to schedule a time with Charlie to get to the bank to add him to my bank accounts, and I also needed to get him added to the deed of the house. It was ours now.

“You went somewhere.”

I focused back on Clay. “Thinking about all of the things we need to do. I should probably ask Charlie if he has any time off saved up that he can use a few days off. We need to get paperwork filed, and with him always at work when those offices are open, that’s going to be a bit of a challenge.

” I leaned forward to grab the pen and start jotting down things that we needed to do.

“I’m surprised you came in today at all. Actually, we all are. With the way the two of you were staring at each other yesterday, I would have thought you’d spend the day in bed together.”

I glared at my brother. I definitely would have preferred to be spending the day with my mate, but he left early this morning for work.

I would get to spend the evening with him though, and that would be a good way to end the day.

It wasn’t as if both of us could suddenly quit our jobs and do nothing but have sex all day.

Granted, that sounded like a wonderful idea, but I knew it just wasn’t practical.

“We didn’t exactly have the opportunity to request time off for us to spend a few days together.

Well, on Charlie’s end. The hope is that Charlie will be able to get some time off so we can start working through our list of things we need to do.

” I added another thing to my to-do list and then remembered another.

But it was incredibly personal, and did I really want it on a list that my brothers could see?

Did I want to jot down “go ring shopping” so carelessly? No.

Marrying Charlie was absolutely something I saw myself doing. Sure, we’d claimed each other already, and it was true that humans lived alongside us, but there were still instances where us being married made more sense in their world.

“Lost you again.”

“That’s because I have a lot of things to do.

” I glanced at the clock on my monitor. I could head to the zoo and meet Charlie for lunch.

Even if he couldn’t join me for lunch, I could at least see my mate and make sure he had lunch.

He’d left this morning without taking anything, and I didn’t want him to have to worry about funds.

We had briefly touched on that subject, and although I wasn’t drastically older than Charlie, I was a bit more established in my career.

Not only that, but my brothers and I had all been given a sizable inheritance from our father’s parents.

“What do you mean you have things to do?” Clay asked as I stood from my desk.

“Just that. I’m going to be out the rest of the day. Actually, probably the rest of the week. Make sure you take care of everything.”

Clay’s eyes widened. “What? You can’t just skip out of work.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s one and a half days, Clay. You can handle it. I’ll be back on Monday, and we’ll talk then.”

“Wait, are you not coming to our family dinner on Sunday?”

I froze, trying to remember where it was this week. “Whose house?”

“Mine.”

I nodded slowly. “Probably. I’ll ask Charlie if he wants to.

His messages with his sister yesterday didn’t go so well, and I’m not sure how much family time he’s going to be interested in.

” I knew we were going to have to have the “meet the parents” get-together this weekend at some point, and I figured I’d be meeting Sam and Justin around that time as well.

I was keeping an open mind about Sam, but she was going to have to do a bit of attitude fix in order for me to want to be around her much.

That is, if what Charlie had been saying was the case.

Not that I thought my mate wasn’t being truthful.

“Where are you going? What if I need to reach you?”

I stopped at the doorway to look back at Clay.

“Really? You know my number, but we both know that you can run this company just as well as I can. You just don’t like to because you’d rather be setting up web page securities than you would talking to clients.

Too bad. I’m going to be taking time off here and there now that I’m mated.

And to answer your question, I’m going to go have lunch with my mate. ”

I left it at that. Clay had started to smile as I walked out the door.

He was right. There shouldn’t have been any expectation that either of us would be at work today.

I’d only come in because Charlie had gotten up and gone to work.

I wasn’t going to ask him to stay home because I’d said I wasn’t going to be controlling.

I didn’t know if he’d see that as controlling or not, but I didn’t want to take the chance and upset my newly claimed mate.

As I walked to my truck, I came to the realization that I was going to have to adjust to his schedule.

For the most part, I worked the normal nine-to-five, but Charlie had to be at work at six in the morning most days.

Mica and Slate often worked the later shifts, covering parties and personal security more than I did anymore.

That was something I was now incredibly thankful for.

Crawling into bed around three or four in the morning when my mate would be getting up an hour or two later wasn’t how I wanted to live my life.

I knew there would be adjustments for both of us, and we’d figure it out.

“Leaving already?” Flint asked as I walked by his office door.

“Yep,” I called out, not bothering to stop. It took me all of two minutes to make it to my truck, where I sighed at the silence.

Should I reach out to Charlie and ask him about lunch, or should I surprise him? Again, I didn’t want him to think I was being overbearing. Our relationship was still incredibly new, and I knew we would eventually be comfortable around each other, but it was going to take more than a few days.

“Charlie? How are you doing, cutie? You left early this morning.”

I heard a gasp though our bond. “Silver! I wanted to reach out, but I didn’t want to interrupt you if you were in an important meeting.”

Immediately, I was on edge. My mate sounded stressed. “Charlie, what’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure. I’m just…I don’t know how I feel, exactly. Irritable maybe? Frustrated? I’m trying to work, but my mind won’t focus. My koala doesn’t want to be here either, and I can’t understand why. He’s always happy to be here at work.”

I was almost positive that Charlie was feeling the effects of being apart from me so soon after we’d claimed each other. “I was thinking about swinging by the zoo and having lunch with you. Do you think that would help? Or have you already had your lunch break? You started so early this morning.”

“I haven’t taken lunch yet. I was trying to figure out what to have.”

“Did you want me to stop somewhere out in town and bring you something specific? I’m going to go by all the places. I can meet you back at the back entrance? Or if I can’t get there, I can meet you up front.”

Now, there was a squeal through our bond.

“Out back. When you enter the zoo parking lot, you need to go immediately to the left. That’s the easiest way to the employee lot.

I’ll call down to the gate and let them know you’re coming.

And before you leave, we need to get you registered so you won’t have to do more than show your family badge.

And I’d love a burger and fries. I don’t care where from. Everything on it except mustard.”

I chuckled. “I can handle that. I’ll be there in about thirty minutes. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Same. I’m going to try and get something wrapped up before you get here. And I’ll call the gate and give them your name. Let me know when you arrive, and I’ll head to the employee entrance to meet you. If you have time, I can give you a tour.”

I chuckled. “I have all afternoon. I’m finished for the day.”

Charlie sighed. “Must be nice to be your own boss. I’m here until four. Okay. Gotta go. See you soon!”

It was reassuring that Charlie was excited to have me visit. We would certainly be having more discussions in the future, but for now, I was going to go grab burgers and fries for the two of us and then enjoy some time with my mate before I had to let him get back to work.

I picked a fast-food burger place that was closest to the zoo, ordered enough food for four people, and then tried to get to the zoo as quickly as I could. I hadn’t thought to bring any sort of bag that would help keep things warm longer. I would certainly be looking into that going forward though.

When I arrived at the gate, I was surprised that there wasn’t a line to get in at the moment. I guess the line on Tuesday night was because of the holiday event.

“That’ll be ten dollars,” the attendant said as I pulled up to the gate.

I handed over a ten-dollar bill, got my parking pass ticket for the dash, and then pulled through.

I did as Charlie had said and immediately took the left path.

I followed it until I came to another gate.

When I pulled up there, I did my best to smile at the attendant.