“You going to explain yourself now?”
“We stopped for coffee after work, me and Cassius and Aaron.”
Trevor nodded him on when he didn’t continue.
Why was this so hard? He shaved a careful layer from the block of wood, formed the narrative point-by-point in his head. “There’s a barista there, Willow. We talk sometimes. She’s into genealogy, and she likes hearing about my builds. Guess we sort of connected. As hobbyists.”
“Uh-huh.” Trevor’s voice lilted as amusement eked into his scent, but it was the brotherly sort, warm with no derision, and it didn’t halt Ezra’s words.
“So the craft fair’s coming up this weekend, which we’d mentioned to each other, and today she asked if…if I’d go with her. Not just run into each other by chance if we’re there at the same time, but…like…plan to be there at the same time.”
Trevor grinned. “I don’t see any problems so far.”
“Well, there are a couple,” Ezra snapped.
He took a moment to free one daisy petal from the wood. It wasn’t as smooth as Trevor would do it, but the block was becoming a recognizable flower. Trevor hopped up on the porch railing and sat swinging his feet.
“First of all,” Ezra said, “she’s got some idiot vanilla guy harassing her at work, asking her out over and over no matter how many times she says no. She asked me to go with her in case she runs into this idiot.”
Disappointment dampened Trevor’s buoyant scent, and his brows crinkled. “Yeah, not the greatest setup. But you can work with it.”
“No, Trev, that’s just the thing, I—I wasn’t trying to…I mean, I like Willow fine. She’s kind of great. But I’m not…but then…”
“Bullet points,” Trevor said with a little tilt of his mouth.
“Right, yeah, thanks. So…” He took a few seconds, formulated a structure for the remainder of the story. “I said sure, we can go together, and then her break time was over, and I’d finished my coffee. She offered to toss my cup—you know, just doing her job—and when I handed it to her, I…”
Trevor’s eyebrows rose slowly, higher and higher as Ezra’s silence lasted. He spread his arms, tilting back on the porch rail. Of course he didn’t lose his balance. A wolf never did.
“You’re killing me, bro.”
“Our hands touched,” Ezra said. His fingers clenched around the knife handle. “I touched her.”
“Okay, and?”
“And—and now there’s some kind of short circuit in my head, and I just—I need to fix the wiring, and I thought—maybe if I told somebody. If I told you.”
Trevor’s legs stopped swinging. His blue eyes lost their mirth. He leaned forward, gripping the rail in both hands. “Ez, I think you’d better say it.”
Ezra stared at the woodwork, at his hand gripping it for dear life. Willow’s face sprang from the piece again, overwhelming the half-formed daisy.
“Would it help to tell you I can smell her on you?”
Ezra’s pulse stuttered, and the knife fell to the porch floor.
“Yeah, bro. What you think this is…I’m pretty sure you’re right.”
Ezra covered his face with one hand and tried to breathe. His chest was being squeezed by a vise. A firm hand clamped onto his shoulder, and his brother spoke calmly, close beside him.
“Okay, too early for congrats. How come, Ez? Believe me, it’s the biggest happiness you’ll ever find, claiming your mate.”
He tried to swallow the groaning growl, but it escaped anyway. He shook his head, and Trevor’s arm came around him, firm support he could lean on if he needed to. It was too much. The structure of his thoughts collapsed as his words came too fast.
“I can see her in my head. It’s constant. I can hardly control it. It’s like I know her, and like Ihaveto know her. And like there’s this voice in my head hollering at me…”
“That she’s yours,” Trevor said quietly. “That the world needs to know she’s yours.”
Ezra nodded. If he’d harbored any subconscious hope that Trevor wouldn’t know what he was talking about…
