Gilbert (3 page)

“Nuh-uh, I think you two just get off on irritating the cat. You know I’m a snow leopard shifter, don’t ya?”

The puppies yipped and sprang up at him. Gilbert sighed and gave up scolding them. He just couldn’t stay mad at Abbie and Zeus. And besides, he’d been warned to use the kennel boxes, but nooooooooo, he’d thought that sounded cruel, locking the two puppies up while he ran to the store. Well, now he knew better.

“All right, you evil puppies, outside with you.” Gilbert sighed again when Abbie and Zeus tackled tufts of cushion stuffing. He went and opened the back door. Bae and Isaiah had fenced off a small area for the puppies until they could put up a larger permanent fence, but he’d been told not to leave the pups out there too long. Because, of course, they liked to dig. Gilbert thought a cement yard might fix that. He headed back into the living room to catch the puppies. No doubt they’d think this was a great game of chase.

After five minutes of running around the house, Gilbert finally had both dogs outside and he also had more puppy messes to clean up. “They must have bladders the size of a damn teaspoon,” he grumbled. Gilbert made up some mop water and added the cleaner Bae had told him to use. He thought it was awesome that Bae and Isaiah were volunteering to treat animals injured in the huge forest fire that was still sweeping over Colorado, but he hoped they’d be back soon. Abbie and Zeus were going to run him ragged.

Gilbert cleaned up the puppy pee then went to fetch the devious little angels. At least he had the forethought to unlock the kennel boxes first. He caught Abbie first since she was intently digging away. Zeus yipped at him and followed them inside, almost tripping Gilbert several times.

“You’re gonna kill me, then you two will starve to death—once you eat all the trim board and cushions. Then what’re ya gonna do for dinner, hm?” Gilbert put Abbie in her cage. Zeus ran into his beside hers and plopped down.

Gilbert rolled his eyes at himself. Obviously the puppies liked their boxes. Bae had said the pups considered them their den, but—“But noooo, I had to be all, oh, poor little things, they won’t want to be locked up. Look at those innocent eyes—” Gilbert snapped his mouth shut. He sounded like someone off their rocker, or, and wasn’t this the truth, someone who was lonely.

“Pathetic, too,” he snarked at himself, once he’d latched the kennel box doors. It was just that both his older brothers had found their mates, which was awesome for them, but it sure made Gilbert ache for someone of his own. Dumb, he knew, since he was all of twenty-three. It wasn’t like he was an old maid or old bachelor, whatever.

Maybe if he had some friends he wouldn’t feel quite so alone, but Gilbert had always been kind of shy. Part of it was keeping his secret. He couldn’t tell people he was a snow leopard shifter, and really, not being able to be completely open about himself with someone made the whole friendship thing seem pointless to him.

Then again, he probably was just a dork. Friends didn’t share every little thing about themselves—but being a snow leopard shifter wasn’t a little thing about him, it was huge. Gilbert loved that part of himself, and sometimes he thought if he wouldn’t miss his family so bad, he’d just stay in his leopard form. Shifting hurt anyways, and Gilbert had been tempted more than once to live his life as his cat. Inside him his feline yowled.

“Yeah, yeah, even you think that’s a bad idea. I get it.” Gilbert shook himself. He needed to quit stalling. There was a disaster for him to take care of, and here he was mooning like some little emo kid. “Ugh.”

Four big trash bags of junk later, Gilbert was wondering how in the hell three cushions could make so much garbage! Try as he might, he couldn’t compress the nappy-feeling innards of the cushions into the smaller proportions they’d been before the twin terrors had got to them.

“At least I got back before they could eat the love seat and chair.” Gilbert carried the bags out to the garage. Trash pickup wasn’t for two more days and he didn’t want to leave the bags outside, junking up Bae and Isaiah’s place. He went back in and checked on Abbie and Zeus. The little…darlings…were sleeping. They really did seem fine in their boxes. Gilbert wondered how long he was supposed to leave them in there. Last night they’d slept in them, which was another reason he hadn’t wanted to lock them up again, but he did see the necessity in it now. Well, they’d have to stay there long enough for him to go buy some new trim for the wall, and paint for it, too. The couch was toast as far as he was concerned, but he could do some online shopping and see if he could find the same one and just replace it entirely. Gilbert found a tape measure and got the dimensions for the trim he’d need.

