Prickly By Nature (7 page)

“That’s all I’m asking.” Dylan brushed a kiss on his ear, making Avery shudder.

Avery nuzzled closer, taking comfort in Dylan’s scent and the warm solidity of his chest. “Why did it take you so long to say anything?”

He felt Dylan shrug. “I guess I kept thinking everything would calm down or maybe it would get easier. I thought you’d eventually realize you were never around, that we barely saw each other.”

Avery made a disbelieving sound and leaned away so he could look into Dylan’s face. “Some detective I’m turning out to be, huh? Reid told me I have to learn to be more observant, but I’m not a mind reader, Dylan. Next time talk to me before it gets so bad.”

“I swear I will. And I’m sorry I didn’t bring it up sooner. I shouldn’t have assumed it would get better without us talking.” Dylan dropped a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Are you hungry? Want me to make you something?”

Avery’s stomach rumbled at the reminder. He was starved, actually, and he’d never say no to a meal cooked by his mate. But…. “In a minute.” For now, he only wanted to stay right where he was.

A FEW
days after missing lunch with Miss Betty and the terrifying talk with Dylan, Avery got an unexpected text. A message from his old yoga instructor and sort-of-friend, Sven.

Hey. Do u want to meet up for lunch today? The Roxy?

Avery stared at the message for a full minute before he replied. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten Sven. Far from it. He’d worried at first when Sven stood him up after asking to meet him last September. He’d wondered about Sven’s supposed emergency and complete lack of contact thereafter. But with Lacey, the trafficking ring, the warehouse incident, and the move, well, Sven had slipped his mind.

Sure
, he texted back, curious about what had prevented Sven from contacting him before.
Time?

They agreed on one o’clock, and Avery finished up the background check he was doing for Reid before logging off the system. Reid was out meeting a potential client. Sometimes people came to the office itself, but it was rare, and Reid didn’t have any issues with Avery closing up to take lunch when he needed to. He had forty minutes before he and Sven were supposed to meet, and it would probably take him about that long to get to The Roxy. While public transportation might be convenient for those without a car like himself, it wasn’t exactly quick. He could’ve asked for something closer, but the diner had a veggie pita sandwich he adored and their onion rings were amazing.

Sven was sitting at a table in the back of the diner when Avery arrived. Avery had been put off by the place the first time Jaden brought him there, but he’d learned to love it over time. The interior had a sassy vibe, from the pink-painted walls to the leopard-print chairs to the eclectic décor, which included mannequin torsos and a giant crucifix. Plus, it was one of Jaden’s favorite restaurants, and it was open twenty-four hours a day, so he’d enjoyed plenty of drunken 3:00 a.m. meals there after leaving Howl or Tallgrass. When the food was good, it was good.

“Hi.” Sven grinned when Avery took the seat across from him. “Long time no see.”

“A very long time,” Avery said lightly.

Sven’s grin wavered. He was a reindeer shifter, whose name seemed perfectly suited for his Nordic good looks. He had short, spiky blond hair, vivid blue eyes, a bright smile, and a tall, lean build that attested to his many hours of yoga. Avery had never seen him sad, but he looked close to it, and if Avery wasn’t mistaken, a bit guilty besides.

“I think I have some explaining to do,” Sven said. “Should we order first?”

Avery nodded, and soon they’d gotten their drinks and ordered their food—the same veggie pita sandwich for both of them, since Sven was a strict vegetarian. Avery had asked for hot green ginger tea to try to warm up. The temperature outside hovered in the high forties, but the winds and drizzling rain made it feel colder. Even wearing a barn jacket over a chunky sweater and a scarf, he still felt chilled after his walk from the MAX stop to the diner. The only thing he was missing was a beanie, but he couldn’t abide the idea of having hat hair. Sven, on the other hand, looked like he was headed to the beach in a thin tank top, flip-flops, and shorts.

Avery almost shook his head. Freaky reindeer shifters. Sven probably would’ve been happier if it was snowing. Not Avery. He’d be at risk of going into hibernation if he let himself get too cold for too long.

“So, what’s been going on?” Avery asked when the waitress wandered off. “Is everything okay? You never told me what that emergency was.”

