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I smiled down at my mate. “What? No good?”

“Vaughn!” he shouted playfully before he sighed. “Are you going to carry me the entire way?”

“Do you wish to walk?”

“Yeah, I think I do,” Lewis said. “The pathway is open, but it always is.”

Reluctantly, I lowered Lewis to his feet. He wasn’t wrong. The pathway was clear. He was capable of walking. I just liked holding him. He did place his hand in mine before we started walking, and that made me smile. We didn’t make it far before someone called out my name.

“Vaughn!”

I stopped and looked behind us, seeing Ramsey and Raiden hurrying to catch up.

“Do you know them?”

“That’s the Mason twins, Ramsey and Raiden,” I said.

Lewis blinked and leaned forward. “Oh, it is. I’ve met them and their mates several times. They’re usually not so far away though.”

As they got closer, Lewis moved closer to me. “Cutie, are you uncomfortable around them?” I asked through our bond.

“No. I just feel terrible that I didn’t recognize them, and I hope they don’t realize that. I’ve served them and their mates many, many times in the bakery.”

“Congratulations, man,” Raiden said once they were standing close enough to talk without shouting.

“Yeah,” Ramsey said. “We absolutely need to get together sometime.”

I looked down at Lewis. “When Lewis is feeling up to it, we’ll see what we can do.”

“Oh, nothing soon. We understand how being newly mated is,” Ramsey said.

“Are you going to the new café for breakfast?” Raiden asked.

“What new café?”

“The one next to the bakery,” Ramsey told us. “It’s been open since the first of the month.”

“Did you want to check it out?” I asked.

“I do. Especially since it’s next to the bakery. Maybe we can stop in there too? Unless you just want to eat and go back home.”

“Cutie, we can do whatever you wish. We have over two more weeks before we have to be back to work.”

Lewis smiled up at me, and we fell in with Raiden and Ramsey as we walked from our new house toward Council Square.

Chapter 14

Lewis

We had a café here on Treasure Ridge. I was probably more excited about that than I should have been. Seriously. The thought of there being somewhere that wasn’t inside the council building to eat was appealing though. And I needed to stop by the bakery and visit Beau because I’d just disappeared on him. He’d said he probably wasn’t coming to the Friendsgiving. Then he was, but I’d already met Vaughn, and, well, I loved Beau, but Vaughn was my mate.

“Are the two of you planning on going to the solstice festival?” one of the twins asked. I glanced over, and I thought it was Ramsey, but I’d not been paying attention. I was walking, sort of jogging, trying to keep up with the three of them. Vaughn was doing pretty well at not walking too fast, and the twins seemed to be matching our pace for the most part, but they all had much longer legs than I did.

“That will depend on Lewis. If he’s feeling up for it, I’m all for going with him for at least some of the festivities. I don’t want him to overdo it though.”

I felt a surge of warmth at that. It wasn’t actual heat, but I guess you could say I got the warm and fuzzies at hearing that. My mate was worried about me. I loved that. He always seemed to be thinking about me and my comfort before anything else. I guess you could say that I truly did not know what to anticipate when it came to mates and what I should expect.

“I went last year,” I said, adding to the conversation. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the exhaustion passes with the tea or not,” I added without thinking. “It usually works, but I’ve not been taking it long.”