Toby swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth at how strong he imagined the guy was for it to take four men to drag him out.
Mate, not some random guy!
Could it really be he wasn’t hallucinating or some such thing over the smell clinging to his hoodie?
Dang it.I’m telling the truth, you twit!
There’s no need to start name callin’.
“—so what do you think?”
Toby blinked Niall into focus and blushed once more, trying to fathom what he’d missed while arguing with his animal side.“Are you sure it was the guy who brought me in?”
Niall rolled his eyes at him.“I’m not blind, and I told you we spoke to him when we got to the hospital and told him he could go, we’d take care of you.Can’t you see?His reluctance to leave.Then the kickoff.You smelling your mate.It all adds up, and it has to be him!Don’t you think?”
“Is this you wanting to claim rights on me meeting my mate?”Toby asked suspiciously, a little worried to pin his hopes on Niall’s assumptions.
Save me from stupid humans!
I told you, stop with the name calling, I’m just being cautious.Because it hadn’t passed by Toby that he had willingly left the hospital out the back door to prevent seeing whoever was shouting.If the guy knew they were mates, he could—wrongly—assume that Toby wasn’t interested.
Was he sitting at home believing that Toby didn’t want a mate?
Niall looked so damn pleased, Toby wasn’t sure if jumping to the same conclusion was a good thing.Was it?
“I’m not gonna be insulted by that question when I know you were concussed yesterday.”A cheeky grin appeared.“Although I will be claiming bragging rights when it turns out I’m right.”He blew on his fingers and rubbed them on his bare shoulder, looking like the cat who got all the cream.
A knock on his front door was followed by Morty’s appearance carrying a plate of what smelled like chocolate éclairs.Toby groaned in delight, his belly rumbling in appreciation of what was to come.
“I come bearing gifts to make you feel better.You seemed a little glum this morning at the hospital.”Morty swung around to shut the door, only one of the éclairs fired off the platter and sailed towards Niall, whose quick reflexes stopped it from landing on the cream rug.
Éclairs, we don’t need éclairs.We need to shift and fly to where we landed to find our mate.We can have something far tastier, our mate!
He’d wanted to, except the doctor had been clear: no shifting until he was fully healed in his human form first.His bird side was tweeting up a storm about what twaddle that was.
“Sorry,” Morty muttered, looking flushed as he righted the plate and walked off in the direction of the kitchen.
“No worries, I’ll have this one,” Niall smirked at Toby.“I deserve it after helping Toby meet his mate.”
There was a clatter and a screech before Morty reappeared, a smear of chocolate on his top.“What?Mate?When?”
Morty tripped over his feet in his rush to reach the couch, and he barely avoided headbutting Toby, who had the wherewithal to dodge to his left so Morty clocked his shoulder instead.
“Oof,” Morty groaned and twisted to land on the cushion next to Toby.“Sorry.”
Toby rubbed at where Morty had made contact and eyed the red patch on the side of Morty’s head.“Could have been worse.”They all knew how clumsy Morty was.
He giggled and shrugged.“It’s a good job that Hector finds my clumsiness adorable.”
They all chuckled because Morty wasn’t wrong.
“You’re distractin’ me.What’s this about a mate?”Morty didn’t ask Toby; he asked Niall.
“Show him,” Niall said with a mouthful of éclair.
Toby cringed at the brown and cream mess he could see.“Gross man, and so not fair when Morty made them for me.”
“You can moan about that after you show me what Niall thinks I need to see.”
