Page 14

14

WILDER

Today was painting day for the cabins. It was a ton of work, but subcontracting it out would’ve cost a whole lot more than we had. As it was, money on this project was getting tight—especially with my mate still having to pay for his place in the city. That would end soon, but not just yet. And until then, we had to be pretty cautious.

I invited my cousin Paul down to help. He agreed, and at first I thought it was because he wanted to meet Thorn. To my surprise, he showed up with a couple of his college friends who lived near him in the city—Peter and Frank. Unlike us, they weren’t cougars. Peter was a bear, and Frank was a koala.

The three of them had met and formed a bond freshman year that, many years later, was still going strong—strong enough that they were willing to come down and paint random cabins for crappy sandwiches. Or maybe they too were intrigued by my mate. I’d overheard Frank refer to me as “your grumpy cousin” more than once over the years, and it wouldn’t have shocked me if he was down for the gossip more than the labor.

Surprisingly, it was pretty quick work. The four of us started on the first cabin together while Thorn dealt with some phone calls and odds and ends. We managed to get it done before our first coffees of the morning were finished, and it looked wonderful.

“So what do you think?” Paul grabbed my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Do we go through all of these this way—with all of us in one cabin? Or should we split up? You know, divide and conquer, all that.”

“I don’t know. There are still some other items left on the list…” It was cutting close to inspection time, and every time we crossed something off that blasted list, another task was put on it.

“Why don’t we take the cabin painting and you steal your cousin and go work with your mate on the other stuff.” Frank had become the unofficial foreman of our painting early on. “We’ve got this. We spent one summer painting for our rent.”

That explained why they were so good at it.

“We owe you more than sandwiches.” I wasn’t sure what because the amount of money I could give them would be insulting. As much as we’d worked on budgeting for this place, we constantly found more and more supplies that needed buying.

“Yeah, you owe us a vacation at this resort.” He wrapped his arm around Peter. They weren’t mates, but I suspected they were more than friends.

I thought about his suggestion. Obviously, it was a yes. But it was so much more than that. They would be some of our first customers. Sure, they weren’t paid guests—but they wanted to be here and that felt amazing.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

My mate was out on the deck looking for loose nails or screws. There technically shouldn’t have been any nails, but it wasn’t the most well-designed structure, and we didn’t have the money to fully replace it yet.

With inspection only three days away, the tedious task of making sure they didn’t find anything sticking up was important, because not only were they checking on permit execution, but they were also licensing us for hospitality occupancy. If we passed, we’d finally be allowed to reopen the place almost right away.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure how Old Man Blaze managed all those years without getting shut down, given how it was barely kept up and mostly to shifter standards—not human code. Probably because the town was small and the inspector, Joe, was also the mailman and the bartender at Oars. Gotta love small towns.

“How’s it going?” I squatted down and gave him a kiss.

“It looks great. I only found two this round.”

This round because it was one of many. We decided that until we didn’t find any, we’d keep going. According to Stan, the inspector once cut his foot on a nail, and that was that. He became the nail inspector. Why was he barefoot? I didn’t know. I didn’t ask, and it didn’t matter. All that did was that we got this place where it needed to be.

“My cousin and I are gonna go make sure all the outlet covers are going to meet code.”

Another stupid thing to worry about. Why did it matter what kind of outlet covers we had? They were fifty-cent products and really didn’t have much to do with anything. But according to the list we were given, they mattered, and there were a ton of them here.

“Go have fun with that.”

And that was how the day went. We did all the little menial tasks we knew needed to get done. There were a couple of larger projects that still had to be completed—making the beds for the cabins, hanging curtains, that sort of thing. Just the silly stuff that mattered for getting our hospitality license in line. But all that had to wait for the paint to dry, which made today perfect for all this minutiae.

It wasn’t even dinner time when my cousin’s friends—who I now called the Miracle Painters—were completely done, and we all decided to call it a day, grabbing sandwich fixings and heading down to the lake for a picnic and to swim.

And for those of us with fur, to let our fur out.

I wasn’t sure how my mate was going to handle shifters that weren’t me and were different animals, but he was the one who suggested this. He wanted to know that, as a human, he could run a place that catered to shifters without making them uncomfortable.

I had to give him credit. It wasn’t something I would’ve even thought about—but he had. And then he wanted to do something about it.

“These are the best sandwiches ever.” Peter fell back onto the grass, holding his stomach. “I’m moving in here.”

“Says the guy who can’t go a Friday night without hitting the clubs,” my cousin jabbed.

“That’s because clubs are awesome.”

“Yeah, I’ll take your word for it,” I teased. I didn’t see what was fun about being jammed together with a bunch of other people, listening to music that was too loud for even shifters to hear conversations, and dealing with drunken humans. But hey—everybody deserved their fun. I would take mine here by the lake with people I cared about.

“Are you swimming with us?” Thorn stood up and pulled his shirt off, leaving him in only his shorts. I’d have preferred he wore nothing—but not in front of the others. That view was for me and me alone.

“I… I could swim.” Peter started to get undressed, and my mate kept his eyes on me, waiting for me to do the same, something I could never deny him.

And when I was done taking my fur, our bear, cougar, and koala friends were ready to go.

“Fair warning,” Frank had said before his shift, “koalas look terrifying when they’re wet.”

“Yeah, okay.” My mate grinned. “I’ll take your word?—”

Little did he know, but I was already in my fur and hadn’t been able to warn him. He’d learn soon enough.

I bolted toward the lake and jumped in with a splash, my mate following right behind me.

The koala took his sweet time before coming in, and when he did, he dove straight under and popped up—and my mate began to cackle. Not the reaction I’d been expecting.

“Oh my gods, I thought you were like… joking. But legit!”

Frank’s beast climbed on my cousin’s back, and they swam around the lake while the rest of us swam and played.

The mosquitoes started to get bad, and a few horseflies came out to play, so my mate called it quits, climbing out of the lake and drying off. Horse flies were the worst, and I didn’t blame him for being done.

“You owe me five bucks.” Frank held his hand out.

“Why?” Thorn asked.

“Not you. Just your mate’s cousin here. Because he said Thorn was going to get scared and run out.”

“To be fair… if I hadn’t been warned, that would’ve been a real possibility.” Thorn wrapped himself in a towel.

“Well, it tells me you’re the right man for this job. I know cougars are what you want to tailor this place to, but I can see this being a retreat for shifters with feathers, with scales—because you may be human, but you accept us all.” Frank seemed to know exactly what to say.

I hugged my mate tight, so proud of him. I hadn’t realized that any of this had been a test—or maybe all of it was, from coming here, to paint, and onward.

But by the time we climbed into bed that night, I was confident. That the resort was going to be successful. That our future was bright.

And that feeling? That was priceless.