Page 5 of Howl Lotta Love

“It’s a whole thing wearing a trench coat.” Roman pulled out his phone, grinning in a way that spelled disaster for Jace’s Tuesday. “Starting a pool. How long before you do anything catastrophically un-alpha. Poetry. Memorizing her coffee order by scent alone, which, let’s be honest, you’re already halfway to. Adopting a dog because it reminds you of her.”

“Don’t start a pool.”

“I’m absolutely starting a pool, and Tucker’s buying in within the hour, and Milo’s going to win the whole thing, because Milo always wins these and none of us know how, which stopped being funny and started being concerning about a year ago.” Roman stood, unrepentant, coffee in hand. “Four years, boss. Four years I’ve been waiting to watch you get hit by this exact truck. I’m not missing it for anything.”

He left before Jace could throw anything at him, which, in hindsight, was the smarter move for both of them.

His parents showed up at half past noon with enough takeout to feed the floor and an agenda about as subtle as a flare gun. His mother swept through the lobby with the ease of a woman who owned the deed—which, technically, she partly did—and had a container of his father’s short ribs on Jace’s desk before he’d finished standing.

“You’ve lost weight.” She looked him over the way she’d been reading his face since before he could talk, found a detail to disapprove of, and set about fixing it with volume. “Eat. Roman, sit, you look like protein bars and bad decisions with a pulse.”

“Accurate on both counts,” Roman said, headed straight for the food container.

Jace’s father dropped into the chair across the desk with the easy calm of a man who used to run an entire pack and now regarded corporate security as a mildly interesting hobby his son had taken up. “Gallery op smooth?”

“Clean so far.” Jace turned the monitor toward him, grateful for ten seconds of conversation that wasn’t about his love life. “Wraps up by two.”

“Good.” His father gave the screen a few whole seconds of real interest before his mother reclaimed the room.

“I ran into Marguerite Okafor’s daughter at the farmer’s market.” She said it to the room at large, unpacking a second container with the brisk efficiency of a woman laying tactical groundwork. “Lovely girl. Doctor. Single.”

“Mom.”

“I’m making conversation.”

“You’re running a pincer maneuver with short ribs as cover.”

“Your father taught me everything I know about strategy, and I’ve never once used it on an enemy who deserved it less than you.” She handed him a fork—a peace offering that doubled, unmistakably, as a threat. “You’re thirty-four. You run one of the best security firms on the East Coast. You’ve personally kept half the packs in this city alive. And you go home every night to an apartment with no photographs in it and a fridge that, last I checked, held mustard and the sad remains of a rotisserie chicken.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been avoiding this for a decade, and I’ve let you, because I’m patient, and because your father swore you’d figure it out eventually.” The teasing dropped, for one second, into a note steadier than the rest—the kind that made Jace’s shoulders drop half an inch. “No security company protects you from being lonely, sweetheart. That’s not a threat I can help you plan for.”

The room went quiet in a way it rarely did around this family. Roman developed a sudden, consuming interest in his short ribs.

“I find that more alarming than actual gunfire,” Jace said, mostly to break the silence, and his mother’s laugh cracked the tension clean in half—bright, real, the sound that used to fill their kitchen on ordinary days.

“Good. That’s the idea.” She patted his cheek—a gesture he’d feel again in about five minutes, from a woman with considerably less patience for his nonsense. “Eat your food. I love you. I’m still setting you up with the doctor.”

“I ran into someone last night,” Jace said, before he’d fully decided to say it, and regretted it instantly.

His mother went very still, fork halfway to her mouth, radar fully deployed. “Tell me everything.”

“There’s nothing to tell. I don’t know her name.”

“He knows what she smells like, though,” Roman offered, mouth full, entirely unhelpful.

“Roman.”

“Contributing to the historical record.”

His mother’s whole face lit up, complicated and delighted at once—the look she’d worn the day he made varsity, the day he took over the pack’s protection contracts, the day he told her he was starting his own company. “Well.” She folded her hands in her lap, the satisfied gesture of a woman handed the only Christmas present she wanted. “This is going to be fun.”

The badge reader beeped twice, gave up utterly, and Gerri Wilder walked through, the building apparently having extended her a personal invitation.

Roman, camped at the front desk, shot up so fast, his chair rolled into the wall. “That door needs a keycard and a retinal scan—how did you⁠—”

“Did it.” Gerri didn’t slow down. “How fascinating for the door.”