All Kinds of Tied Down (Marshals 1)

“Hello,” she greeted me.

I patted the space beside me on Janet’s bed. “Join us.”

And while Janet and Aruna had been friendly, they were not friends until that day when we all got sloshed on way too many wine coolers. We were inseparable after that. When I borrowed notes from Catherine Mindel in my second hour Biology class and invited her to eat at the diner I worked at, putting her at a table with Janet and Aruna, they hated her at first, and then loved her a month later when we all drove to Detroit for her cousin’s wedding. We bonded, and when we got back and Min Song was Catherine’s new roommate because her first one had moved out—apparently Catherine had a touch of OCD—we adopted her. Min was gentle until someone came after one of her friends. Then God help you. She had actually taken apart our Philosophy professor who belittled Janet in front of the class. He took three days off after the dressing down he suffered. Janet had hugged her so tight.

It was me and the girls, and even though we all tried to make other friends, no one stuck. So the following year we moved into a two bedroom, one bathroom house off campus. I had the sofa sleeper in the living room and got really good at having sex in cars since I had no door to lock out prying eyes. Not that it really mattered; having a house where I lived with my friends did. And they never left me. One of them took me home for winter break every year. One year Aruna decided to stay so she could be with Liam and his family for Christmas; I stayed with her and visited too. They were lovely people, and his cousin Kerry was hot and willing to let me do whatever I wanted to him. It didn’t last, but it made New Year’s and Valentine’s Day more fun than usual that year.

When four years were over and everyone was off to either grad school, law school, or medical school—and me to the police academy—I thought maybe that was it and my family was leaving me. But Liam stepped up and put a ring on Aruna’s finger, so I got to keep her close. And the others weren’t about to disappear. I was the envy of every straight guy I knew: I had four smart, gorgeous, talented women all enraptured by me at any given moment.

“How do you do it?” I got asked every now and then.

I shrugged and said I loved each one unconditionally. And it was true. If any of them ever called me in the middle of the night and asked me to bring a shovel and lye and to make sure the car had gas in it, I’d be there without question. Catherine was certain I’d have to get rid of her mother-in-law at some point, but as of yet, we hadn’t hidden any bodies.

“I’M BACK,” Janet announced as she came in the front door, Chickie staggering behind her.

“You wore the dog out?” I asked from where I lay stretched out on my sectional. Chickie trotted over, licked my chin, and then headed into the kitchen to his water dish and, even more importantly, Aruna, whom he had a special fondness for.

Aruna had never been fond of canines, but at their first meeting, she and Chickie had bonded. The only person he liked as well as her and Ian was Aruna’s husband, Liam.

“Oh, there he is,” she crooned to the werewolf. “There’s my angel. I missed him, yes, I did. Oh yes I did.”

He was whimpering with happiness; I could hear it from the couch.

“Look what Mommy has for you!”

“Aruna, stop feeding that dog people food,” I admonished.

“That’s steak, yes, it is,” she said to Chickie, ignoring me completely.

Lord. “Don’t give that dog steak!”

“We’re not going to listen to him, are we? No, we’re not; no, we’re not. He’s a buzzkill, yes, he is.”

I gave up because she was going to do whatever she wanted anyway.

“Hello,” Janet snapped at me.

“What?”

“I was trying to tell you that there’s no way to wear that dog out, but I bet I got closer than your partner ever has.”

I scoffed. “He’s very scary, you have no idea.”

“He may run fast, but I run far,” she quipped. “My husband can barely keep up with me.”

“Speaking of your husband, isn’t it time for you to go home?”

“Shut up,” she mumbled, walking by me, going to the kitchen where Aruna was cooking something that smelled heavenly.

“Give the dog water,” I ordered.

“He has water,” Aruna informed me. “And steak.”

I groaned and cast around for support.

Catherine was up in the loft, on the phone with her husband, and every now and then, I’d hear her laugh in that deep, throaty way of hers.