Chapter 13
13
“It’s enormous,” Alex complained the second she saw the F-150 Raptor he’d rented parked in her driveway on Wednesday night.
Devin could tell that was a milder descriptor than the one she wanted to use.
“Exactly.” He smacked the hood cheerfully. “We want people to notice us hanging out at the town council meeting, right? To win you some points in the court of public opinion. That’s the whole idea.”
Alex grumbled under her breath and ignored his attempt to help her up into the passenger seat.
He found himself staring at her smooth, pale calves as she tried to hitch herself in. The knee-length black dress she had on revealed the most skin she’d shown since they met. She looked nice. Even if she was ruining the dress’s softening effect by pairing it with the scariest pair of dick-stomping boots he’d ever seen.
With her hands full of a Tupperware of muffins labeled VEGAN in big block letters, plus the ugly knit bag strapped across her torso making her lean dangerously, Devin ended up having to grab her elbow anyway to save her from eating shit in her own driveway.
He would blame admiring her legs on the wolf if he could. But he was starting to register those impulses. It was like his thoughts were keys on a piano and the wolf’s always came from the bottom register. They were part of him but bolder, simpler.
The wolf didn’t understand that objectifying people was bad. Rules and rationality meant nothing to him. He released Devin’s most primal responses from wherever his subconscious had previously held them hostage.
Good thing Devin was aces at repression. When he was growing up, it was the name of the game. Not just so he could wear the face of a character, but because his survival in the industry demanded that he be docile. He wasn’t talented enough to be difficult. Especially when he was a child actor, his parents and colleagues had expected him to rein in his needs and emotions. To be professional even through puberty.
Devin had played keep-away between himself and what he really wanted for so long that having all these impulses suddenly unleashed felt both reckless and fun. Everything was lower stakes tonight. The moon was only at eight percent illumination. The angry hive of bees in his brain had faded to a low whirr.
Devin could finally relax, knowing his chances of transforming tonight were almost nil. Which, thank god, because Alex was squirming out of her skin next to him: smoothing her skirt, crossing and uncrossing her legs, flipping down the visor twice to check her teeth. But it was okay. Devin could be the one in charge this time, helping her navigate her own version of being the thing people feared in the night.
“Wanna guess the horsepower on this thing?” He smacked the wheel, giving her the layup on purpose.
Hook, line, and sinker, Alex launched into a lecture about the environmental impact of the truck’s fuel consumption. She really worked herself up, even got a little pink in the cheeks, totally forgetting her nerves.
Good thing he’d offered to be her fake friend. She clearly needed one.
By the time they walked through the front doors of Tompkins Middle School, Devin felt optimistic. Normally when he wanted to go incognito around normos he wore a uniform of jeans, dark T-shirt, and baseball cap, but for tonight he’d opted for a slick western-style button-up that brought out the dark green in his eyes and slacks that said, I respect civil service , while still being tight enough to give people a thrill.
He’d even trimmed his beard so everyone could get a good look at the moneymaker.
The lobby of the middle school was dingier than the ones he’d filmed in, with cracks in the tile floor and one of the lights over the receptionist desk burned out. Someone had set up high-top tables in the lobby, and a crowd of what must have been more than fifty people formed little pods, clucking at one another, catching up with neighbors, glomming around those with perceived power.
It wasn’t that different from Hollywood parties, only everyone here dressed worse and there was no booze. Most people seemed to be moseying around with small plastic cups of juice and toothpick-pierced cheese cubes.
“Are we here early?” A sign on the wall said the actual meeting would take place in the auditorium at seven p.m.
Alex set up her muffins on one of the open tables. “This is the part where everyone plays politician, trying to secure support for whatever they’re going to propose. Basically, it’s thirty minutes of gossip and snacks.”
The crowd filled out further, but as Devin had predicted, Alex’s muffins went untouched. A few people came over to look at them with interest, but the vegan label might as well have read formaldehyde-laced given the way they immediately pivoted after clocking the block letters.
