“Yes, but you didn’t have to grill her.”
“I was just doing my job.”
“You’re a shifter,” Carter said. “That means you put your mate above all else, even your job.”
“I…” Max sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t have asked her those questions right then. I could have waited.”
“Uh huh. Did you even ask her how she was doing?”
“What?”
“You know, after getting stalked and cornered by four jaguar shifters.”
Max thought back to the night’s earlier events. “Shit. No. It didn’t even occur to me.”
“Uh huh.”
“Can you stop saying that? And look, in my defense, I’d just been mauled, my side had a hole in it the size of Texas, and I’d just met my oddamn mate. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. What would you have done?”
When Carter opened his mouth to reply, Max shook his head. “Don’t answer that.”
They both got out of the car, Carter bleeped the locks shut then they headed for the door to the building.
“You need to get back to that house immediately and beg her to forgive you for being a dick,” Carter said. Max’s tiger rumbled its agreement inside his head.
“Who do you need to beg?” A man that Max recognized as Ezra—a fellow officer—asked as he exited the building before Max and Carter made it to the door. He was flanked by two other men. Max didn’t know them, but he was forced to admit that didn’t mean much.
“His mate,” Carter supplied.
Max shot him a glare then turned to catch the wince on all three men’s faces.
“Oh yeah,” Ezra said. “If you’ve done your mate wrong, you’d better get on your knees and grovel until she forgives you.”
“Hey, I’m Arlo,” one of the men introduced himself, reaching out to shake Max’s hand.
“And I’m Sebastian, but everyone calls me Seb.”
“Max,” Max said. “Good to meet you.”
“Yeah, don’t waste any time before apologizing to her,” Arlo said. “They don’t forget that shit.”
“He just met her tonight,” Carter said.
Three astonished expressions ensued.
“No kidding!”
“Really?”
“Congratulations!”
“We’re going out for drinks,” Ezra said. “Come with us, you can tell us all about it. We’re meeting Logan and Toby there.”
Max opened his mouth to tell the man thanks, but no thanks then remembered at the last moment the promise he’d made to accept an invitation the next time he got one. Crap. He looked down at his side and saw that he was bleeding through the t-shirt that Carter had given him.
“Umm, sure,” he said. “Let me just put a dressing on this and I’ll be right out.” He turned to Carter and asked, “You coming, too?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Carter said.
