One name could change Greyson McCarty’s entire life.

Genevieve. No last name was printed. Just her first name, and underneath the single word was another. Gorilla.

Greyson’s hands shook, so he squeezed the paper harder to steady them. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The Bangaboarlander matchmaking service he’d paid for was supposed to send him three options for a mate, with detailed information so he could decide if he wanted to meet any of them. And they were supposed to be doing the same with his information.

Greyson heaved a frustrated sigh and leaned back into the leather couch in his cabin. With an irritated flick of his wrist, he tossed the thick cardstock paper. It floated and spun until it settled on his coffee table. What a waste of paper and a stamp. Bangaboarlander could’ve just sent him a damn email with those two words.

Genevieve. Pretty name, but he’d asked for a panther, or at the very least a big cat shifter to match his animal. He might as well have burned two hundred bucks.

Gorilla. What was she doing looking for a mate on a shifter matchmaking site? She should be in some family group somewhere under a big silverback.

His door swung open, and Greyson winced against the saturated sunlight that streamed around Barret’s body. He had his hands on his hips and his pelvis thrust out.

“Your pants are unzipped, man,” Greyson muttered.

“I know. I’m leaving it like that on purpose so Eden gets the hint and sucks my d—”

“What do you want?”

“Uuuh, I was just trying to tell you I want Eden to suck my d—”

“Barret, get the fuck out. Please.”

“What’s that?” The obnoxious green-eyed giant pointed a finger at the paper on the coffee table.

Greyson lurched forward and wadded it up in a ball as fast as he could. “Nothing.”

“Genevieve. Gorilla.” Barret had the most annoying smile on his face right now. His pants were still definitely unzipped, and he was letting the flies in and the air out the open door.

“Get out or come in, but shut the door!”

Barret stepped inside and then donkey-kicked the door closed like a child. Greyson had never wanted to punch someone in the throat so badly.

“What do you want? And if you mention your dick, I’m going to kill you.” He could take Barret the Barbarian. The crew called him Murder Kitty, but they didn’t know Greyson. They thought they did, but no one really knew him.

“You haven’t paid us after the moonshine deliveries yet. Rent’s due on the garage, and I need the money.”

“Oh, shit. Okay, I’ll be right back.” Greyson rocked upward and tossed the wadded-up paper into the trash as he passed.

Down the hall in his room, he pulled open the lock box and counted out Barret’s cut. He’d totally forgotten about crew payments. That’s how messed up his head was right now. Before everyone started pairing up, he would’ve never missed a payment, but now all he could think about was finding a mate. He might not be ready, but his animal needed an anchor. He needed a female. He needed steady sex.

“Bangaboarlander dot com,” Barret said from the doorway to Greyson’s bedroom.

Fuck. With a soft growl, Greyson stood to face the crew idiot. “It was stupid, and it didn’t work. They didn’t find me a match.”

“Oh my God, you want a mate?” Barret yelled.

“Shhhhhut the fuck up!” Greyson whisper-screamed.

As if Greyson hadn’t heard him the first time, Barret turned super-freaking-annoying and mouthed it again. Oh my God, you want a mate?

“No.” Greyson frowned. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know! You all look so happy and I’m alone and it sucks being single this long and yeah, okay, I have to listen to you all having sex every night because you’re weird and loud and I want that sometimes.”

“Loud sex?” Barret’s face was all scrunched up and judgmental.

“No, not just that.” Greyson shrugged up one shoulder. “I kind of want everything.”

“So you went and got on Bangaboarlander? You know who runs that, right?”

“Yeah, Sebastian Kane of the Boarlanders.”

“False, mother fucker. Willamena Barns of the Gray Backs. Jaxon’s mom. The crazy one? She’s who you trusted with ‘matchmaker matchmaker make me a match…’” He sang the last part, the obnoxious troll.

“Well, no wonder I got a gorilla.” Biggest waste of time ever.

“Wait, whoa, Mr. Prejudice. What’s wrong with gorilla shifters? They’re badasses.”

“She’s not a panther.”

“So? Eden’s a falcon. Kaylee’s a lion. Jaxon’s a bear. Anson’s a puckered asshole.”

“Are you done?”

