Page 17 of Delivered to My Fury

Chapter Fourteen

Zyon

She’s coming.

And we only had a day to get ready. This was going to take some planning. Until Mabel commented on our housekeeping, I hadn’t thought much about it and, to be fair, she had seen us at our worst. For the most part, we kept the place hygienic and generally picked up. But sometimes when work-related matters conspired to take all of our time and attention, things had to be let go. We had considered hiring a housekeeper but honestly didn’t love the idea of a stranger in our home, even if one was willing to clean after two shifters and a monster.

It wasn’t going to be too bad now. We all agreed to that. A full day to prepare was more than generous.

But we arrived at home and opened the door, stepped inside, and looked around…

“Were we vandalized while we were at work?” Eero muttered.

“It’s going to take more than a day,” I agreed. “When did we last clean the bathrooms? The kitchen?”

We trooped into the kitchen together. “Has anyone washed this floor in the past month or two?”

“And that’s a lot of dishes considering we don’t eat at home much,” Shay said. “Let’s load them in the dishwasher.”

Which of course was full…of dirty dishes.

“I think we can assume the bathrooms need work, too,” I announced. “And if she’s going to get here early afternoon, day after tomorrow, we’ll need to start now.”

We ordered pizza for dinner, since our local place always brought paper plates and napkins, and sat down to make a plan.

“For sure, one of us has to go to work tomorrow,” Eero said. “We have two group tastings and the brewery itself to deal with.” The bar was staffed, but we always took care of the tasting room ourselves. People seemed to love meeting the brewers, and with Mabel to handle any money matters there, it was covered. “Who wants to volunteer?”

Silence.

At any other time, we would have done just about anything to be at work rather than cleaning, but this was for our mate. Meaning, toilet scrubbing took on a whole new meaning.

“Nobody?” I asked. “Guess we draw straws, then. Anyone seen the broom lately?”

We did rock paper scissors. Which could be done three ways, although some people might disagree.

Shay lost. He was going to help us tonight then head off in the morning to be our point man at the brewery.

The pizzas arrived at that point, and we devoured them before stuffing the boxes and other debris in a large green trash bag and setting out to make our house fit for our mate to see. If she showed up now, we all agreed, she’d probably run screaming, thinking we were just looking for a female to clean up after a bunch of messy males.

And that couldn’t be further from the truth. If she liked us enough to stay, and if she was indeed our mate as the wolf and bear believed, we would be glad to make sure our home was worthy of her. It would give all three of us pleasure to make sure she never had to pick up anything heavier than her coffee cup. Certainly nothing like the heap of hoodies that had fallen from the hooks just inside the front door. I bundled them up and carried them to the washer, on the theory that anything that had laid on the floor for I had no idea how long was at the very best dusty.

Shay, because he was not going to be home tomorrow and wanted to for sure do his share, insisted on tackling the bathrooms. While I went from room to room gathering more hoodies and loose socks and other laundry that by rights belonged in everyone’s hampers, Eero worked on the living room.

The washer and dryer ran late into the night, and were going again in the morning. And after Shay headed to work, Eero and I cleaned the kitchen from ceiling to floor and everything in between. It would not do for our mate to find something unidentifiable in the refrigerator or make popcorn in a microwave with coffee rings on the spinning glass plate. We checked the dates on everything in the pantry and tossed anything expired. Best-by dates were not a big deal to us, but for our mate? We’d never forgive ourselves if she got sick on expired tuna. The walls needed washing and the ceiling fan was fuzzy.

Then we went to work on the guest room, even changing out the bedding for new we ordered same day on Amazon. By the time Shay came home at nearly ten p.m., we were ready to go to the store and restock our refrigerator and pantry.

It took forever, as we guessed what she liked to eat and made our selections accordingly.

“Do you think she likes lobster?” Shay paused by the tank and studied the occupants. “Don’t all females like that?”

“Maybe, but if she doesn’t, we’ll have a live lobster hanging around the house. Can you return them?” I asked. We’d never bought one to cook before.

“Doubt it.” Eero rolled the cart on through the seafood department then into meats before he came to a halt. “We probably should have asked her what she likes.”

I glanced at my phone. “It’s almost midnight.” We often shopped late; I got less-weird looks from the nighttime shoppers. “She said she’s getting an early start in the morning, so it’s probably not a good idea to message her now.”

In the end, we bought food we liked—lots of proteins like steak and ground beef—and added in more fruits and vegetables and a whole selection of sweetened, flavored coffee creamers. And a bouquet of flowers for her room. Then we went home to rest.

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