He had plenty to do that day—meeting with Jillian and his maman to finalize plans for a “welcome boil” for the League employees, meeting with Theresa to plan further expansion of the “trailer village” of temporary League offices, plus holding a meeting with all of the locals renting property to the League employees about which amenities were guaranteed to those employees through their contracts. And to remind those locals that they were not allowed to shift into their magie form to intimidate the drole into not complaining about the lack of amenities. Those drole who could not rent their own places would be stacked like cord wood in the temporary housing trailers, so complaints would be given.

Zed had to walk a delicate line with the League. He had to give the League enough information and access to ensure that Mystic Bayou was provided the resources they were promised. Yet at the same time, he had to protect his citizens from being intruded upon and his town from getting overrun. And subtlety wasn’t exactly his strong suit. His campaign platform had been, “Let’s get shit done.” He’d put it on his campaign signs and everything. His maman had even threatened to endorse his cousin, just for the obscenity.

He figured that Jillian and her colleagues would not appreciate him canceling all the planning meetings to go back out to the maison de fous to keep working on the defunct shower, which was what he preferred to do, far above anything he had scheduled for that day.

Walking that line every damned weekday was stressing him out. As much as he loved taking care of the residents of Mystic Bayou, he’d felt buried in work lately. He wasn’t sure if it was the increase in town business or because he suddenly had more free time to fill with town business now that Bael was spending all his evenings with Jillian.

He tried not to be jealous or to begrudge the time Bael spent with his lady love. But watching the games alone in his man cave was getting kind of old. He actually had an excess of beer for the first time in his life.

There were times lately when he was lonely, though he thought that might have been sparked by seeing his long-time best friend matched so blissfully to a girl who was not only beautiful but funny as hell and scary-smart. Zed figured it wouldn’t be so bad to be paired up with somebody if she would just let Zed be, not try to polish him up to take home to her mama. Bears usually turned on those who tried to tame them.

So here he was, putting off his arrival at work by taking a few extra meandering roads, just to get some quiet time to himself. He figured it counted as that “self-care” thing Jillian was always talking about . . . and it was less destructive than day-drinking.