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Wes looked up. “Last night?”

“This morning.” Joel rubbed his eyes. “Before anyone asks, Mom’s fine, my aunt’s fine, and the cats are fine. Apparently the scarecrows are the emergency.”

Isaac pulled out the chair beside him with his foot. “Eat before she remembers something else and calls you again.”

Joel laughed and sat. Within a few minutes all five men had settled around the table with coffee and breakfast, the way they had done more mornings than Gabe could count.

He went back behind the counter, served a man on his way to work, and put another tray into the display case. When he glanced toward the table again, Nate was watching him. Wes noticed too. He took a drink of coffee and looked at Gabe over the rim of his mug.

Nate smiled. “He’s been like that since I got here.”

Isaac glanced at Gabe. “Like what?”

“Happy,” Nate said.

“He’s normally happy,” Isaac pointed out.

“Not like this.”

“I can hear you.” Gabe put a plate of cinnamon rolls and the coffee pot in the middle of the table.

“We know,” Nate replied.

Evan put his phone face down. Wes was still watching Gabe. Not staring, simply looking, the way he looked at a row of trees before he told you what was wrong with them. Then something changed in his expression. “You found her.”

The table went still. Gabe stopped with one hand resting on the back of the empty chair, and his bear rose up inside him, joy filling him all over again.

Our mate. Tell them.

Gabe looked at his friends and smiled. “I found her.”

For a second nobody moved. Then Isaac pushed his chair back hard enough to scrape it across the floor, crossed the small space between them, and gave Gabe what could only be described as a bear hug. Gabe laughed in surprise and hugged him back.

“About time one of us did,” Isaac said when he let him go, and his voice was rougher than usual.

Nate came next, gripping Gabe’s shoulder before pulling him in. “That’s the best news.”

“Thanks.” Gabe slapped him once on the back.

“I mean it,” Nate said as he stepped away.

“I know you do,” Gabe said gruffly.

They really are happy for us, his bear rumbled.

Gabe swallowed hard. Just as we would be happy for them.

And they would be, no matter which one of them had been first, because every one of them had been waiting for the same thing.

I want them all to find their mate and feel what we’re feeling, Gabe’s bear said.

Me too, Gabe agreed. Me too.

Evan came around the table next and took the back of Gabe’s neck in one hand and shook him gently, which was as close as Evan got to a speech. Wes waited until the others moved aside, then put both arms around Gabe and held on for a second before letting him go.

Joel stayed in his seat, but the festival folder had been forgotten. He was grinning. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Gabe looked around at all five of them. They had talked about mates for years. Not constantly, because they had lives to get on with, work to do, families and businesses and a town that always seemed to want something from somebody. But the hope had always been sitting there underneath it.