Mateless And Rogue Bound (Self Published)

Chapter 9: A Challenge for the Luna

"Hey Charlie!" Ian made him jump.

Charlie smiled at his old friend. It was their last day at their house, as the territory meetings were finally over. He was glad that he had been able to talk to him about what had happened in his past. He talked to Ben, Ian's mate, to try and clear some things up too. Thankfully, there was no hard feelings about how Ian and him acted when they first saw each other at Charlie's old job.

"Hey Ian," he said. "You got any plans for your last day here?"

"Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out for a bit, but," he looked at the papers that Charlie was holding in his arms. "It looks like you still have a lot of work ahead of you."

"How about tonight?" he suggested. Unfortunately, this paperwork really couldn't wait. "We could all go out to eat." He had learned quickly that it was best not to plan things for just the two of them. Both Ben and Max get extremely jealous and possessive of the both of them if they even tried.

It wasn't like Charlie was the one who had openly ignored his boyfriend as soon as he saw him. Thankfully Max was understanding. Charlie heard that the two of them had gotten into a fight because of it, though. Ian had told Max that he was just using Charlie, which hurt him to hear. It hurt Charlie just thinking that his friend would think that of Max.

The two of them had gotten over it for the most part, but there were still some problems between them.

"Yeah!" Ian agreed. "That sounds like a great idea. I'll invite Ben and Lenny."

"I'll see if Max wants to come," he knew that his love was going to say yes, no matter what. "And I'll ask Nick too. He's been super busy with work himself lately."

"Alright," he looked as happy as a child. "I'll leave you to all the paperwork. I know how annoying that can get."

"It's not annoying," he shook his head. "Just tedious. I can do it easily."

Ian had been the Harvest Moon Pack's step-in Luna while Lenny's mate was sick. She's doing better now, though Charlie hadn't been able to meet her yet. Ian still helps her from time to time.

"It seems like you're made for it," Ian said. "It took me forever to get used to all the paperwork."

"You were never good at paperwork."

"I'm so glad I don't have to do it anymore."

"Don't you still help Wynona? Isn't she still taking care of her newborn?"

"Yeah," he gave a sheepish smile. "But I don't have to do as much. Even if she only takes a little of the workload off, it helps tremendously."

Charlie knew how that felt. It was easy to do, but there was a lot of it when you had to care for and document a whole pack. They were roughly at the three hundred mark as far as the population of the pack went. He had tried his best to learn all of their names at least. It was difficult when there were that many people.

That's why he was glad that Isabelle, Tyler's wife, had offered to help. Unlike the Harvest Moon Pack, their pack had someone who worked as an assistant to the Luna. Isabelle loved paperwork and was desperately trying to get a job that was closer to her children, so Charlie gladly gave her the title. She had helped him tremendously, even when it came to answering questions or giving her own perspective on things.

And she was one of the people who actually liked him.

It wasn't like the pack hated him. Actually, they were all ecstatic when Max and him first took their positions. All of them talked about the great things that they were bound to do. But tensions rose when time started moving along. When they had to wait to do anything about the rogues, people were getting frustrated. And Charlie's position in those meetings posed a threat to them even getting accomplished.