“You’re nice company, Buster,” she said, stroking the wolf’s neck. “I feel like you get me. You should come around more than once a month. I’m too busy to have a pet at my place, so this is a nice arrangement, even if all you’re interested in is hog intestines. No rabid squirrels for you tonight.”
The wolf polished off the entrails and looked back up at her, licking its chops. She smiled at how much like a domesticated dog he appeared and behaved like, sometimes.
“Oh!” she said, laughing as the wolf’s eyes bored into her. “I almost forgot. I did save you something special.”
GiGi took out a foil-wrapped package from her pocket. Instantly the wolf’s wet nostrils were flaring, and a tiny whine erupted from his throat. “Oh, you smell that already?”
She laughed. “Here you go, stud. But shush, don’t tell the sous chef, she would freak if she knew I was doing this with the leftover squab.”
The wolf downed the bird in seconds and then licked GiGi’s fingers clean. Then licked her face. GiGi laughed again. “You know, for a ferocious beast, you sure are sweet on me.” The wolf licked her whole face in one swipe. “All right, calm down, Buster. That’s all I got.”
She stood when she heard footsteps coming toward the back of the restaurant, and then a voice. “GiGi, did you already bleach the cutting boards? I told you, let the crew do that.”
GiGi stood and glanced at the door and called over, “Yeah, I know, but it takes two seconds and I was right there. I can’t help it.” She turned back to the alley. The wolf was gone. There was no sign that he had even been there. The full moon lit up a damp, empty alleyway.
She sighed. Her big, terrifying gray pet was gone again.
The first time GiGi had seen the wolf in the alley, about a year ago, it had scared the shit out of her. But now they were best buddies. As much as someone like her could be friends with a huge, blue-eyed stray dog that was more wolf than a domesticated house pet.
GiGi looked off into the darkness and said, “See you next month, Buster.”
Chapter Four
GiGi
GiGi barely registered what her cousin and best friend Rosemary was saying. She much preferred catering intimate gatherings; the din of that night’s engagement party rattled her eardrums.
She would do anything for Rosemary, and Rosemary never did anything small or quiet. A rooftop engagement party in the French Quarter with live music and an open bar defined Rosemary and Ash in a nutshell.
GiGi was good at rolling with the punches for her Rosemary, and the advance paycheck for catering tonight’s shindig was going to come in pretty damn handy. Maybe she could go all out and buy a fancier chef jacket for special events, rather than this one she wore tonight that was starting to fray at the edges.
As for her cousin Rosemary, she would never allow herself to appear in public in anything torn or frayed or the least bit worse for wear. Tonight’s getup was especially remarkable, which would have been a point of conversation had it not been for Rosemary’s lamenting about her father not being in attendance, nor Pen, Ash’s longtime friend. It was difficult to take Rosemary seriously while she was wearing a dress entirely made out of Mardi Gras beads.
Rosemary, slightly buzzed from some signature drink that Ash’s bartender friend Bobby had concocted for the night, was saying something about Pen having misgivings about merging the two families, and how that somehow affected her even more than her own father’s overtly terrible behavior when it came to his daughter marrying a wolf shifter. GiGi couldn’t hear half of it over the noise of this party.
GiGi had little experience in relationships or even friendships outside of the DuChamp family to which she belonged. So she nodded and smiled and tried to change the subject by reminding Rosemary to eat something. Her food always seemed to distract Rosemary from her troubles.
For now, it worked. “GiGi, these beignets are amazing,” Rosemary said with a mouthful of the delicious fried pastries, powdered sugar drifting down into her cleavage.
GiGi had also created mini-king cakes for tonight’s event, and cookies in the shape of wedding rings. For something savory, she had baked homemade sausage and goat cheese inside mini pancakes. All of which she fed to Rosemary, requesting feedback as if she needed it.
She knew from the way all of her appetizers were disappearing as fast as she and her sous chef and extra help could refill the serving trays that her food was a hit tonight.
GiGi smiled and shouted at her cousin over the din. “Rosie, I’m so happy for you and Ash, I had to create something new for tonight. I hope you like everything.”
Rosemary hugged her, her face ecstatic with having experienced all of the flavors GiGi had brought that night. “I want you to do the cake for the wedding. Will you do it? Ash and I will pay whatever it takes to get it done. It’s got to be insane, and only you know what I like.”
GiGi expected nothing less. “Absolutely. Anything you want. It would be an honor, and I’ll do it as my gift to you.”
Rosie shook her head. “We’ll argue about that later. And since we’re in a bit of a rush to plan this thing in five months, can I lock down your people to do the catering as well?”
GiGi realized that when Rosemary said “your people,” she assumed that GiGi’s little struggling café had a staff of dozens of servers and extra help waiting in the wings just for big events. The truth was, GiGi had her sous chef, a line cook, about three servers, one host that doubled