Alex, standing stalwart behind her lemon–poppy seed children, might as well have been a potted fern for all the attention people paid her.
“We could take off the label,” Devin suggested.
“No,” she said vehemently. “These are the only vegan-friendly option here. Do you know how often I show up to an event and the only thing I can eat is ice?”
Devin could not say that he did. So he shut up.
A few men came over wanting to talk to him about his truck—“That your Raptor out there? Cool, man. I got the King Ranch”—and then a pack of older women wanted to know if Devin was single “for their college-aged daughters.”
“Yeah, but I’m not opposed to MILFs either,” he told them, to a round of pleased titters and Alex elbowing him in the ribs.
“I thought you were here to help me fit in,” she said when her scowling scared the old biddies away.
“I am. That MILF thing was a conversation starter. I know you’ve got Gillian Anderson in a silk shirt as your phone lock screen.”
Alex’s first instinct was to tell him to fuck off—he could tell by the way she snapped her head around and opened her mouth—but then she seemed to remember she needed him.
“I can’t just say whatever I want and assume that it’ll be met with approval.” Her voice came out pitched with forced calm. “Even if not all of these people recognize you’re famous, I don’t look like a fucking cowboy on the cover of a romance novel.”
Pure pleasure exploded in his chest.
“You think I’m handsome.” It wasn’t as if he hadn’t suspected as much, but man did he still like hearing it. “Rugged.” He fingered the pearl buttons on his shirt. “I can go one lower if you want.”
“Focus, Narcissus,” Alex said, but not before her eyes flicked down to the glimpse of clavicle he’d revealed.
“Okay, not to mansplain, but you seriously gotta relax. Outside of straight-up flipping everyone in the room the bird, you’ve got the least inviting body language of anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Alex stared down at her own arms folded across her chest, and Devin resisted the impulse to press his thumb to the divot between her furrowed brows.
She tried putting her hands on her hips…
“Nope, now you look like a prison guard.”
…and then let them hang limply at her sides while morphing her facial expression into something placid.
“A prison guard on poppers.”
Devin had never met someone so bad at acting like a human.
“We’re just gonna grab a little fresh air,” he announced to no one in particular and then directed her toward a side door.
“Okay, shake it off,” he said once they’d escaped out into the muggy dusk of the parking lot.
Alex wrinkled her nose, which had the surprisingly charming impact of making her nose ring glint in the low light.
“Shake what off?”
“Whatever’s going on in your head that’s making you all stiff and scowly.”
“My personality?” she said helplessly.
Yeah, quips aside, Devin didn’t actually buy that. He’d seen her in there, scared out of her skin.
“You know, disaffection only works if you don’t care about anything.”
He looked at her, really looked at her, maybe for the first time since they’d met. It wasn’t just her body language keeping the world at bay. So much of Alex, from the hair to the makeup to the nose ring to the tattoos to the clothes, had so clearly been chosen to close her off from all the WASPs around here.
It was funny, not in a ha-ha way, how much effort she’d put into making herself fit the mold of a misfit—when if he dropped her in Silver Lake, no one would bat an eye. Everything about her was daring someone to say something.
Those guys hassling her in the parking lot at the bar took on new meaning. What he’d assumed was a one-off occurrence—a shitty booze-fueled fluke—he now realized likely wasn’t.
Alex and her father had literally lived on the periphery of this small, tight-knit community, never quite earning acceptance for most of her life. She must be exhausted, constantly walking around spoiling for a fight.
It made sense that now, when she needed to, Alex couldn’t undo a lifetime of conditioning. She was completely clueless about how to make people she didn’t like, like her.
“Okay, first things first,” Devin said. “You gotta convey approachability. Try lowering your shoulders.”
Alex rolled them up and then back into the same exact position, succeeding in little beyond making her tits move.
There was nothing for it; he’d have to show her.
“Can I, like, touch you?” Devin figured it was best to employ intimacy coordinator guidelines for explicit consent at the moment, given that so far this evening neither of them had acknowledged he’d had his bare dick wedged against her ass for medical purposes twenty-four hours ago.
