But the mystery remained, why could he not remember the most important parts?
He remembered most of the bachelor party. Club hopping all over the French Quarter, then riding the party bus back to their neighborhood. He vaguely recalled running into one of his employees, Manny, at Bobby’s Wolfpack Tavern, but could not recall the conversation. That was about the time things started to get fuzzy in Gavin’s memory.
The upside was at least he knew his shop and his equipment were clean.
Full marks for that, dipshit. Now go find your clothes.
He stood up and leaned against a tree to shake the cobwebs out of his brain.
He looked around, but his clothes did not show themselves.
It wasn’t the first time he’d ended up naked in the woods with no sign of his clothes. Whenever he wolfed out, there was no telling where his clothes would end up. Usually, the pack shifted together above the bar at Bobby’s flat, and their clothes ended up in a heap. Some shifter wolves, like his friend Penelope, or Pen, as she preferred to be called, always stripped down in an orderly fashion and neatly placed their folded clothes in Bobby’s dresser. He and his boys mostly just got naked, howled at the moon, and ran like hell through the alleyways and pocket parks of the city. They just loved to get going and run, balls to the wall.
The recent change in hunting grounds had turned out to be even better at satisfying the urge to run and hunt. When Ash’s wolf had nearly ripped out some dude’s throat for putting his hands on Rosemary, the pack had convened and agreed to move its hunting grounds to the outskirts of the city. They needed more wild and less populated places to hunt if they were going to prevent any more damage — or prevent having their family secret revealed.
A romp in the woods was probably how Gavin had ended up passed out, naked, and clueless. Best-case scenario, the drunk wolves had felt themselves losing control of their wolfy urges, employed what remained of their brain cells, and high-tailed it out of the city.
Gavin followed the trail back out in the direction of the parking lot, hoping maybe he could call someone to pick him up. If not, he’d just have to walk.
About a tenth of a mile down the trail, he saw his undies and jeans, but there was no sign of his shirt or shoes. The good news was his smartphone was in his jeans pocket. Yes! Surely there would be some clues about last night in his phone.
Unlocking the screen revealed no new text notifications. He felt himself become a little bit disappointed but not at all surprised. Drunk people were not the most reliable in letting their friends know where they were.
At the top of the list of text conversations, there was a contact just called “C.” Perhaps the “C” who was inked on his hip? A strong possibility, Einstein.
Tapping on the convo, he saw it was all 100 percent from him to her, no replies.
Huh.
He looked at the messages he had sent to this C. The first one was sent at 2:34 a.m.
Hey, this is Gavin. Friend of Ash. I heard you were a bridesmaid. I think you’re cute.
Fuck, what kind of a dork had he become? “I think you’re cute”? He may as well be passing notes in the fourth grade asking girls to “check this box if you like me-like me.” Reading his drunk missives made him cringe, so he skimmed them only for clues.
Then came this charming one about five minutes later:
I saw you dancing on the bar. Do you need a ride home?
Okay, points for being a gentleman. And at what point did the sex happen? And was she okay?
He figured it would have been at some point between 2:37 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. because the third and last text he had sent to her said,
Had to take off. Better for your safety. Be back as soon as I can. DO NOT MOVE. Please reply that you’re OK.
He looked at the time. It was now 8:45 a.m. Gavin trudged up the trail and eventually came to the parking lot. No car. No keys. No shirt. Not even any shoes anywhere. How had he gotten here?
He sent her a text just before calling for a rideshare.
I feel like a jackass. I’m not totally sure what happened, but I need to see you so we can sort this out. Please stay wherever you are. Are you at my place? Let me know.
Before he could pull the trigger on the rideshare, he heard a low rumbling sound and the squealing of tires. Ash’s GTO was roaring across the lot and screeching to a halt right in front of him.
“Get in.”
“Listen, man, I blacked out and I need to find this girl.”
Ash cut him off. “Get in the car.”
Gavin obeyed. What choice did he have? He must have reeked of blood and alcohol. And also: no shirt or shoes.
Ash, however, looked freshly showered and was as chipper and charming as ever. How did he always manage to do that?
“Do you know who I’m talking about?”
“I do not, and it does not matter. We gotta go find Bobby.”
“Bobby’s not at his place? Dude, the party ended at his bar. He lives above the bar. Why would he not be there?”
“I already checked, he’s not there. He took off kind of surly last night…this morning…whenever it was. I’m just worried about him. You know how he gets.”
Gavin was getting frustrated. Bobby was a grown-ass man who could take care of himself. “Okay, look, let’s just get to my apartment and see if this mystery girl is there. Then we’ll go find Bobby.”
Ash shook his head. “No, man. If she’s out there, she’s hungover as shit. Give her time to pull herself together. No girl wants to see you first
