It wasn’t as if we were selling this place. At least not right away. I could still come back and take my fur, running in all the familiar places. And luckily Candrin had bought the construction company that was knocking down the trees and building condos. He’d put a stop to the construction and had ordered the destroyed wooded areas be reforested.
I brought a milk crate up to my room to gather my plants. I didn’t have many at the house, but I had a few. Most were originally rescued from work. When a plant wasn’t looking great, my boss would toss them.
He was afraid that people would see a limp plant and think there was a fungus or something running rampant. No customer ever hinted as much, but he was the boss and I wasn’t going to argue with him about it. Instead I took them home and tried to give them new life.
Most of the time I was successful. In the early days, I would bring them back to work so my boss could sell them, but he didn’t seem to appreciate my effort at all and one day I opted to keep one. One grew into the entire milk crate full, And that was after I gifteda bunch to neighbors.
“Are you almost packed?” Tanner stood in my doorway.
“Yeah, I guess.” I didn’t have a ton to bring over.
Mostly I just had clothing, some books, and my plants. We were going to leave our furniture here unless we really wanted a specific piece. For me, that meant it was all staying. There was no sense bringing any to a fully furnished mansion.
“How about you and Huston?” I asked.
“I am. Huston has a bit more. I just came to see if you needed help.” It made sense that Tanner was done with his packing and loading.
He hadn’t ever really set up roots here, not the way Huston and I had. He was always traveling for work or counting the days until he traveled again. At least pre-Candrin he was. Now, he was actively looking at more commuter type flights. I couldn’t blame him. Being away from Candrin sucked, even when it was only for an extra long work shift. I couldn’t imagine overnights on the regular.
“I could use some help bringing boxes down, I guess.” They were currently just stacked in piles. “Other than that, I think I’m good.”
I finished getting my plants situated and then the two of us carried everything down and to the rental truck we had in the driveway. Candrin had offered to hire professional movers on more than one occasion, but something about this felt too personal for strangers to do.
“We have more than I thought.” I looked in the back of the box truck as I pushed up the ramp. “Good thing there’s a few hours of daylight left.”
I drove the box car, my brothers following behind with their cars. I would need to come back for mine, but that was fine. It wasn’t like I was going to be driving anywhere tonight, anyway.
Candrin was at the house getting a surprise together for us. I wasn’t sure what more of a surprise there could be beyond the whole moving into a mansion thing, but I loved hearing the excitement in his voice as he told us about it. We teased him that we would correctly guess the surprise before we stepped foot in the house, but to my knowledge none of us even attempted to figure it out, not wanting to ruin it for our mate.
I pulled up to the mansion. I’d been here before, the day Bobby was arrested, but it felt so much larger nowsomehow. Maybe it was because we were moving in rather than gawking at all the rooms. It didn’t matter, not really. All that did matter was that I was here now and this was my new home.
Candrin was outside with two people whom I couldn’t fully see when I got out of the truck. Tanner and Huston reached them first and our mate was reintroducing Saul and Molly to them as I got there. I’d already met Saul and Molly, too, but only briefly.
They were technically employees, but basically family and from everything our mate had said about them, they were the reason he found us. That made them two of my favorite people.
“Let’s get you all in and settled.” Molly had a slight dimple in her chin when she smiled. “Candrin has set up?—”
She was cut off by a shush coming from our mate. “It’s a surprise.”
“Well then, Molly and I will get out of your way for your surprise,” Saul told us. The two of them walked inside, both leaving with a smile on their faces.
They were just as happy as we were about Bobby being caught. Not onlydid they love Candrin and want what was right for him, but they loved their jobs and working for Bobby had been wretched by all accounts we’d heard. Unlike Candrin, Bobby hadn’t treated them like employees or even people really. He treated them like he owned them. They only stayed as long as they did with the hopes of helping our mate and for that they would be rewarded.
Unbeknownst to them, Candrin was already in discussion with his financial person about putting some investments in their names as well as creating a solid retirement plan for them. He would never forget their loyalty, but at the same time didn’t want them to feel obligated to stay if they were ready to move on. My mate was a good person—one of the best.
“I want to show you my surprise.” Candrin was bouncing on his toes with excitement. “You don’t have to love it or even like it. It’s completely undoable, but… come and look.”
He led us into the house and straight up the steps and down a long corridor. The place was mammoth and had we not been going in a straight line, I’d had questioned my ability to find my way back to where we started, the doors and hallways all beginning to look the same to me. And then Candrin stopped.
“This. I thought it could be for us. I mean there will be rooms for all of us separately. I was thinking of turning the two large suites on either side into four separate spaces so they could all open up into this room,” he put his hand on the door knob, visibly nervous. “Remember there is no need to agree to this.”
“Omega ours, maybe just show us the room?” Tanner reached up and cupped his cheek. “Because whatever you have playing out in your head is far worse than anything that could happen no matter what is behind that door.”
Candrin nodded and opened up the door, the lights already on.
My brothers and I walked in to find the largest bed I’d ever seen.
“This is not a California king,” Huston noted.
