“There’s usually less shouting,” Gretchen amended. “And normally you couldn’t pay Theo to dress somebody down like this. But it’s pretty spot on for Colby.”
“Then I like Colby,” Cooper said, just as Colby came around the corner bearing two grilled cheeses. They were displayed with a kind of deli-style neatness, each surrounded by chips and a pickle spear.
“Thanks,” Colby said, handing their sandwiches over. “I like you too. Any mate of Gretchen’s is a friend of mine.” He leaned over and kissed the top of Gretchen’s head.
She swallowed down the lump in her throat. Seeing the team rally around her and Cooper had already made her cry three times in the last hour. She didn’t want to make it four.
“Wait until you find out what my new shift form is,” she said.
“Wait, what?” Pure delight lit up his face, making him immediately look like one of her kid brothers. “You can shift now?”
“I’m a lynx-falcon griffin.”
There was a pause where she could see Colby mentally drawing a picture of this in his imagination, and his grin only got wider—right up until it comically deflated. “Wait, now I’m the only person in this office who can’t fly?”
Gretchen reached up to pat him on the shoulder, but she couldn’t get much higher than his arm. She patted there instead. “Lots of people can’t fly, Colby, and they still live perfectly fulfilling lives.”
“Sure. That’s what all you flying people want me to think.”
“You’re not going to take our grilled cheeses back, are you?” Cooper said tentatively.
He sounded so cautious, and it made Gretchen’s heart ache a little. He had relaxed with her, of course, but she was his mate. She could see how hard it was for him to joke around with a relative stranger, and she knew how risky it must feel for him to open up his life again. His last group of friends had kicked his heart around like a soccer ball.
Gretchen had been so much luckier than he had been. She could look back on her life now and see that her childhood had left her with more scars than the one on her shoulder—she had spent a long time feeling small and defensive. But she’d never doubted her family’s love for her, and she’d spent her whole adult life surrounded by people who thought the world of her.
And she thought the world of them, too—something that was particularly vindicated as Colby handled Cooper’s joke lightly and deftly.
“I would never deprive someone of the opportunity to experience my world-class grilled cheese. But I’ll expect to be heaped with a lot of praise. It’s the only way I’m going to console myself for being stuck on the ground.” He tipped them a little salute and returned to the kitchen, slinging a dish towel over his shoulder as he went.
Cooper now wore the shyest, most beautiful grin Gretchen had ever seen.
See? You’ll do just fine now that you’re with the right people. You’re one of us now.
He took a bite of his grilled cheese and instantly made a face she hadn’t seen since their all-too-brief roll around Ford’s bed.
“Oh my God.”
Yeah. Colby really did make a good grilled cheese.
“Now might not be a good time to tell you I can’t really cook,” Gretchen said.
Cooper swallowed. The orgasmic ecstasy of the perfect sandwich still lingered on his face, but he put his arm around her. “Neither can I. When we’re alone, we’ll live off cereal, and then we’ll just try to eat at Colby’s house whenever we can.” He lowered his voice. “He’s not the one with the mate who makes the rock-hard cookies, right?”
She stifled a laugh. “No, that’s Martin’s mate, Tiffani. She has a lot of other good characteristics. And Martin can cook, so I promise the food will be safe if we’re invited to any dinners there.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. She was familiar enough with the glory of a Colby Acton Grilled Cheese Special to be able to eat one now without actively swooning, and that let her just take the moment to unwind.
It was eleven o’clock at night, and she was in her home office in the Sterling courthouse, wrapped in a blanket, snuggled up against her mate, and eating a grilled cheese while her boss woke up every governmental official he could find to tell them that there was no way in hell Cooper Dawes was spending another night in prison. She’d been through a round of first aid, a bumpy trip back home, and a visit from a shifter doctor. She was bandaged, sore, and exhausted. It had been a long, long day.
And somehow, this felt like exactly the right ending to it. This was where she wanted to be. She liked her house just fine, but this was her home—and these people were just as much her family as the ones she was related to by blood.
She liked thinking of Cooper being welcomed into that big, lovable mess. But he wasn’t just another part of her life. He had helped her define herself in a way no one else ever had or ever could. She didn’t just want to share her home with him, she wanted to share her life with him. She wanted to share herself.
Before she could think of exactly how to do that, however, Martin came out of his office with an enormous smile on his face.
“Oh, I like that look,” Gretchen said, straightening up.
“You should.” Martin turned to Cooper. “You don’t have to go back.”
Until she saw his face just then, Gretchen hadn’t realized that Cooper hadn’t even been letting himself hope for that. Now it was like pure light was shining out of him.
“Really?”
“Really,” Martin said firmly.
Gretchen’s face hurt from how much she
