“This speaks to me.”
It could have sounded corny in another situation, but that was what I often said about wood. It sent messages via its color, smell, and temperature.
“I’ll have to take measurements.”
Remy burst out laughing and bent forward. He continued chuckling, and I stood there, confused, wondering what was so funny.
“Here? With your employees listening to our every word?”
“Ummm, no, not here. At your place.” Why was he so shocked all of a sudden?
“You want to measure me.”
“Not you!” My voice echoed around the cavernous building. “Your space. We can’t make a piece without taking measurements.”
“My bad. I thought…” He waved a hand between us. “Never mind. I misunderstood.”
“It’s a free service we offer. I’ve found that trusting our clients’ measurements is a mistake. You don’t want us to make a custom piece and discover your measurements are off.”
He nodded, but he was stifling more laughter because his body was kinda humming.
“That would be bad, I agree.”
“Great.” I led him into the office and created a file on the computer. This wasn’t the time to mess up the contact details, though I did have his phone number. With his address and email tucked away on the computer, I almost asked for his blood type and DNA, just in case I couldn’t find him in future.
We made arrangements for a visit after I said I was free any time. Perhaps I was too eager and I should have consulted my diary, but I was willing to shift any appointment around to fit Remy into my schedule.
“I look forward to seeing you in three days.”
He’d counted how long it'd be before we saw one another again. Sneaky. But I’d already done the calculations, down to the minute. I still had the seconds to do.
“I’ll be there with my trusty tape measure.”
“Will you come alone?”
I would, oh yes, I would not bring another employee. “As it’s one piece, I can handle that myself.” If we were doing an entire room, I’d need someone with me, and I thanked the universe that Remy only wanted a desk.
“Just me.”
6
REMY
Three days wasn’t a long time. It wasn’t a full work week. When it was part of a holiday weekend, it flew by. It was less than 100 hours.
But three days after you walked into a room and scented your mate for the first time, it was a freaking eternity. He was coming over to my house, to my space, to see me alone. I still couldn’t believe I’d clarified the by-himself-part with him. I was not on my A-game that day.
What I wanted to do was just tell him he was my mate, have him tell me back that I was his, and follow up with some naked fun and marking each other. If he had been any kind of shifter, that was how it would’ve gone. But he wasn’t. The alpha was human.
Maybe his humanness was why my koala could sense him over the phone. I didn’t know. That whole thing didn’t really make sense to me, but he had, there was no denying it.
Now that we’d met him, my beast was thrilled. He was still not being ideal, because he wanted the omega with usnow, but Iwas no longer spiraling out of control. I was worse than a kid the night before Christmas, waiting to get their gift.
For the first time, being efficient at work became a problem because it gave me too much downtime to think. How was I going to handle this human/shifter mate thing? Did I date him the way humans did and hope for the best? Did I tell him what was going on and cross my fingers he didn’t freak out?
I called Steven, who aside from some congratulations had zero words of advice, but he did promise to come and help me get the house ready, which was something I hadn’t even considered until then. Once he said it though, it was all I could think about. I needed to have my best foot forward.
Hari was coming into my space. I wanted him to see it and like it, and want to stay. I wasn’t a messy person. The house was clean, but you wouldn’t know that from the way I went into deep-clean mode. I scrubbed and vacuumed and dusted. I rearranged things. I wondered if my furniture looked too new. If he would see that my pretense of buying furniture had all been a lie.
