“Good morning, Miss Jacky!” the young Londoner called, waving. “Would you care for some breakfast?”
I got out of the car slowly, amazed at the young man’s innate ability to know if I was coming over or not.
“How did you know it was me?” I asked loudly, locking up and walking toward him. “And I’ll have a coffee.”
“You haven’t checked in with us since before the full moon,” he answered, smiling. His bright face was pleasant, always open and giving. He was the type who screamed ‘good boy who never gets into trouble,’ which made him trustworthy and sweet.
Oliver was with me, though. For a lot of reasons, I was the oddball of my werecat family. Jacky Leon, the American, the baby of the family, the one with no ambitions or drive to take over the world or do more than I wanted. Oliver was an oddball, too, but in a lot of different ways—too driven and too much for a lot of people, at least in personality. Part of me never wanted to send the sweet young man back because of that. We could be the weird ones in my corner of the world.
“How’s Dirk?” I asked as I followed him inside. “And how’s the house? I know I ask all the time, but I didn’t have it built, so who knows what might be wrong with it—”
“We had a plumber out yesterday for a clog in the sink I refused to let Dirk try to fix, but it’s fine.” Oliver smiled as he locked the front door again, something I was glad he made a habit. His introduction to living in a werecat territory had been an eventful one, with my territory being invaded by a group of werecats looking to overthrow my family from the position of power it had built over the centuries.
“Well…if you ever want me to hire someone for a complete rebuild, let me know.” I didn’t like that I had to buy them a house built in the eighties just to find them a place to live. They had been planning on just getting little apartments, but that had been completely out of the question to me, and there hadn’t been time to build them something new.
“You’ve already given us so much,” Oliver said, smiling. “My parents are jealous.”
“Yeah, well…they can take up their living arrangements with Davor and Zuri,” I deflected, not wanting to discuss how much I spoiled Oliver and Dirk. I knew why his parents were probably jealous. Most employees earned their paycheck, then went home to the house they had to buy, the house they had to pay for. Since I only had two human employees and probably wouldn’t get any more who had been introduced to the supernatural world for a very long time, I was spoiling them. It was my secret, though. I didn’t want my family to think it was okay to just send me their troublemakers and their misfits.
To me, it was totally reasonable to make sure they both had fake U.S. identities and driver’s licenses. To me, it made sense to buy Oliver a car, so Dirk didn’t have to drive him around. While I hadn’t accepted their presence fast enough to buy Dirk his truck, I had at least gotten Oliver what he needed.
Plus, Dirk would have been pissed if I bought him the truck. He’s that type. I’m family, and he hates accepting gifts from Niko, which probably carries over to me. If his own adoptive father pisses him off, why wouldn’t his kind of aunt?
He was the harder of the two to convince to live in a house I bought for them. I finally stomped my foot and said it was a safety issue. That got him to relent and move but had pissed him off for about three days because he had to accept something for free from me. Niko had a laugh when I had told him about the entire ordeal, but in the end, Dirk wasn’t living in a motel, and I knew he was safe.
I sat down at the small breakfast table off the kitchen, nestled in a nook with a view of their back property. Of course, I didn’t put them in the middle of Jacksonville. I needed to be able to get to their house in werecat form without neighbors wondering what I was at two in the morning.
“Kick Shot should be back up and running by the end of July,” I told my young manager as he put a coffee in front of me. “Once the date is confirmed, we can talk about reopening plans. You’ll want to throw a party, I’m guessing.”
“I will, and I want us to hire more bartenders and staff,” he said, smiling as he sat down. “They don’t need to be paid as much as Dirk and me, of course, but you’re going to need more hands. I’m going to market Kick Shot heavily and hope to double or triple your clientele.”
“You’re insane,” I smirked. “I’ll hire two extra bartenders to work the patio bar on rotation. That’s all. That’s what you get, Oliver. We’ve talked about this. Dirk and I will be rotating the main bar and together on busy nights.”
“But—”
I leveled him with a stare, and he didn’t continue with that ‘but,’ which was good for him. Maybe one day, I’d open a location he could do more with, but as it was, I missed my job. Having my bar had been a simple pleasure in my life.
“It’s too close to my home to get too big,” I said finally. “Bar, pool tables, poker nights…that’s all.”
