And it had only been two days.
Time with a soulmate was strange.Everything seemed to be moving at light speed, but it also felt very right.
Seneca stirred next to her with a bearish grumble.
She turned over and snuggled closer, inhaling the rich, sweet scent of him that reminded her of moonlight and the forest.
“Morning,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
“I’m guessing it is,” she said.“Since we’re underground, it could be midnight or noon.”
He chuckled.“If it was midnight, we’d still be rolling in the throes of passion.”
“Good point.”
She tilted her face to smile at him, and he kissed her.They talked about the day ahead, which started off with breakfast in the house and then prepping for the lunch shift at the burger stall.
They made a simple breakfast of eggs and toast, and while he didn’t have any caramel sauce, he did have vanilla creamer he’d asked someone to bring over to the house—one more way he showed her that he was thinking about her.
Something so simple made her so very happy.
When breakfast was done and the kitchen was cleaned up, he surprised her once more with a set of work clothes that matched his: a blue polo with the park’s logo embroidered on the chest and a pair of khaki pants that he’d asked the wolf couple in the market to send over.She was touched by how all the shifters in the park were so helpful and welcoming.
After braiding her hair and securing it with a flower scrunchie that Dani had tucked into the gift bag she’d given her the day before, she and Seneca headed topside to the employee cafeteria and made their way to the commercial kitchen where other people were already working on prep for the day.Seneca introduced her to bear shifter Tayme and his mate Rory, who was a red fox.
Rory gave her a hug and said, “We run the ice cream stall.What’s your favorite ice cream?”
“Strawberry.”
“I love any fruit ice cream,” Rory said.“But then again, I love ice cream in general.It’s hard not to love it when I work with it every day with my mate.”
“I’m sure I’ll feel the same about burgers,” Sunny said.“Does the ice cream stall stay open year-round?”
“No, we pack it up in the fall once it gets chilly.Then we work inside over the winter, helping with prep and other stalls.Burgers stay open all year, though.”
“Fortunately, we have a covered stall that has a heater,” Seneca said.“Otherwise, I wouldn’t want to do it.No one wants to stand outside in January flipping burgers.”
“I can’t imagine you sell many burgers in the winter, though,” Sunny said.
“People are hungry,” he said with a shrug.“And we put up vinyl gazebos in the eating areas with heaters that offer some respite.But yeah, traffic goes down in the winter for sure since we don’t have much that’s indoors.”
Seneca pointed her to a whiteboard with all the burgers of the day for the month planned.
“Today is the pulled pork burger with sweet potato fries,” she read out loud.“What would you like me to do?”
Seneca looked down at her and smiled warmly.“I’m so glad you’re happy to work the burger stall with me.”They stared at each other, heat simmering between them, and then he cleared his throat as his cheeks darkened with blush and she grinned.“The pork has been slow cooking overnight, so I’ll deal with it.You can cut the sweet potatoes.”
“Aye aye, captain,” she said, giving him a saucy salute.
He shook his head with a chuckle and showed her where the bags of sweet potatoes were located in the pantry, and she got to work.The commercial kitchen hummed with activity as the morning wore on, and she got to meet several other bears.
By the time they made it out to the stall to get the fries going, it was nearly time to open, the park slowly filling with patrons.
“This is so cool,” she said as she put the first batch of fries in the air fryer.
“I’ll remember that when it’s snowing.”
“I’ll still like it,” she said, bumping his shoulder.“Because I’m with you.”
