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Raf spluttered the sip of his drink he’d just taken. "What? That’s nonsense. Just because I’m upset doesn’t mean you can put any stock in fairy tales." He had to cough several times to remove the feeling of sharp spirits biting at his nose and throat. "Come on, Lance, help me out here." He pled with the man with his eyes, knowing Lance was one of the strongest nay-sayers on the subject.
Lance shrugged at him. "Look, Chas is fully aware I meant it as a joke at the time. But he’s not wrong that you’ve been… off… this week." The club manager was normally not one to stumble over his words, but the rather lame choice made Raf snort. Lance raised an eyebrow. "Are you actually going to try and tell me you’re not off your game? Ridiculously so?"
"Of course not." Raf swallowed another sip of his single malt carefully, choosing not to even attempt to speak until it had made it all the way down into his stomach. "But to go from I’m upset over Ashley to true mates is a leap."
It was Chas that cut in. "Have you ever been physically ill over something emotional before?"
Raf blinked, and he had to consider the expressions on both his friends’ faces. They were in agreement, it looked like, that he needed some kind of intervention. "I’m not ill. I’m drunk. There’s a difference."
Chas growled, the rumbling in his not-truly-human chest loud enough that a couple nearby turned sharply to look their way. "Getting drunk doesn’t make you radiate heat or sweat like that. When was the last time you ate?"
The fact that Raf had to think about it was probably telling enough. "I don’t care. You’re not going to sell me on true mates when I’m just upset."
"Yeah," Chas grumbled. "And are you going to take my head off if I go talk to Ashley in person tomorrow?"
Rafael’s entire body clenched almost violently, and the way he wanted to leap from his chair took conscious effort to avoid. "So I’m in love with her. Happy? She doesn’t have to be my fated mate for me to feel protective."
Chas, for his part, looked supremely smug at his friend’s unconscious reaction. "That’s what I thought. I’m not going to see her, for the record, but she did ask me to call her tomorrow so we could talk. It might be about her first appointment with her obstetrician, but it might also be about shifters. I’m not entirely sure yet."
"Dammit," Raf muttered. "Why can’t I have that conversation with her? Why is she reaching out to you?"
Chas shrugged. "If I had to guess, precisely because I’m a neutral party. She hasn’t outright asked me if I’m a shifter yet, but some of her questions have been leading that direction. Still, she’s accepted advice from me about her pregnancy, so I guess I fit the bill for other advice too?" He spread his hands wide.
Lance leaned in a little to catch Raf’s eye. "If she’s upset with you, it’s not surprising. But you can still be protective of her by looking into her security, helping her make plans for further down the line when she becomes too pregnant to get around easily, that sort of thing."
Raf scrubbed both hands over his face. "I called Kai as soon as I knew she was pregnant. He walked into her apartment building and got into her apartment without anyone knowing about it. I would’ve strangled him if I’d known he meant to just break in, but I suppose it was a fair test? But I already asked her to move in with me, and she rejected that immediately. I can’t legally have Kai install a security system at her apartment. My only other thought is to see if I can convince her to move into a safer place, ideally a house, which may not be immediately convenient to downtown like her apartment, but since she isn’t actually speaking to me at the moment, I can’t do shit."
"You could do the legwork," Lance returned. "Find an actual house to show her. Check out schools in the different neighborhoods around here. I don’t know if you plan to let your kid go to public school or not, and that’s a decision to be made with her, obviously, but residential neighborhoods differ depending on what the focus of the area may be. Find preschools, public schools, baby supply stores. Find out if your car and hers are safe to transport infants. Locate houses she might actually like, and then when she is ready to have the conversation with you, you’ll have actual data. I don’t know if there are any specifics about shifter babies that might require any particular necessities, but see if you can figure it out. That much you can do, completely separate from her so you have the answers when she does decide to ask you questions."
Rafael could only stare at his friend. Sure, Lance was an amazing club manager and did well managing people of various forms, but that was almost a sermon. "Wow. Um, I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that."
"Obviously," quipped the man, rolling his eyes. "It’s time you tried to think ahead, instead of wallowing in how upset you are."
A noise from Chas sounded suspiciously like the start of a laugh, but he’d muffled it behind a hand. "Now I see why you send Raf to pull me out of the bottle," he commented.
Even Raf could chuckle at that. He felt better already, just with the support his friends were offering, and it meant the world to him. "Please get in touch if there’s anything I should know after you talk with her tomorrow?"
Chas nodded. "Of course."
He stretched, feeling how tense his shoulders were from slumping over first a computer and then a bottle. "I guess I have a lot of work to do," he told them with a weak but true smile. He dipped his head in acknowledgement of Lance’s helpful advice. "I guess I’d better figure out how to tell my mother I got my girlfriend pregnant and why I haven’t managed to propose to her yet." When both men groaned in sympathy, he smirked. "Hopefully I can hit her with her first grandchild and get away with some of the rest."
Lance raised his eyebrows, making Chas snort his amusement. The club manager shook his head at Chas. "You just don’t know how it is. Sure, my father demands excellence, but my mother demands meaningful interaction and propriety. I would never get away with not marrying the woman pregnant with my child." His eyes flicked to Raf. "Sorry man, but I doubt you can get away with any of it."
Rafael swallowed. He’d been making light of the situation to try and keep the somewhat better mood going, but he had a feeling Lance was right. "I suppose I’m lucky she’s on the East Coast… at the moment," he hedged. There was a very real chance his family would fly out here the moment he told them his news. He’d have to try and delay them. "I’m going to explain the part about Ashley being human and hope they’re savvy enough to understand that showing up en masse would hurt my chances, and thus, theirs."
His friends nodded. Chas looked from Lance to Raf and back again. "I think our work here is done," he teased gently. "Is there anything else you need, Raf? From us?" The clarifier kept him from repeating the litany of everything he wanted, namely Ashley.
He shook his head. "No, but thanks. I don’t think I realized how much I was moping. I needed the kick in the pants."
Both of his friends laughed as they rose from the table. Lance reached out and corked the bottle of whiskey, raising an eyebrow at Raf as he did so. Apparently that was enough drinking himself senseless. Raf nodded obediently, at which point his friends drifted off, laughing together over whatever new topic of conversation had arisen by the time they reached the doors.
He sighed to himself, watching their lighter spirits, and grabbed the corked bottle. He could stow it in his office and it would be there next time he wanted a strong drink. He’d originally tried the whiskey for the rather lame reason that the bottle had a bronze-toned foil wrapped around the cap, but the quadruple-distilled liquor was impressively strong and still tasted good.
Raf retreated to the privacy of his office, but made himself dial his home number immediately, before he could talk himself out of it. The tension in his body released the instant he heard his mother’s British accent. "Brantley residence."
"Hi Mom, it’s me."
"Rafael! It’s so good to hear from you!"
