Werewolves and Chocolate by Shauna Aura Knight Page A

who ran the spiritual retreat
center and intentional community, would let her. And the three of them had
plenty of friends there who wouldn’t bat an eyelash at a triple wedding. She
could rope her friend Angel into helping since Angel still lived at SpiralStone.
Of course, then she had to approach the guys about a wedding. She was pretty
sure it wouldn’t occur to them to propose to her. While Ellie didn’t care for
outdated gender conventions, she had to admit she did fantasize on occasion
about their proposing to her the old fashioned way.
    No, if they were going to get married, she
was the one who was going to have to bring it up, and she wasn’t ready to deal
with that. For the moment, she just needed to focus on school. She could think
about the longer-term complexities of her relationship later.
    Blinking at the clock, she groaned, and
dialed the number for home.
    “Ellie?”
    “Hi Jake. Ummm…I’m sorry, but—”
    “You’re running late at the lab.” She could
hear the smile in his voice.
    “I’m sorry.” This was a conversation they had
a lot. “I’ll be home soon though. I just need another hour to wrap up. Maybe
less.”
    “Take your time, babe. We’re finishing
dinner.”
    Of course the two were cooking. When she’d
met them, they ran the catering kitchen at the SpiralStone retreat center. They
both seemed convinced she needed to eat more, which was ridiculous. She was
going to have to get a gym membership to lose the ten pounds she’d gained just
from their feeding her. But she loved that they took care of her, and that they
put up with her schedule shifting all the time. “Oh, I’m still going to hurry
home. I miss you.”
    She could hear the low, bass rumble of Jakes’
growl. “We miss you too. And we’re going to demonstrate that to you in several
very visceral ways.”
    Her lips parted and she felt herself creaming
just at his words. “That’s…good.”
    “Sorry. I shouldn’t torture you. What
exciting things have you discovered about the universe today?”
    “This work is so cool, Jake. We’re working
with data…it’s not just the observation of the expansion of the universe, but
specifically, the cluster of galaxies moving in a recognizable pattern from the
moment of the Big Bang. We’re creating a map of something so huge, we’ll never
actually be able to see it. And we’re doing it through observations of
galaxies, through what’s called the Hubble Constant. We’re looking at the
movement of entire galaxies in a cluster. It’s breathtaking.”
    “You are such a geek, sweetheart.”
    Ellie laughed. “Well so are you!” The three
of them loved camping out on the couch and watching sci-fi movies of any kind.
    “I’m the kind of geek who likes to watch Star
Trek. You’re the kind of geek who could follow Geordie into the engine room and
help fix the warp core.”
    “Fixing the warp core is more of an
engineering thing. I’d probably serve better over in Stellar Cartography—”
    “Baby?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Finish up and come home.”
    She laughed. “All right.”
     
    ~* * *~
     
    “She running late?” Kyle asked.
    “Yup.”
    “Hmmph.”
    Jake snorted. Kyle tended to get more miffed
when Ellie ran late. But then, of the two of them, Kyle was more likely to be
sexually tense. “Hey, we could use an extra hour. This chocolate needs time to
cool.”
    “All right. Why don’t you dip the
strawberries and I’ll start cutting up the fruit.” Kyle looked Jake over.
“You’re going for the suspenders and jeans look again, huh?”
    Jake stiffened. “She likes the suspenders.”
    Now Kyle snorted. “She likes pulling them off
of you.”
    “I’m not going to argue there.” Jake stirred
the chocolate. “You know she’s going to tell us we’re trying to fatten her up
again.”
    “It’s just a few truffles, and strawberries
in chocolate.”
    “And cheesecake, and fruit, and—”
    “This was your damned romantic idea!” Kyle
fumed, flinging a piece