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I shifted a little uncomfortably on my feet. “Uh...Dad?”
“Hmm?” he asked, training his intense gaze on me.
“You’re not saying that some asshole is going to try and claim Marley, are you?” I asked. “This isn’t some thinly veiled request for me to win the pissing contest before it can start?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Listen, I’m just saying this stuff out of an abundance of caution. If I thought someone was going to attempt some old-fashioned throwdown to try and claim your mate, I wouldn’t even advise going there with Marley by your side. I just want you to be careful, that’s all.”
I looked at Marley. While she was squeezing my hand hard enough for it to hurt even me with my shifter strength, she seemed strangely determined.
“We’ll be careful,” she promised. “I’ll stay near Cole. And if I need to get out of there, we’ll plan for that contingency.”
“You could always head out with Travis and Jack if needed,” I suggested.
Marley nodded and released my hand so she could hug my father. “Thank you, Kenneth,” she said.
I nodded at my dad, conveying the same gratitude in a way I knew he’d understand. My father gave Marley a lingering hug and patted her back twice before giving her a little peck on the top of her head and letting her go.
“You kids give us a call when you land and when you arrive,” he said. “We’ve got Noah and everything else covered for now.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll touch base in a few hours,” I said.
Marley and I got in the car and made our way to the airport. After the usual inconveniences of dealing with check-in and TSA, we made it to the gate to find Jack and Travis already there. As predicted, Travis was on my ass immediately for showing up so close to boarding time. I let him have his fun, especially since I could tell from the way his knees bounced that he was feeling nervous about the trip.
Despite the lecture, we still had about half an hour to wait before we boarded the plane. As we sat munching on fast food and coffee, Jack was the first to start a conversation.
“So, Lana didn’t want to come with us?” Jack asked Travis, his arm hooked over the back of his vinyl seat. “I was hoping we could get her perspective on this whole thing.”
“Honestly?” Travis said. “She can’t leave work right now. The superintendent of the district has made a nice, cozy home up her asshole, so she can’t risk leaving and having anything even slightly off at POSHA. Besides that,” he continued, “I think it’s important for me to take away my own conclusions from this trip. I’m going to do my best to give Marley and Cole their space while I do my own research separately. I want to make sure that this decision is one I make entirely for myself.”
“A good call,” Marley said between bites of her French toast sticks. “You never know what you’re doing for others when everything’s so close, you know?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Travis said. “I was doing some reading online—there are entire online communities based around late-in-life shifting—and I’ve been getting a lot of insight into some of the pitfalls that other people have fallen into.”
“Like what?” Jack asked.
“Some people took on the change to please controlling partners, some did it when they were still quite young and weren’t thinking of the long-term consequences, and some just had no idea what they were signing up for when they left one community for a new one,” Travis said. “Like, there’s one guy who said if he’d known how competitive shifters could be and if he’d realized his human friends would be afraid of him, he wouldn’t have done it.”
“Do you think you’re going to feel that way?” I asked.
“Honestly? No,” Travis said. “You’ve been my best friend for years—I’m used to competition. Even competition I always seem to lose.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “Well, that may change when the biological playing field is leveled,” I pointed out. “For all we know, you might end up kicking my ass on the regular. We might have to change the power structure in the pack.”
“Oh, well, wouldn’t that be something? Alpha Travis,” he said with a far-too-excited beam. “Lana would hate that. She loves bossing me around too much.”
“You guys are made for each other,” I said. “You’re entirely too bossy, too.”
“Pfft. You say bossy, I say organized,” Travis said. “Speaking of which, you guys have your tickets ready?”
“I got ’em,” Marley said, waving the little envelope that held our boarding passes.
“See?” Travis said to me. “You gotta have your mate carry them. Cole, you’re a great and mature man in most ways, but in others, you’re still just an unaccompanied minor.”
“I guess that makes me your chaperone for the day,” Marley said with a sweet little titter.
“Or my mommy,” I countered.
“Oh, gag,” Jack said with a dramatic dry heave.
