Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(52)

“And after I let you cry on my shoulder when these two were mean to you,” Max admonished Streep.

The front door opened and Charlie walked into Mads’s recently purchased house. Along with cash, Mads had given up one of her paintings to the former owners in order to secure the house. She didn’t mind. It had been worth it. She’d never had her own place before. She’d really only lived in the apartment above her great-grandmother’s store in Detroit. When she’d been forced to move back with her mother’s hyena clan, Mads hadn’t really lived with them. She was honey badger more than she’d ever been hyena, so she did what badgers do: She found small spaces to hide in. Sometimes in someone’s kitchen cabinet or under their bathroom sink or even under a couch. She avoided sleeping under strangers’ beds because she was too young to hear all that might be going on there. Then she’d met her teammates, and they invited her over to stay in their cabinets or under their sinks or under their couches. They were all honey badgers, too, which meant two things: their parents were unfazed to find a child badger sleeping in their cabinets; and all the honey badger parents hated hyenas anyway and didn’t blame the kid for not staying at her “official” home.

When Mads was finally old enough to move away from her mother, she rented an apartment for a while but didn’t really live there. Not after that time she’d come home to find a couple of the clan’s males standing outside, watching it. That’s when she went back to crashing in people’s cabinets. It was safer. Even if she had to break into a stranger’s house and risk arrest, it was safer than dealing with her mother and the rest of the Galendotter Hyena Clan.

When Charlie closed the front door behind her, Mads heard the coyote that had taken up residence in her house suddenly charge across the bedroom he had been sleeping in and race down to the first floor. He had already confronted her teammates, and that had worked out fine. Max had simply smiled at the wild animal, sending it fleeing deep into the house. It was disturbing but nothing they hadn’t seen before when it came to Max.

But Mads didn’t think Charlie had dealt with the coyote yet and she didn’t want anyone hurt. The coyote could be mean. Charlie could be meaner. As it was, Finn kind of hated the little guy. Then again, he wasn’t really a dog fan. “They just look dumb to me,” he’d say when he saw one of Charlie’s dogs running around her backyard.

Mads walked over to Charlie, planning to step in front of her to block the coyote from getting close. But the little bastard used Mads as a ladder, jumping at her and climbing up and over Mads’s shoulder before launching himself into Charlie’s arms.

“Hello, you!” Charlie greeted the coyote. Mads watched Charlie rub her nose against the canine’s muzzle before she allowed it to lick her face like she’d just come back from war. That was something even Mads didn’t let the animal do. It was gross. She knew where that tongue had been. Mads only allowed the animal to roam around her property because he kept the place clean of vermin and it was funny to watch Finn argue with a wild beast as if he expected it to reply in full sentences.

After a lot of kissing and cuddling, Charlie finally placed the coyote on the ground and walked over to the rest of the team, flopping down in one of the stuffed chairs near the big couch.

Charlie briefly studied the chair before letting her gaze roam around the room. “Nice job with the furniture, Mads.”

Before Mads could say anything, Nelle replied, “Thank you.”

“I never asked you to decorate my house,” Mads reminded her teammate.

“You weren’t going to do it,” Nelle shot back. “And none of us wanted to have these kinds of discussions while sitting on a hard, unclean floor.”

“How do you know my floor is unclean?”

“Have you cleaned it?”

“I haven’t had time—”

“That’s why I also got you a cleaning service.”

Mads walked back over to where her teammates were sitting and gawked at Nelle. “You got me a cleaning service?”

“Yes. They’ll come by once a week. Clean the place and keep your refrigerator stocked after throwing out anything that’s expired. It’s a very good service.”

“How will they get in my house?”

Nelle frowned. “They have keys.”

“There are strangers with keys to my house?”

“If we don’t want to be sitting in coyote filth . . . yes.”

Mads started toward Nelle—you know, to beat some sense into her—but Tock grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the couch beside her.

“Leave it,” Tock told her.

“But—”

“Leave it. You know Nelle fights dirty.”

“All while looking amazing in these shoes,” Nelle added, holding one long leg out so they could all witness her ridiculously high “whore shoes” as Mads liked to call them. Whore shoes that cost at least five figures per pair.

The coyote jumped into Charlie’s lap, climbed onto her shoulders, and curled himself around the back of her neck. He looked like a large fox stole except he was glaring at all the other badgers in warning.

With the coyote now situated, Charlie leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, clasping her hands in front of her.

“So,” she began, “how are we all doing? After what happened with Tock.”