The paint was trickier. He might be able to take a chip of the gnawed-up wood into the store with him and have the colour matched, which was probably the logical thing to do. If not, he was going with a soft grey and he’d just redo all the trim. It’d look good with the white walls. Maybe he’d do that anyway, and surprise Isaiah and Bae. Their place needed a little sprucing up. All the white was really boring.

Gilbert locked up the house and headed for the garage. He kept his truck in there even though the vehicle wasn’t worth stealing. It was old and beat to hell, but Gilbert had bought it himself when he was eighteen, and he loved it.

Isaiah kept nagging him to let him fix the body of it up, but Gilbert always said no. He’d rebuilt the engine with Isaiah’s help, and one day he’d do the body work himself. Probably nowhere near as nicely as Isaiah could do it, since he was a mechanic and into restoration and all that. But he’d get it done.

The building supply store was moderately crowded and it took Gilbert longer than he’d have liked to get out of there. He ended up going with the dove grey paint for the trim. If Isaiah and Bae did shit bricks about it, he’d just repaint it all. But he really hoped they’d like it. If Gilbert had a house instead of his tiny efficiency apartment, he’d decorate the hell out of it. He wasn’t sure exactly how he’d decorate it, but it’d be fantastic, he just knew it. It’d feel like his home.

It wasn’t until he got in his truck again that he realised Isaiah and Bae’s place probably felt like
their
home, white on white walls and trim and all. “Damn it.” He thunked his head on the steering wheel. What he wanted and what other people wanted wasn’t the same thing, and he knew that. He did. Sometimes he just got carried away in his exuberance to make things better, but who was he to decide they needed improving?

“Oh hell, shut up,” he muttered to himself. He could think himself in circles sometimes. Besides, he could call Isaiah and ask him if grey trim was okay or if they wanted it all white. Probably neither man gave a damn and Gilbert was making a big deal out of nothing.

Gilbert checked the time and decided to call and ask them later. He didn’t know how many animals might be needing help, but they were more important than trim colour. He’d just shoot off a text and ask Isaiah to call him when they could. Isaiah and Bae had gone to Colorado Springs yesterday, and there was probably all sorts of setting up to do, although with Bae’s portable vet clinic, maybe not as much as there would have been otherwise.

Gilbert still couldn’t believe the wildfires this year. It seemed like Colorado and New Mexico were burning more each day. He loved both states, although he wished he’d got to spend more time in New Mexico. He’d only been once, but the beauty of the Gila wilderness was not to be missed—and that seemed to be the place that was burning to the ground.

As for his beloved home state of Colorado, every day Gilbert worried about the losses to the fire. He hoped the firefighters got some help from Mother Nature soon, because right now she seemed to be working against them, raising high winds and keeping the area hot and dry.

Gilbert started the truck and turned the radio on, listening to an AM news station. As far as he could tell, nothing had changed. The fire was raging and now Isaiah and Bae were closer to it, which was worrisome, but he knew they’d get out of there if they needed to.

He sent the text to Isaiah then put the truck in gear and started the drive back to his brother’s place. Isaiah and Bae had been together for several months now, and Gilbert marvelled at how fate matched mates so perfectly. Tim and his mate Otto were all moony over each other too. Gilbert wished he got to see more of Tim, but he and Otto split their time between the States and Mongolia, where Otto’s family was.

What would his mate be like, Gilbert wondered. Would he have one, even? As far as he knew, there was no proof that
all
shifters had mates. Not that Gilbert and his family knew a lot about shifter things, but they were learning. His grandma Marybeth had been orphaned at a young age and didn’t remember anything much of their shifter heritage. Having finally found other breeds of shifters, though, they were all learning now.

Gilbert let himself think about his potential mate. It’d be a guy, for sure, because Gilbert couldn’t imagine touching a female in a sexual way. He’d tried back when he’d first been trying to figure out if he really was gay.

Turned out he was, because he couldn’t even get hard for Liz Cuda, and yeah, that had been an awkward experience. Even thinking about another guy hadn’t been able to get him through that with a hard-on, and he’d had to tell Liz he’d eaten something bad before he’d run out of her house like his ass was on fire.