“Just your arms,” he clarified. All the actors he knew were super tactile, always in each other’s space. Acting was a physical art form. He didn’t know how to explain what he meant in words.
“Okay,” Alex said, looking a little pale at the prospect.
It was on the tip of Devin’s tongue to tell her people literally paid for the privilege of touching him at cons. But instead, he gripped her upper arms, not too tightly but firm enough that he could use the hold to direct her body into motion. In a warm-up exercise straight out of the first shitty acting workshop he’d enrolled in at nineteen, Devin bent his knees and rocked them both until they could move together in a kind of shimmy.
Even as her body fell into the rhythm, Alex’s face contorted into a painful expression.
“You can laugh,” he said. It might help.
She did, the sound harsh at first, punched out, before flowing into something lighter, sweeter.
“I feel goofy.”
“You look it,” Devin assured her. “Like a rag doll from Hot Topic.”
That only made her laugh harder.
The skin of her bare upper arms was soft and warm under his hands. The wolf thought this was playing. Devin felt a sudden urge to nip at her neck, to nudge her ass with his— Okay, nope, that’s enough touching.
He stepped back suddenly.
Alex looked marginally more relaxed at least; blood flow must have returned to her previously clenched limbs. With her face flushed, her lips bitten pink, her beauty was striking, a sock to his solar plexus.
“All right,” he said, his voice rough in ways he refused to examine. “Now we’re gonna go back in there, and this time you need to go up to people and show them you’re friendly.”
“How?” The breeze blew a strand of Alex’s midnight hair into her mouth. “I’m bad at small talk,” she said, whiny in a way that made the wolf suggest nipping her again.
Devin really needed to figure out a better filtering system, now that he’d opened the gate to these weird impulses.
“Just ask people about their lives.”
“I don’t care about their lives.” She wrapped her arms around herself and glared at the door. “I hate them.”
“Yeah,” Devin said between his teeth, trying to maintain his red-carpet smile as a man in a tie got out of his car and walked toward them. “That’s your problem. They can tell. ”
That took Alex aback somehow.
“Fuck,” she said very softly, pressing her hand to her throat.
Devin got it, he really did. These people weren’t vapid in the same way as Hollywood, but they clearly traded on status and wealth. Two things Alex didn’t have.
“You don’t have to give them everything. I’m not asking you to make friends. Most people want a blank canvas to project onto. Soften yourself just enough to make them consider your cause.”
Alex narrowed her eyes at him. “You sure know a lot about people for someone who claims to not have any real friends.”
“Gaining approval is my livelihood. It’s a different skill set. I’ve had it ingrained in me since childhood: be whatever they want. To actually get close to people, I’m pretty sure you have to show them all your gross weakness and stuff.” Devin made a face at the idea.
“The mask slips,” Alex said, almost to herself.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She dropped her gaze to the pavement. “That was unexpectedly profound.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t worry, I won’t let it happen again.” He nudged her shoulder gently. “You ready to get back out there?”
“No,” she said, but then took a deep breath and led him back inside.
Devin grabbed them two cups of lemonade off the reception desk. He could tell from the smell that the neon-yellow liquid would be sickeningly sweet, but whatever, they needed props. He was getting slightly more used to Alex’s own scent untainted by cleaning chemicals. It was easier not to drool all over her when there were other people around, competing for his sensory attention.
“Okay, let’s try letting people see us talking.” As subtly as possible, Devin nudged Alex with his knee until she entered a pose that passably resembled someone casually leaning against the desk, then moved so he faced her with his back to the crowd.
“Pretend to tell me a joke or something.”
“Knock-knock,” Alex said woodenly.
“Try harder,” Devin said between his smile.
She took a tiny sip of the lemonade.
“What do you call an out-of-work actor with a receding hairline?”
Devin ignored the obviously false jab—he had amazing hair, thicker than hers—and focused on trying to tune his sense of hearing to eavesdrop.