“My point is, this crew ain’t all panthers anymore. Look around you, Grey. We done mixed it up. It’s a fucking zoo in these mountains now. Ben probably doesn’t even cry himself to sleep anymore that we ruined his crew with other shifters. So she’s a gorilla. So what? The more important question...”

Taking him seriously, Greyson asked, “Yeah?”

“Is she hot, and are her tits size B or above?”

“God, I’m not having this conversation anymore,” Greyson muttered, brushing past him and out into the living room. He opened the front door and held out a wad of ten dollar bills as Barret meandered into the living room.

As he passed Greyson, Barret snatched the money out of his hand, but stopped right in front of him, too damn close for comfort. “Grey, I strongly dislike you.”

“Great.”

“Like, sometimes I imagine ways to kill you.”

“Fantastic.”

“But also, it would be awesome if you were less of a grumpy prick.”

“I literally hate where this is going.”

“So, I’m going to give you some advice.”

“Polite decline.”

“Meet the gorilla. See what she’s about before you decide against her. Give her lots of flowers. Girls love that shit. There’s like…two million daisies right outside the door. Be sweet and get her addicted to you. At least see why Willa thought you were a match.”

Huh. Barret was actually giving serious advice, and it was almost worth considering.

“And if nothing else, I’m sure gorilla shifters give great head.”

Sometimes Greyson imagined ways to kill Barret, too.

As he watched Barret jog down his porch stairs, whistling happily to himself as he counted his cut of the moonshine money, Greyson had this urge to see if Barret had been telling the truth. Was it really Willamena Barns running Bangaboarlander? That would explain the poor match and the lack of information. He’d heard about her before, and not just from Jaxon, her son. She was a wild one and Second of the Gray Back Crew.

He pulled his phone from his back pocket and dialed Jathan’s number. He was Jaxon’s twin and Willa’s other son.

“Lynn’s still alive,” Jathan answered. “You don’t have to call every day, you know. If Creed got close to putting her down, I would call you, just like I said I would. Your whole damn crew is driving me insane with the constant calling.”

“Is she improving at all?” he asked, ignoring Jathan’s little tirade.

“Fuck if I know. She won’t let anyone near her. She’s bled everyone in our damn crew, and yesterday, Creed Changed and tried to put her panther in her place, but Lynn exposed her neck and begged for a kill bite immediately. Creed damn-near lost it on her.” Jathan’s sigh blasted static across the line. “Look, we’re trying, but Ben’s not giving us enough time on this one. A month is too short, and she’s really far gone, man.”

“It ain’t over till it’s over,” Greyson murmured. God, he hoped Ben didn’t have to put Lynn down. The crew would be gutted if they lost a member like that. Hell, if he was honest, he would really hurt if Lynn was killed. It would damage his panther in ways he couldn’t understand or explain, but just thinking about her not being in his crew nearly gutted him. Every crew member was important to him, and Lynn had always been special. A little fragile, a little broken. She reminded him of a little bird that had broken it’s wing young, but even crippled, had still tried to learn to fly. Some shifters weren’t born strong enough for this life, and those were the ones that pulled at his protective instincts the most. “I have another question.”

“I have shit to do.”

“Your mom…”

“What about her?” Suspicion tainted Jathan’s voice.

“Does she run Bangaboarlander now?”

Jathan huffed a laugh. “Please tell me you didn’t try to get matched up with a mate on it.”

Heat flooded Greyson’s cheeks as he made his way to the trashcan. Thank God, Barret wasn’t here to see him blush like a schoolboy with a crush. “Look, I need to know if the match she set up is bullshit.”

Jathan’s sigh tapered into a growl. “Look, I want nothing to do with any of that. Love is a crock of crap, and matchmaking is stupid. But my mom is a sappy romantic, deep, deeeeeep down in her weird little soul, and so if she matched you up with someone, she probably had a reason. Now piss off, Grey, and tell the rest of your crew to stop calling me. Lynn is the same, just like every other day. Stop hovering and give us space to try and help her.”

When the line went dead, Greyson bent over, pulled the wadded-up paper from the trash, and uncrumpled it.

Barret and Jathan had both told him to give Genevieve a chance, and maybe there was something to that. He was curious…

But when Greyson imagined a lone, female gorilla trying to fit into this fucked-up crew of mostly big cat shifters, he shook his head and changed his mind. He couldn’t do that to a shifter who was used to a close-knit family group.

And back into the trash her information went.