Page 1 of Wrong Number, Right Gray Wolf

1

STEPHEN

“It’s so romantic.”

“What’s that?” Remy, my boss, was staring at his laptop and didn’t look up.

“How you met Hari.” I gushed over the thought of making a phone call on a landline, of which there was one on my desk here at work, and finding the love of my life.

“Yeah.” He wasn’t listening, his monotone told me that. But he adored his mate and son, Huxley. He’d describe his little one’s antics, and the new words he’d learned and every milestone from the time he was born was noted on a spreadsheet.

I gave up on the conversation and sat at my desk in the corner. I was Remy’s assistant and we worked from his home. It was just the two of us, so there was no office gossip or chatter around the water cooler. Not that I wanted any of that. I was pleased to leave that particular rat race behind in exchange for a quieter, more pleasant work environment and a boss who was my best friend.

As I waited for the coffee to brew in the kitchen, I looked out the window at the eucalyptus tree Remy and Hari had planted. Being a koala shifter, Hari needed the leaves that he called gum leaves. The tree was only a sapling, so he still had to order boxes of leaves for his beast to munch on.

Having the woods out back gave the house a more secluded feel than if we were in the middle of town. I often gave my fox his fur during our lunch hour and he either hunted or we just enjoyed being surrounded by woodland.

Thanks to my fox nature, I liked order and so did my boss. Nothing was out of place, despite him having a young son who was at nursery school doing our working hours. The plants were tended to, there was no dust on the photos, my chair was proper leather that Remy had picked up at an estate sale, there was a place for my mug on the desk, and the house was filled with love. I felt it welcomed me when I walked in each morning.

I strolled back to our home office and placed a coffee, made just as Remy liked it, on his desk. He hadn’t asked for one, but he always needed one mid-morning, and if I didn’t anticipate his needs, he’d reach for it and the mug would be empty. That was one of the reasons why I was so good at my job, I anticipated and noticed what my boss needed.

He gasped and sat back in his chair, saying he hadn’t heard me come in. I apologized and said I’d make more noise next time. That annoyed my beast because being stealthy was a fox trait which was an advantage when stalking prey.

The house, including the office, smelled of varieties of wood. Maple, oak, teak, mahogany were four I detected in the walk from the kitchen to here. Hari made bespoke furniture, so the house was filled with exquisite pieces he and his craftspeople had made. On the visits to his workshop, I’d envied his skills as he worked slowly, shaping wood and creating one-of-a-kind pieces.

My phone dinged. I had a rule that private messages were to be opened outside of work, but I’d left the phone on my desk and my sister’s name popped up on the display. She’d included a photo of her son’s first birthday. I opened the message and quickly scrolled through the pics of her little one with icing smeared over his face, my folks squabbling over who got to hold their first grandchild, along with aunts and uncles and neighbors in the background.

I came from a large loving family in a skulk an hour away, and I hadn’t been able to attend the celebration because Remy and I had been at a conference.

I loved my life here in the city, but those photos triggered a bout of homesickness. Life in the skulk was loud, with everyone in every one else’s business. Having a party line—where whole neighborhoods shared a phone line and each household had a different ring so they knew when to answer or ignore—was ripe for gossip. Your neighbor could pick up the phone as you were chatting and listen in or tell you to get off the line as they wanted to make a call.

And that was how my grandparents had met. My grandfather was home from college for the summer and talking to a former school friend. Gran was waiting for a call from her beau, as she called him, and interrupted Grandpa’s call to tell him she was expecting an urgent message. They argued but he got off the phone, but when Gran’s man called, it was to break off the relationship.

Fast forward, days, weeks, and months and she and Grandpa met, they disliked one another which turned to friendship, respect, and love. Who wouldn’t swoon over a fairytale come true like that?

With Remy and Hari meeting because of a wrong number and my grandparents' romance featuring a phone call, I figured the universe owed me a swoonworthy matchup with my fated mate.

Remy had told me countless times he was going to get rid of the landline because no one ever used it, except me on the off chance I’d misdial and my mate would be at the end of the line. But whenever he suggested it, I’d hug the phone and beg him to keep it. He’d roll his eyes and say the chances of the universe playing the same trick on me as it had on him was unlikely.

“And who’s going to call you? A telemarketer from 1990? Or an elderly lady who’s trying to call the library about a book she didn’t return thirty years ago?”

Getting a call from the past or a stranger who had an interesting life story was appealing, and I told Remy to stop mocking me.

“It could happen,” was my usual response.

I skimmed over the calendar on my computer and frowned. That couldn’t be right. I added most of the entries, that was my job, and if Remy put something on the calendar, it was a shared one, so I’d see it. Tomorrow, there was a meeting in a downtown hotel with a supplier which would take place in the lobby at 10:30. Both my boss and I had to be there.

But at 11:00, Remy and I were having an online meeting with the accountant who’d messaged saying we needed to do an annual review. I hadn’t added that, so my boss was the culprit.

Hmmm, the hotel meet-up couldn’t be changed because that guy was already at the airport, waiting to board. So the accountant would have to be moved forward. That shouldn’t be a problem because he lived here in town, and because he was getting close to retirement, he had few clients.

I moved outside the office so I didn’t disturb Remy, though he was in his head and probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Albert, hi, it’s Stephen from Atler and Atler.”

His gruff voice drifted through the phone. “The only reason you’d be calling me is to postpone or delay our meeting. Which is it?” He got straight to the point.

“I was wondering if we could change the time to say 9:00 or push it to the next day?”