“Evan Duncan McCarthy!” Ma appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. She was all of five foot, but had a glare that made me feel six years old again. “There’ll be no teasing yer father now. I’ll put you over my knee, so help me.”
I put a hand over my chest. “Would I ever?”
Her lips twitched. “Aye, ye would, ye wee shite.”
“I’m still your favourite son though.”
“Och, do we have another child, Jameson?” She addressed my father, her tone mocking. “Silly me, I must’ve left the wean somewhere.”
Pa muttered under his breath, refusing to be drawn into our antics, but I could see the corners of his mouth twitching.
Crossing the room, I swept Ma off her feet and spun her around. “I’d still be your favourite though.”
“Gerroff.” She whacked me on the shoulder, spluttering with laughter. “Who dragged you up to be such a great oaf?”
I put her down on her feet. With her supe reflexes, she didn’t so much as sway. “You, I believe.”
She grinned, pinching my cheek. “Aye. That I did. Now go wash up for supper.”
I did just that before snagging a handful of custard creams from the biscuit tin. Dinner might have been mere moments away, but I was a growing lad.
A growing lad who fucking loved a custard cream.
While I munched, I watched my parents from the corner of my eye.How my dad snagged my mum by her wrist and yanked her into his lap before kissing her thoroughly.
Given they were both shifters, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were in their mid-thirties, still in the first flush of an early relationship. In reality, they’d been mated for over five hundred years.
I smiled fondly as I dried my hands on a tea towel, listening to their laughter. That right there was what I was holding out for.There’d be no settling down for me until Ihad the person who made me laugh like that. Someone who was my best friend as well as my mate. Who I loved more with every day that passed.
I’d been lucky to grow up with the best possible example of love.
I wasn’t settling for anything less.
Chapter 2
Reid
Having had seventeen jobs by the age of twenty-three had to be some kind of record.
It wasn’t my fault I kept getting fired. Well, it was, but it wasn’t like I was fucking up intentionally.
Most of them had been lost due to my time blindness. Time didn’t work the same way for me as it did for others, especially if I was focused on something. I could lose hours and think only minutes had passed. Then there were the simple things like leaving the house. I’d seen it on TV and in movies. Hell, I’d seen my own friends do it. They’d stand up a few minutes before they were due to leave, pick up whatever they needed, and head straight out the door.
It seemed so straightforward. But to me, it was a complete fucking mystery. My things were never where they were ‘supposed’ to be. I’d tried creating places for them to live, but that didn’t help when I picked something up and walked off with it.
Take my keys, for example. I had a little hook right by the door that my friend Mac had made me. He was goodwith wood. Not that kind of wood—get your mind out of the gutter. I mean, he might have been, but I wouldn’t know. Mac was like a brother to me. He was the first friend I’d made when I’d run away from the clan lands.
I didn’t ever call it ‘home.’ That implied it was safe and comforting. The Clarkson lands had never represented that. Not for me, at least.
Anyway, after I locked myself out for the third time in the space of a fortnight, Mac had made me this handy little hook. He’d even etched ‘Don’t forget your keys’ along it as a reminder.
Problem was, to remember them, I had to put them there in the first place. That was what tripped me up. In principle, it was simple. In actuality, it just didn’t happen. Whenever I got home, I’d be too busy juggling whatever I was carrying and taking my shoes off. My keys tended to end up wherever I went first. Sometimes it was on the dining room table or the kitchen counter. Other times it was next to the kettle or in the bathroom.I’d even found them in the fridge beside the milk once.
My point was that things rarely went as I planned—especially when it came to my timekeeping. My punctuality, or lack thereof, was the number one reason I’d been fired from so many jobs.
For some miraculous reason, Chester hadn’t fired me yet.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I chanted as I crashed through the back door to the shop. The coffees I was carrying sloshed out over both my hands, but fortunately I’d gone for the iced variety. “I know I’m late, but I come bearing coffee!”
