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“How do you know people so well?” Jo asked when James told him he’d lost the bet.
“I pay attention,” I answered without mentioning the many years of looking at my elders in the hopes of learning to be a good leader, knowing I would have to be one someday. I also didn’t mention that I spent a good chunk of my teen years worrying that if I didn’t pay attention, I would disappoint everyone around me and bring nothing but misery to the pack. It was something that still worried me to this day, but now I knew that all I could do was try. And try I did.
We went home after lunch, and I walked into my temporary office on the first floor. Dad and his current ranked members worked in an open floor office plan on the third floor, but I wasn’t sure that’s where I wanted to work when he finally vacated it. I was a bit more introverted than they were. I liked my privacy and quiet.
I had an email from Mr. Roswell already. Excited to see what it was, I opened it immediately and looked it over, and I had to say, I was impressed with what I found. He already had a testing environment with the application and back software written for us to test and adjust. I called James over.
“What’s up?” he asked, walking into the office with a cookie in his mouth.
“Dude, do you ever stop eating?” I asked.
“I’m a growing boy!” he defended.
“You’re twenty-five. We literally just ate.”
“Not dessert. This is dessert.” He motioned to the napkin in his hands, which contained another five cookies in it. I rolled my eyes as he sat down next to me and opened his laptop.
“Hey, it says I don’t have access. What the hell?” he grumbled.
“Just come look on mine.”
“Well, duh, but like… I’m trustworthy. It was my idea to do the blind resume stuff. I’m also his nephew.” He pouted.
“He probably just isn’t sending it out to anyone but me yet. Calm down,” I told him. Sometimes James could be such a dramatic wolf.
We went over the application process and took notes on what we wanted changed. I could see a few questions that might get us in trouble with HR. There were also a few questions that I was assuming were in there as something he considered important for the interview process, and made a note to ask him about them. They were not offensive, but they were strange questions, and I was interested to know why he thought they were important for this process.
The back-end process for us needed a bit more fine-tuning. We wanted to make sure that we couldn’t tell anything about them. Gender, age, or anything that gave us an idea of who it was. At the same time, we needed one question that would be added into the mix that would allow us to filter human applicants from magical ones. From Mr. Roswell’s email, I could see he was stumped as well. It was something we would need to figure out soon.
We worked until dinner and we found the dining room set up with extra tables. It was one of the nights Mom cooked, and everyone wanted a piece of it. She was an amazing cook and had been cooking once or twice a week for the pack since I was born, and according to my father, long before that.
“Hi, love! I made your favorite. Dad told me you did well with Evergreen. I’m so happy it’s going to work out the way you wanted,” Mom chirped as she whipped the egg whites for chiles rellenos(Stuffed peppers). The kitchen was her happy place. I walked around the kitchen counter and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“You’re the best, Mom, and yeah, it went pretty well. It’s just the start, though. We have a lot of work to do before we can say if this is going to go the way we hope.”
She patted my face a bit before she went back to cooking. “I know you’ll make it happen.”
“Te quiero, ama,” (I love you, Mom) I told her. She was always so sure that I had this. I wish I had her confidence in myself.
“Yo mas,” (I love you more) she said, and I left her to continue doing the miracles she does in the kitchen. I went upstairs, showered and changed. When I came back down, many pack members were filing into the dining room, eager for a seat at the tables. I even saw a few picnic tables we usually kept outside being set up in the foyer. Everyone wanted a taste of Mom’s food. I approached the serving table to grab a plate, and Mr. Roswell walked up to me.
“I think I figured out the resume sorting issue. I’ll have it to you by mid-day tomorrow,” he mentioned while he loaded up a Tupperware and his plate. His cheeks flushed pink a little when he saw me smirking.
“Valerie is on evening shifts. She asked me to sneak her some,” he whispered conspiratorially.
“Maybe we should ask Mom to take a night and cook for the hospital staff specifically,” I mentioned. She might actually go for it. Once she stepped down as Luna, she was going to have a lot of time on her hands.
“I upgrade the hospital staff computers personally. Does that mean I can show up?” Mr. Roswell asked, hopefully.
“I’m sure she will be more than happy to feed you as well.” I laughed while I loaded up my own plate with chile rellenos and Mexican rice. I loved it when Mom cooked Mexican. Well, honestly, I loved it when Mom cooked anything. Full stop. Period. I’d been spoiled with good food all of my life.
I went and sat down with my friends, greeting Uncle Helios and Uncle Lalo when they walked through with bags in their hands. They stopped to say hello to us before heading back to their pack.
Uncle Helios was the alpha, and Uncle Lalo the beta of Guardian Moon, but we see them so often we may as well be one pack. It wasn’t usual for packs to be as intermingled as ours were, but then again, our packs were not normal, and I actually loved it this way. We had their back. They had our back. And when shit hit the fan, we always came together as a family and fixed it.
It was the same with Blue Moon, about an hour and a half away, to a lesser extent. Recently retired Alpha Rhett was one of Dad’s best friends, and his mate, Kelly, was Uncle Gillian’s sister.
I ate happily, enjoying my meal and talking to James when a couple of his friends came around the table. One of the girls sat next to him while her friend looked around for a seat. When she found none, she decided to make her way to me.
