Page 14 of Wrong Number, Right Grizzly (Dial M For Mates #7)

RONAN

Three-day weekends with my mate were an amazing stopgap measure, but it was far from ideal.

It just wasn’t enough time for us to be together, and because we had such limited time, we tended to be really busy during it.

I wouldn’t change a second of what we did together, but it made Mondays rough—really, really rough.

It wasn’t the only solution we thought of.

Commuting seemed like it could be an option at first, but the more we looked at it, the more we realized it was only gonna burn us out.

With our work schedules, commuting back and forth wasn’t a matter of adding a couple hours to the day.

It would’ve been adding extreme exhaustion, leading to unsafe driving.

And even if the driving was perfect, we would be too tired to spend any real time together anyway. Something had to give.

I’d never asked Nix to move from his home.

It was his safe haven, the one place he could let his bear out without worrying about who might see him.

It was the only place he could truly be himself.

His house gave him a sense of peacefulness and freedom that an apartment wouldn’t ever be able to give him.

And that left only one solution. I needed to move. It was fine by me, anything to make it so that I could spend each night in his arms. The problem was, it was easier said than done.

I wasn’t married to my location, or my job for that matter. But “you can always get a job when you’ve got a job.” At least that was what I’d been taught growing up and was now the motto I went by. I refused to quit until I had something new, especially with my boss attempting to help us.

Every day I sent out résumés, everywhere that I could find an opportunity as long as it was really close to Nix or telework-happy.

I didn’t care if there was a pay cut. I just couldn’t lose my entire salary.

I still owed money on my car, had a lease on my apartment, and the last of my student loans.

It would be beyond unfair for me to walk into this meeting expecting him to help pay for any of that.

Sure, we were a team, but being a team, both sides had to contribute.

Working in my field, there were a lot of options for career changes, but the process for hiring was beyond long.

Some of them required five to six interviews, and then a couple wanted me to do full projects for them…

for free, of course, to “see if I’d be a good fit” and not to get free labor.

Something was going to pan out soon. I just needed to be patient.

I sucked at being patient.

It was still relatively early when I climbed into bed and hit dial on my phone.

I was exhausted, to the point of nearly falling asleep during my last job query for the day, but I still hadn’t had a conversation with my mate, and that was unacceptable.

A few texts here and there was not enough to get me through.

Not when it was Wednesday, and I wasn’t going to see him tomorrow either.

“Hello, mate.” His smile lit up the entire world, and suddenly I wasn’t as tired anymore. “Did you have a good day at work?”

“It was fine. I missed you, though.” So much it actually hurt. It was like the dull ache that never went away. I never complained to him about it, though. What could he do about it? We just had to get through this initial adjustment and all would be fine.

“You did? How much did you miss me?”

“Hmm, let me see. I missed you so much that my alarm went off saying it was time to leave, and I’d only taken one bite of breakfast.” I spaced out a lot, thinking about my mate, what he was doing, what he was wearing or not wearing, if he was taking care of himself, was he thinking about me?

A growl built in his chest. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the not-eating part.

“Calm down. I ate. I just brought it with me.” It was gross by the time I had it for my morning break, but I did eat it mostly because I knew he would want me to.

I’d never had somebody in my life who checked up on me the way he did.

At first, I wasn’t quite sure what I thought about it, but now, I loved it.

“Okay, that’s a lot of missing me.”

“Well, you didn’t let me finish. There’s more.”

“More?” He brought the camera closer to his face like he was leaning in.

“Yep, I missed you so much that halfway through our morning coffee break, my co-workers asked me if there was anything else I talked about besides you, and I told them no.” That earned me a laugh.

We talked back and forth about his day, about not being with each other and how much we missed each other.

But then the unavoidable happened. I yawned. And because I yawned, he decided to be mean and tell me it was time for bed. Mean, using my made-up definition, to care about someone.

“Not ready to say goodbye to you yet.” I stuck out my bottom lip. “Can’t we keep talking?”

“How about this? I will talk to you if you promise to lie down and close your eyes.”

“Fine.” I clicked off my lamp and scooched down so my head was on the pillow. “My eyes are closed. I know you can’t see me because it’s dark, but you told me to sleep.”

“Somebody’s a little grouchy.” He wasn’t scolding me, more a mixture of worry and amusement.

“Just extra tired today.” I didn’t tell him that I’d been exhausted for the past week.

I nearly left early today to take a nap, but powered through. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was so far away from my mate that I was struggling, or if I wasn’t sleeping well enough. But whatever it was, I needed it to be done, and soon, because this exhaustion was killing me.

“So, what are you going to tell me?” I quickly changed the topic.

“Hmm,” Nix said. “How about I tell you about your garden I was thinking of planting?”

“My garden?” I wasn’t an outdoorsy kind of person, but if he was building a garden, I’d give it a go. Also, it was the perfect get-me- to-sleep conversation because focusing on dirt and seeds wasn’t nearly as interesting as hearing about my mate.

“More like a garden for me to grow things for you.”

“Sounds nice and probably will help me fall asleep.” Gardening felt like a topic that was far more interesting when you had visuals.

I didn’t realize that this was about to become an ode to his love for me or I’d have recorded it for later.

“In the back, I built a flower bed that is about waist high. Only, instead of planting flowers to put on the table, I decided to plant a tea garden with all of your favorites, including mint and lavender. I’m not sure what yet.

Depends on some input from you, but the frame is built, and I already picked up the dirt.

I already grabbed a bush for your rosehips. ”

“Wait—you’re gonna grow my tea?” Never had anybody done anything that personalized for me.

“Well, some of it, yeah.”

“How can you be so sweet? Is it honey? It’s gotta be honey. Do you eat honey?”

He chuckled. “I was supposed to be telling you a story so you could go to sleep.”

“You are. But now I want to hear about the honey. Did you get stuck in the honey pot?” I chuckled at my own attempted humor.

“You did not just make a Winnie the Pooh joke.”

“Maybe I did.” I bit back another yawn.

It was time to go to sleep. I hated it. I wanted to stay and talk to him all night long. That was a lie, what I truly wanted was for him to be in bed with me, hugging me close all night long.

“I love you, Nix. I’m gonna go to sleep now while you’re talking, for realsies.”

“Well, if it’s for realsies, then I am going to tell you a whole bunch of things to bore you to pieces, starting with the report I wrote for work in detail.”

And he did. And I remembered none of it, because about three sentences in, I fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke to a text from him saying, I hope you slept well. Can’t wait to see you.

I couldn’t either.

One of the main reasons why I couldn’t leave my job to come there was because of the financial responsibilities I had, including an apartment that was probably too big for my needs and definitely too expensive to pay for without a job.

And as I brewed my cup of tea before work, I realized I had to get rid of that first. And if subleasing meant that I had to commute for a while, we’d figure that out.

Or maybe that would be the time to quit. There was still so much up in the air.

But I still had nine months left on the lease, and buying that out was far too much money. I headed to the leasing office to see the right protocol. And of course, nobody was there. So I called in late to work and waited for her to arrive, gathering all the paperwork as soon as she did.

Thankfully, my building was one that had a wait list, and there were people wanting to come in as a sublease. Go me, for picking a popular area. I filled out all the necessary paperwork and crossed my fingers that someone would decide that my place was where they needed to live.

Because the sooner I could get back to Nix, the sooner I could be home.