“We put in that wonderful kitchen,” he moaned, sitting across from me with a precious pout I was certain worked on his mother, Zuri, and every other woman in his life.
I saw Carey at least once a week, so it didn’t work on me. Not as well as Oliver was probably accustomed to, anyway.
“We put in that wonderful kitchen, I’m certain we can find a use for…like hosting events, occasionally. Renting out the bar for parties and the kitchen to catering companies.” I had been thinking about it for months. I didn’t want a large, permanent staff, but this could be the compromise I needed to give Oliver. The way his eyes lit up, I realized I had been right.
“Oh,” was all he said.
I sipped my coffee as heavy footsteps started overhead, then came down the stairs.
Dirk eyed me hard as he passed into the kitchen, confusion written all over his face as he poured himself a coffee and made himself a plate of eggs and bacon.
“Oliver, have you fed her yet?” Dirk asked softly, pointedly looking at his roommate and not me when he sat down.
“She only wanted coffee.”
Dirk turned back on me, frowning.
“I’ve been awake for a couple of hours now, already ate,” I said, trying to be light. This wasn’t my first time visiting, but I had to be careful. Dirk was wary of being smothered, which was an appropriate thing to feel because he was raised by a werecat. Niko never admitted it, but I knew for a fact he probably suffocated Dirk, which every werecat parent accidentally did until they were forced to stop. Hasan smothered me until I left. I was certain he still would if I ever gave him the chance. “With the full moon past, I just wanted to check in.”
“You don’t need to get paranoid. We’re fine,” Dirk said, looking away and starting in on his breakfast.
Well, just call me out, why don’t you?
“I’m not paranoid,” I muttered.
“Yeah, you are. You check in before and after every full moon, and I know it’s not because Niko wants reports. He emails me just fine to bother the hell out of me, demanding to know how life is here in America because you won’t tell him anything. Plus, he’s still with…Hasan. I think it’s driving him crazy.”
“It is.” I already knew the crazy part. Niko was around eight hundred years old and was being smothered by our shared father since his injuries back in February. His back had been broken, and Hasan had no intention of letting him leave the island until he was certain Niko could handle anything life threw at him. “He’ll probably be there for a year before Hasan is ready to let him go.”
“Good. He shouldn’t have gotten so fucking hurt,” Dirk said angrily, but I knew there was some care in those words. They had an antagonistic relationship, but Niko and Dirk cared for each other the same way any rebellious son and smothering father did.
“I’ll tell him you said that,” I said with a bit of mischief. That comment earned me a glare from the young man.
“Don’t bother, I already have.”
I tried not to smile.
“You know, my parents tried to get me to go back to London after what happened,” Oliver said, looking between us. “They thought working for you was too dangerous. They told…”
“With me, you can just call them by their names, Davor and Zuri. They’re my siblings, not royalty.”
“Yeah…” He was obviously uncomfortable, but I wanted him to get over the strange hero worship he had. My siblings had egos; I didn’t. The only way to get Oliver more comfortable with me was to get him more comfortable with the entire family. “They told Davor and Zuri they wanted me back home in London, or they would quit their jobs.”
“I know.”
“I chose to stay.” Oliver smiled. I smiled in return, grateful he trusted me so much even though we hadn’t known each other for very long. I knew the rest of the story that he didn’t. His parents had threatened to quit, ranted, raved, and stomped their feet at Davor and Zuri.
Zuri tried to talk to them because she could be deadly and cool, but she had once been a mother, and I was certain she took that into consideration when approached with two scared human parents. Davor had no such heart and started calling his assistants to have the positions opened up for interviews.
Both of his parents backed down, their bluff called. By the time Oliver got ahold of them again and told them he wanted to stay here with me, they were more inclined to agree.
They had made the mistake of insulting my ability to protect their son, and my siblings had made them realize that wouldn’t be tolerated. Truthfully, I thought I had done fairly well, keeping Dirk and Oliver out of harm’s way. They never saw a bit of action and mostly stayed hidden with Heath and his family during the entire thing.
The conversation died off, and I just took up space at their table as they ate and cleaned up afterward. Dirk didn’t know what to do with me sitting there, so he quickly escaped, changed his clothes, then called out he was leaving. I waved as he left, then turned back to Oliver for an explanation. It was only ten in the morning. If Dirk was moonlighting, he certainly wasn’t doing it this early in the morning.