It was harder with the moon this dim. He had to strain himself to extend the range of his hearing beyond those directly beside them.
He didn’t get much of note.
“…heard he’s sleeping with his dental hygienist.”
“I need a new accountant or a new lawyer. I can’t tell which yet, but I’ll let you know.”
“Every time Marcy picks the Book of the Month, I end up crying.”
“Isn’t that guy over there famous?”
“Do you think that Lawson girl is paying him? Like as an escort?”
“She’d have to.”
“Aw, man. Come on. Haven’t you ever wondered if she’s got anything pierced below her neck?”
“Devin.” Alex grabbed the front of his shirt, whispering urgently in his ear. “You’re growling.”
“What?” He stopped staring at the group of guys to their right long enough to look down at her and realized the low vibration in his ears was coming from inside his chest.
Shit. He didn’t actually know how to stop it. The wolf was pissed at the disgusting display of disrespect. A wave of animal possessiveness surged through Devin’s gut. Apparently eight percent illumination wasn’t enough to fully dilute his desire to rip those dudes’ throats out with his teeth.
Alex, seemingly at a loss, ran her fingernails gently down the hair at the nape of Devin’s neck, a sort of soothing scritch, until the noise in his throat changed register, turned into something softer, needier—not exactly a better option.
Luckily, someone shouted out a five-minute warning for the meeting, and the crowd narrowed into the auditorium.
As soon as they took seats near the front, Alex’s knee started bobbing.
Devin used to get like that before auditions sometimes, all the nervous energy in his body desperate for somewhere to go. If he knew her better, if they were actually friends, he’d have put his hand over her kneecap to try and settle her. Letting her know he was there. That she wasn’t in this alone. But given the whole inconvenient-erection fiasco, Devin figured he should avoid any and all overtures that might be mistaken for solicitation.
An older Latino man took the stage and asked everyone still standing to find a seat; they’d be starting soon.
Alex rifled around in her hideous purse, pulled out a big pile of turquoise pamphlets, and then started counting them.
Devin snagged one off her lap, curious. But then he flipped it over and whoa . She’d covered the paper in tiny, barely legible type. His eyes glazed over. This thing was a goddamn treatise, outlining her “save the community center proposition” with no less than nineteen bullet points.
“Alex.” Devin spoke out of the corner of his mouth, trying to avoid the middle-aged ladies behind them who had leaned forward, blatantly looking to eavesdrop. “This is too much,” he said, not without some pity. “Can’t you just pass around pictures of old people smiling or cute kids or something?” On second thought: “Maybe that’s not cool unless you get permission from a parent or guardian. I don’t know anything about children.”
Alex shoved the stack of pamphlets into her bag and then fell back in her chair, shoulders slumped. “I know I’m trying too hard, but it’s a community center that supports marginalized people in a rich, conservative pocket of Florida. I need to prepare for any kind of opposition, no matter how unfounded.”
Devin felt bad. She looked all deflated and pathetic.
“It’s admirable,” he said, “what you’re doing.” Not to him exactly, but to someone, surely. “You’re obviously real passionate about giving old folks and poor people and queer kids and stuff a nice, safe place to go. Where they can feel like they belong.” He repeated back one of her bullets that had actually made sense. “And clearly ”—Devin touched a toe to the bulging bag at her feet, where flyers now stuck out haphazardly—“you put in the legwork. Even snobs like these people should appreciate your hustle.”
“Yeah?” Under the pound of eyeliner, she looked fragile.
“Yeah,” Devin said, and found that he meant it.
Alex nodded in acknowledgment of his praise and then sat up a little straighter. Like he’d helped.
The town hall meeting itself was pretty fucking boring. Lots of pointless procedure and fifteen whole minutes spent debating whether or not they should install a new water fountain downtown. What kind of jerk voted against water?
Since he knew he still had curious eyes on him and he didn’t want to make Alex look bad, Devin worked to pay attention, using the active-listening face he’d perfected for whenever Colby got case briefings on TAF . Still, his eyelids had started to droop, despite his best efforts. When it finally came time for Alex to speak, he shook himself as she gathered her note cards.