If he wasn’t watching so closely, Avery would’ve missed Sven’s flinch. Sven swallowed hard and toyed with the straw in his lemonade. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. That day I texted you, asking you to meet me at that brewery?”

“Yeah?”

“That was for Victor.” Sven dropped his eyes to his drink. “You weren’t the only one who owed him money. My debt wasn’t as large as yours, but I couldn’t afford to repay it, and I didn’t want to ask Warren.” Warren was Sven’s off-again, on-again bear shifter boyfriend. “Victor told me he’d cut my amount in half if I lured you out of your place. He swore you wouldn’t be hurt, that he just wanted to talk to you. I trusted him to keep his word, but I know that was stupid of me.”

Avery’s stomach cramped. He couldn’t deny that in the very back of his mind, a tiny part of him had suspected after Sven stopped responding to his messages. Only he hadn’t expected the truth to hurt this much. He and Sven had never been that close—not like he was with Jaden—but he’d considered Sven a friend. One of the few he had in Portland. “They took me to Forest Park, tried to hunt me.”

Sven nodded miserably and finally met Avery’s eyes, his face red with shame. “I know. I was horrified when I heard about it. I felt awful. I still do. It took me all this time to get up the courage to contact you to apologize.” He reached across the table to cover Avery’s hand with his own. Avery allowed the touch, though he wanted to pull away. “I’m sorry, Avery. I truly am. I’m not sure if you can forgive me, but the guilt’s been gnawing at me. I wanted to come clean. I thought I owed you that much.”

Avery wanted to say Sven owed him more than a months-late apology. He wanted to get up and walk out. But how could he? He’d been in the same position with Victor—a loan shark, small-time drug dealer, and all-around disreputable scumbag—after betting on the werewolf races and becoming indebted for fifteen grand. While he’d like to think he wouldn’t have betrayed a friend just to get Victor off his back, the truth was he couldn’t say for sure. He
had
been pretty desperate at the end there before Dylan stepped in and saved his spines. In Sven’s shoes, feeling like he had nowhere to turn, Avery could see how he might be swayed—especially if Victor promised Avery wouldn’t be harmed. Not that Sven should’ve trusted that smarmy asshole.

“Can you forgive me?” Sven asked, his expression both repentant and sincere.

In spite of himself, Avery softened. He liked Sven. He didn’t want to lose him as a friend, and since he couldn’t say he would’ve acted differently when backed into a corner, how could he hold Sven’s actions against him? He might have been driven to do the same thing. So he could forgive, yes, but there’d be no forgetting. “Yeah. I forgive you. Don’t let it happen again, though.”

Sven broke into a grin, relief washing over his face. “It won’t. I promise. I’ll even throw in a dozen sessions, completely gratis. It’s the least I can do.”

Avery nodded regally. “Yes, it is.”

Sven laughed, and Avery smiled back.

He’d missed their time together. Not only sharing meals, but having Sven as his teacher. Avery didn’t
do
group yoga classes. It was private lessons or nothing, and while he’d saved the majority of his earnings from when he did deliveries for the pack, he couldn’t afford to splurge on finding a new instructor. That money had to last until he was licensed and could either start his own business or join Reid as a partner—if Reid agreed. For the time being, Avery only received a small cut from every case he assisted with. The bulk of his pay was the on-the-job training Reid provided.

Of course it helped that Dylan was giving him a pass on contributing toward the bills. For now. Avery didn’t want it to stay that way forever. He owed Dylan thousands already from the Victor debacle. If they were a partnership, it was only fair they split things down the middle. Avery was nearly twenty-four. When he turned twenty-five and his trust fund came to him, he’d repay everything Dylan had done for him tenfold. If Dylan tried to refuse, he’d insist. No way would Avery allow that debt to go unpaid, though thankfully, Dylan didn’t mind waiting another year or so to get his money back.

“So, I hear you’re mated now,” Sven said, “to a wolf from the pack.”

“Yeah. His name is Dylan Green.” Avery knew he probably had a lovesick expression on his face just from saying Dylan’s name, but he didn’t care. He was proud of his mate. And he needed to think of Dylan more often, to remind himself of just what he had and how lucky he was to have it.

“Congratulations.”

“How about you?”

“Warren and I are back on again. We’ll see how long it lasts this time.” Sven waved a hand. “I also hear you’re working for that falcon shifter. Reese?”

