Excerpt from Giovanni Joins The Werewolves

“Dude, stop smelling the garbage!”

Giovanni, whose head hovered suspiciously near the lifted lid of the garbage can, snapped upright and glared at his roommate.

“I am not smelling the garbage,” he snarled through gritted teeth, but his fierce glare didn’t deter the other man.

Jeremy just grinned at him. “You were so smelling the garbage. I was a dog. I know all about the garbage.”

Giovanni held up the soggy filter of used coffee grounds that he held in one hand and made a point of throwing them into the garbage can before turning away in something suspiciously close to a huff. Behind him, he heard Jeremy snicker, but didn’t respond.

“You could be more helpful to Gio since you’ve been through what he’s experiencing.” Matias entered the kitchen, setting Giovanni gently aside, and headed to the refrigerator.

Jeremy pushed off the doorjamb, his face somber, but his eyes still laughed. “I am. Didn’t I tell you to stop drinking coffee? Dogs can’t drink it, you just end up throwing it away, and then you’re not avoiding the garbage anymore. Didn’t we talk about avoiding the garbage, hmmm?”

His mouth twisting, Giovanni tried not to laugh, but Jeremy’s good humor was infectious. He had to turn away to hide his grin and retorted, “I made coffee for everyone, including you two, even if one of you did turn me into a werewolf.”

“Thank God.” Matias pulled out the milk carton, snagged a mug, and staggered out of the kitchen to the dining room.

“Well technically…” Jeremy started, following Matias to the table, but the sharp bang of the slamming door cut off his words.

Giovanni grinned to himself and picked up the plate of antipasto he’d pulled together. It was kind of nice, he reflected, to have a group of people to come home to who could be counted on to well, rib him mostly. Kind of like his family back in New Jersey.

“The hours are tough,” Huntington was saying as Giovanni entered the dining room, “but at least mine are fairly regular. I don’t know how you EMTs can sleep, changing shifts all the time.”

“I don’t know,” Matias answered. “I like the variety. Just working with kids or emergencies or pregnant ladies would get old, I think. Though we do get some weird stuff.” He stopped to take a long sip of his coffee and then doctored it some more with sugar.

“Well, don’t keep us hanging.” Jeremy shoved at Matias’ arm. “What weird stuff?”

Matias clutched his coffee to keep it from spilling and made a show of rubbing his arm. “Well, today we kept getting crank calls. Someone kept calling and asking if we had any recent medical school graduates from Florida working there.”

Jeremy’s brow puckered in confusion. “I don’t get it. How is that funny?”

Giovanni concurred. It wasn’t that funny.

“I don’t think it’s a joke exactly. It was just funny because whoever it was called every firehouse in the city.”

Jeremy lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “That’s weird. Unless they were afraid of Zika or something. Can you have a phobia about Florida?”

Matias laughed. “I guess. But that’s an awful lot of firehouses to call and whoever it was described you exactly, right down to the topknot. Or up as the case may be.

Huntington maintained his wide-eyed gaze, but self-consciously reached up to check his man bun. “Why would anyone be hunting me?”

“Don’t know.” Matias blew across the top of his coffee cup, then caught and held Huntington’s gaze. “If there’s something going on, maybe you should tell us.”