Holy shit, she’d gone pale, even more than normal.
As her fake friend, Devin had to do something.
He leaned over.
“You got this, champ.” It was what his agent used to say to him before a big call, back when he had an agent.
Alex gave him a bemused half smile, but she looked slightly rosier as she got to her feet.
“Hello,” she said, after taking the mic on stage. “I’m Alex Lawson, and I’m here tonight on behalf of the Tompkins Community Center. I run our volunteer fundraising committee and I’d like to, once again, invite any individuals or local businesses to consider supporting our nonprofit work through a onetime donation or seasonal sponsorship,” Alex began in a rote, memorized cadence that made her sound like C-3PO.
“The community center is a hub of social, recreational, and educational programming, especially for underserved communities in our area.”
Devin winced as she fiddled with her note cards, redirecting attention from her mouth to her hands.
A pair of guys in the back started chatting about last night’s basketball game, not even bothering to lower their voices.
Devin turned to glare. But then, while he had his back to them, a cluster of women to his left started whispering behind their hands, making rude comments about Alex’s nose ring.
Had people always been this garbage and he’d only now noticed because of his enhanced werewolf ears? Or did this town in particular attract assholes?
At least what Alex had to say was interesting, outlining the community center’s programming and dedicated membership. Plus, there was conviction in her words, which was more than Devin could say for the rest of these chuckleheads.
He needed to do something.
Rising out of his seat, he projected from his diaphragm. “I’d like to make a donation.”
Alex stared at him. “You would?”
“Yeah.” He smiled first at her and then at the gaping audience. “I just got into town from LA,” he said and winked at an old lady up front. “But I can already tell the TCC provides really special and essential services for Tompkins. So, uh, yeah, put me down for”—what was reasonable?—“five hundred K? Do you need me to go get one of those big checks?”
“Holy shit,” Alex whispered, but the sound carried through the mic.
Devin hadn’t intended to set off a kind of cascade, but it must have seemed like a cool thing to do, donating after he did. Because some car dealership guy jumped in on it. Then a lady from the local real estate firm.
It wasn’t everyone. Some folks still gave Alex the stink eye as she came back to her seat, but she didn’t seem to notice.
She spent the whole car ride home telling him in painstaking detail all about the programs and people he was supporting. Glassblowing and fiber arts, Krav Maga and affordable childcare.
Devin literally grew up with people taking money from him, but it turned out that giving it away felt different.
His insides went all warm and gooey, like a half-baked cookie.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Alex said, when he pulled up to drop her off outside her dad’s garage.
He raised a single shoulder. “It’s just money.”
“No. It’s not. Not to me,” Alex said softly. There was something new in her scent, a flavor of fondness that Devin didn’t recognize.
He felt like blushing. Thank god they were sitting in shadow.
“Yeah, well, don’t go thinking I donated just because we’re fake friends.” He pulled one of the pamphlets out of his back pocket and flapped it at her. “Because I’m super passionate about seniors’ pickleball. I can’t get enough of those old guys running around with sweaty jocks.” He flipped open the pamphlet and chose a word at random. “And Zumba? Don’t get me started on Zumba. Did you know the health benefits start at—”
Alex cut him off by pressing her lips to his cheek, just for a second.
Devin stopped breathing.
He’d been thinking about her so much; there was nothing else to do in this town.
“Alex—” He didn’t know what to say.
“Thank you,” she whispered and then hopped out, taking the still-full container of vegan muffins with her.
Devin drove down the block before he pulled over and pressed his hand against his cheek.
His heart beat like the wings of a hummingbird. He felt like a virgin .
Was kissing someone on the cheek a friendly brush-off or, like, an invitation to physical intimacy?
There had been a degree of safety knowing that she was the one who wouldn’t let anything happen between them. If Devin was suddenly responsible for keeping them from ruining their professional relationship by fucking…Shit, they were totally gonna ruin their professional relationship by fucking.