Well, if he had any say in what his mate looked like, it’d be a big ol’ rough guy, someone he didn’t have to worry about breaking when he fucked. Being a shifter made Gilbert stronger than a human, and he always felt like he had to hold himself back, like if he pounded into one of the many twinks he had screwed around with, if he really let himself go, he’d hurt them.

He was too afraid to just let go because if he did—if his leopard came out and he clawed or bit—what then? He’d only ever heard of those things happening between mates, but what did they all know? Yeah, he was a little paranoid about it, but at six-two and two hundred thirty pounds, Gilbert figured he’d better be careful rather than hurt someone.

So, a big, burly guy, rough and—Gilbert couldn’t picture his face, and kind of had trouble with the whole big, burly part, too. He liked smaller guys, and…and Bae was a lot smaller than Isaiah, and they worked out well. He guessed. Gilbert sure as shit wasn’t going to ask them about their sex life.
Ick.

Maybe if his mate was a shifter and not a human, then it wouldn’t matter so much if he was short-ish? Gilbert really,
really
liked curling around a smaller body and snuggling, when he got the chance. And there was just something about a tiny, tight ass. Some guys liked those bubble butts, and they were all right, but give Gilbert a hard little bottom that could squeeze his dick until his eyes crossed, and he’d die happy.

Gilbert’s phone vibrated and the temptation to pick it up and read the message was almost overwhelming. He wasn’t in any hurry to have a wreck, though, so he waited until he was at the stop sign close to the house. Since there weren’t any other cars behind him, Gilbert checked the message. Geez, he was impatient, but sometimes knowing there was word from someone, just waiting for him to read it, drove him nuts.

It was from Isaiah, who said he’d try to call later but couldn’t promise because they had their hands full with injured animals. Gilbert texted him back and said it wasn’t an emergency, and he was going to have grey trim unless he objected.

The rest of the drive to Isaiah’s was spent listening to more details about the fire. Gilbert was half lost in thought when he pulled into the driveway. Once he did, something weird happened to him. He felt tingly and hot and horny. The last one wasn’t uncommon, but the force of it was unsettling. Gilbert’s cock hardened in an instant and
ouch!

“God damn,” he mumbled as he wiggled in his seat, trying to keep from pinching his length any harder between his jeans and thigh. His heartbeat accelerated and Gilbert sniffed instinctively, searching for the cause of his body’s weird reaction. His leopard began to yowl inside him, which was disconcerting. Usually his kitty kept the inner turmoil down to a dull roar, as the saying went. Not that snow leopards could roar, but still. Same principle.

“Calm down.” Whether he meant himself or his cat, Gilbert didn’t know. In truth, he might have meant both. His pulse was pounding, the air he’d scented tinted with something he and his cat found very aromatic and stimulating. Gilbert put the truck in park and shut it off. He had trim hanging out of the truckbed and even though the vehicle would fit in the garage, he had to unload it and would rather do that outside.

And he wanted to know why his body was going haywire. His cock was dampening his jeans, and he was seconds or a touch or two away from blowing his load.

“Fuck, I’ve time-warped back to being fifteen.” Gilbert snorted at his raging hormones. He felt like he could hump the next guy he saw, he was so horny. Except the idea repulsed him. He didn’t want to fuck anyone other than the owner of the scent he was smelling.

It hit Gilbert then like a blow from a hammer right between the eyes. He actually slammed his head back against the headrest and moaned as he slapped a hand over his eyes.

The scent, his body’s reaction, his leopard’s desperate needy demands—Gilbert didn’t know how it happened, or where he was, but somewhere close by, he was almost positive, was his very own mate.

“Oh fuck.” It looked like he wasn’t going to be lonely any more. Excitement surged in him, tangling up with the arousal wreaking havoc on his body. Gilbert unbuckled the seatbelt then opened the truck door. He got out of the vehicle without a moment’s concern about locking it. His heart hammered against his ribs and he nervously ran his hand through his shaggy auburn hair. This was it, one of, if not
the
, biggest moments in his life. Gilbert was terrified and thrilled all at once.

And curious, so very curious. How had his mate found him? “Only one way to find out.” He rolled his shoulders and smoothed the front of his shirt down. Then he went to meet the man he’d spend the rest of his life with.