Avery blinked. “It’s Reid, actually. Where’d you hear that?”

Sven shrugged. “You know how it is. Shifters are a bunch of gossips, right?”

Avery supposed that was true. It felt like living in a small town sometimes—everyone knew everyone else’s business. “Yeah, I started with him a while ago.”

“You want to be a private detective? What brought that on?”

“It’s a long story.” Avery didn’t feel like getting into the Lacey situation. “Reid is kind of a jack-of-all-trades PI. He does everything from background checks to searching for missing persons to investigating worker’s compensation claims for smaller companies. I’ve been learning a lot from him.”

“And you want to do the same things?”

“I might focus on a specific area,” Avery said, surprised by Sven’s interest but happy to discuss it. He didn’t often bring it up with Dylan. It was a bit of a sore subject between them at the moment, and Jaden had already heard it all. “Maybe identity fraud or computer crimes. I haven’t decided yet, really. I like being out on the street, but stakeouts are boring, and Dylan would probably be happier if I was mostly tied to a desk. I’m still figuring it out.”

Sven leaned back when the waitress arrived with their sandwiches. “It sounds exciting. I’m still up to my same old tricks. Private lessons mainly, but I teach a couple of classes at the new studio that opened up in the Pearl.”

“Well, you’re good at what you do. No sense in looking for something different, right?”

Sven nodded. “Exactly. I’m happy.”

Avery smiled. “Good. Me too.” He picked up his sandwich and started to eat.

DYLAN WAS
over this day. He hated dealing with prissy trophy wives who thought he was there to cater to them. He especially didn’t like having tits shoved in his face and his ass slapped every time their whiny, overindulgent husbands weren’t looking.

The sullen mood weighing down his shop had him wanting to be anywhere but there. Green’s was supposed to be a haven, his place away from thinking and worrying and stress. Now the tension hovering around it suffocated him. Lucas’s moping and the compounding unease coming from the rest of the guys in the shop not wanting to overstep—it was getting to be too much. Dylan had to do something, but had no idea where to even begin.

The only solace he had when he pulled his bike into the drive was knowing Avery was home. An unknown vehicle was parked in Dylan’s spot, so Dylan assumed Avery had a visitor. Just the thought of Avery being home had Dylan moving a little faster. His desire for his mate rivaled his need to breathe. The talk they’d had last week had been a long time coming. Dylan still had reservations, not wanting to come off as clingy or suffocating, but dammit, he wasn’t the only person in this relationship. The worst thing about it was he knew Avery hadn’t even realized what was going on with them. Dylan had let it build and build and build until he felt like he was going to lose his shit. Talking was not his strong suit. Never had been, but it seemed he’d be working on it from now on.

Padding into the house, Dylan didn’t swallow his tongue immediately, but it was a near thing. With the furniture pushed to the walls and the living room bare of anything but two yoga mats, some blocks, and a couple of bottles of water, Avery arched his long, lean legs in a half circle over the rest of his body, his toes touching above his head and his ass high in the air. The tight slip of nothing yoga capris Avery wore didn’t help the constriction in Dylan’s throat, or in his pants. Though maybe they did. Dylan’s cock twitched, interested.

“Very good, Avery,” the blond next to Avery encouraged in a low, seductive tone that a couple of months ago would have been an ass-kicking waiting to happen, but Dylan knew his mate now, and as sexy as the bendy pose was, Dylan had come to trust Avery. Though if the guy put his hands on Avery, all bets were off. He wasn’t that forgiving.

Plus the blond smelled of bear in a nose-curling way—so thick it was almost nauseating. It was obvious he had been intimate with a shifter recently. Bears were an odd bunch, highly possessive and territorial to an extreme—for a while, at least, but mostly they got bored easily and moved on to the next poor sap. The way this guy reeked of the big animal, Dylan was pretty sure he was more than a one-time lay for the big shifter. Poor guy might never get that scent off.

“Inhale the good. Exhale the bad.” It was a smooth, easy command Dylan found himself obeying as well, an attempt at curbing his growing arousal.

He cleared his throat, drawing the attention of both men across the room, though he smirked at the way Avery only moved his head at an awkward angle to see, his legs stretched over him. Damn, his bendy ways ramped up Dylan’s desire even more.