Ruler (Wolves of Royal Paynes #2) - Kiki Burrelli Page 0,111
I'll check it out later. I've got three proposals to finalize as well as updating those numbers for the Forstein addition. Maybe, if you see them, you can try and explain why the granite specially shipped in from Italy would be more than the original locally sourced stone we'd quoted them."
Between the two of us, Aver had a better way with words. His father had groomed him from a child in public speaking, in hopes that it would help him assume leadership of the wolf pack. Now, Aver lived off pack land and co-owned Walker Construction. How the mighty had fallen—according to Aver's father. "If I see them. But I doubt I will. I'll be at the club—"
"Say no more. I don't want to be roped into whatever scheme this is, and I will take no part in you playing this part."
"Things aren't that easy, Branson," Aver replied tiredly.
"It's as easy as 'Mom, Dad, I'm gay, stop setting me up with female shifters you think will lure me back to the pack.' It's what I said."
A knock at the door made me frown. I hadn't heard any of the other sensors. The perimeter alarm had gone off, but not the porch or the door. I pulled up the front door camera but didn't see anything. I'd told Aver that camera was angled too high.
"Awesome, now I get nagged at from both sides. Would you like to also criticize my other choices in life? How many beers I have at the end of the day? The many ways in which I am disappointing my family by living outside of the pack?"
I grinned, but I didn't feel any happiness from Aver's annoyance, just grim acceptance. Which I imagined he felt as well. Sometimes, it was easier to give a mouse a cookie. At least then it got them to stop asking for the whole bakery—for a while. "I'm sorry, you're right. Agreeing to a date now will get them off your backs, but not for long with the Winter Solstice Celebration approaching. Have you spoken to Nana? I have a voicemail I haven't checked from her waiting at the end of my to-do list." At this rate, I wouldn't be getting to the end of my list likely until Aver had returned from his ill-fated date.
"I have a voicemail too. I'm afraid to check it. I never know with that one. Either she wants us to come over so she can stuff us with pies and tell us we are smart and brave like when we were kids, or she needs to warn us of the latest apocalypse the stars have brought to her attention. It's a gamble I just won't take today. She probably called Wyatt too. Let him handle it."
Another knock sounded. I frowned. "Hold on, there's someone here. That sounds good, about Wyatt. If he is going to claim to be Nana's favorite, he can fend off her endless prophecies." I exited the office, not bothering to close the double doors and walked down the hallway to the front door. "I've been telling you, we need to lower the front door cameras…" I saw the vague outline of a small body through the frosted glass oval insert in the center of the door. So there had been someone there.
The figure was alone, not in a band or parade, so that knocked Aver's suggestions out of the running. I opened the door, my eyebrows lifting as my mouth dropped open.
"What is it?" Aver's voice spoke from far away. Except he was where he'd been the whole time while I'd found myself in a load of shit.
"Who sent you?" I barked, and the young man on my porch flinched.
He was short and slim with silky brown hair and blue eyes. He wore hardly anything, despite the frost on the ground that still hadn't melted from the night before.
"Do I need to come home? What is going on, Branson? Dammit! This camera is too high, I can't see anything!"
"Maybe you should. See if Dave can handle the site for the rest of the day." I slipped the phone in my pocket despite the fact that Aver was still speaking.
The young man on my porch had begun to shiver. My treatment of him could have started the trembling, or the fact that he was dressed like a virgin fit for sacrifice to an angry god. He'd recently bathed, adorning himself with so much cologne I should've smelled him long before the perimeter alarm