Chapter 17
17
Devin deserved a fucking medal. He’d followed a “moral compass” for the first time in his life last night and—heads up—it sucked ass. Not only did he go home with a lethal-level case of blue balls, but then he got up the next day to do community service. The worst part was, he wasn’t even mad.
He caught himself humming on his way to the community center. At first he thought it was just because the truck was still sexy as hell. But no. He was excited. Like he had bugs in his stomach or whatever, just because he got to see this place Alex cared about so much.
It was probably because she was discerning, hard to win over. She didn’t get worked up over just anything. But also, it was nice to have plans for one night that didn’t revolve around trying to keep the monster inside him at bay.
The closer he got to the address in his GPS, the sweatier his hands felt on the steering wheel. He would have wiped them off on his pants, but they were linen. For no particular reason. It wasn’t because today was a no-scrubs day.
Devin liked Alex in scrubs. They had a lot of engineering advantages. Elastic waistband for easy access (up until now this only factored in his imagination, but considering recent developments he felt it was still worth noting). No back pockets obstructing his view. But no-scrubs day meant he might get to see more of Alex’s tattoos.
He’d been so distracted last night he hadn’t even gotten it together long enough to unzip her sweatshirt. He shook his head. Rookie mistake.
He didn’t have to wait long to be disappointed. Almost as soon as he walked through the double front doors, Alex made a beeline for him. God, she was wearing loose fucking cargo pants and a ratty Joni Mitchell T-shirt and he still wanted to pin her down and lick her neck. Unbelievable.
Devin gave her his best panty-melting grin until he clocked the harried expression on her face plus the turquoise-haired teenager at her side. He quickly rearranged his features into something less lecherous.
“Devin, this is my friend Rowen.” She gestured at the teen in the sick distressed leather jacket with a neon pin that read they/them .
“Rowen, this is Devin Ashwood, and he’d love to help you check in guests and pass out their bingo cards.”
“Uhh…I would?” He thought his appearance here tonight was an act of service in and of itself.
“Yes,” Alex said firmly, “because thanks to your very generous donation last week, we have triple the turnout we were expecting and not enough volunteers.”
“Oh.” You’d think giving away a bunch of money would make people nicer to you.
Alex rushed off, abandoning him to spontaneous labor.
“You think she’s avoiding me because she likes me?” he asked Rowen, watching her go.
They shrugged. “I don’t pretend to understand the mating rituals of millennials.”
“I’m actually Gen X.”
Rowen stared at him blankly. “Never heard of it.”
They led Devin to a big open gymnasium space with one of those old-school wooden podiums by the door. There, they showed him how to check people’s tickets and find their corresponding table on the floor from the array of matching brown folding ones set up in long rows.
“I like your pin,” he said, by way of making conversation. “Did you make it yourself?”
Rowen looked up from the seating chart. “Alex got it for me. I usually only wear it in places where I feel safe, like here or band practice, but a few of my friends have made their own now, so sometimes we wear them at school. It’s easier when more people wear them.”
“Oh yeah?” Using a Post-it and a paper clip, Devin fashioned himself a he/him pin to match Rowen’s.
“Is this okay?” he asked, sticking it to his shirt through a buttonhole.
The teen nodded, smiling a little at his shitty handwriting before returning to their work.
Looking around, Devin could see, weirdly, why people liked this place. It was kinda dated—with orangey seventies hardwood floors and a ceiling made of those soft porous-looking square panels—but it was obviously well loved. Someone had hand-painted a mural on all four walls.
It might have been Ocala Forest, but instead of using dark greens and browns and grays—the colors Devin would have chosen—the artist had mostly worked in shades of blue and violet; soft, warm corals; and minty greens. On one side, a massive violet black bear climbed a tree so large the leaves bled onto the ceiling.
The wolf loved it. The art—like most things, to be fair—made him want to run, to feel the wind in his face. Devin found himself agreeing with his wild side more and more. Having these impulses fed to him was almost like having a creative collaborator—he got bursts of inspiration, feedback to his ideas. It reminded him a little of being on set. Only unlike the writers room, the wolf often approved of what Devin suggested.
Alex had definitely been right: suppression actively made his condition worse. Right after the first change, the wolf constantly barreled against Devin’s mind, trying to get out, to get through. Since he’d added daily yoga and meditation into his morning routine, the early onslaught of impulses had faded, even as the full moon approached. Now the wolf mostly only showed up when coaxed. Devin almost felt comfortable in his own skin again. Like the wolf had settled. Made himself at home.
Devin still worried about the risks of shifting at the wrong time, and the prospect of the physical changes promised by the full moon hung, no pun intended, over his head. But he’d gotten so much better at controlling himself. Well, mostly. He’d worked himself into a sore jaw last night. He smirked. Worth it.
Rowen flipped a pen back and forth across their knuckles while they waited for the first attendees to arrive.
“So what’s your deal?” They looked up at him from behind their bangs. “It’s pretty random that you’d come to Tompkins for a month to prepare for a role.”
Devin tugged at the collar of his shirt. The local dry cleaner must have used starch. “Well, you know, this place has a lot to offer.”
“Like…” Rowen raised their eyebrows.
He looked frantically out the window and saw one of those ridiculous yellow Hooves Crossing signs.
“…Horses.”
“Horses,” they repeated skeptically. “You been spending a lot of time at the track?”
“Well, no.” Man, this kid was making him sweat. “But I have been kinda bonding with this older horse, Lou, at Alex’s vet.”
“Oh.” Rowen stopped spinning the pen. “Is your next project something to do with rehabbing former racehorses? Because we could really use more awareness about how many of them get discarded by the system.”
Damn. Now, there was a good cover story. Specific with a heartstrings-tugging hook. He should have used that from the beginning. Rowen was a genius.
“Uh, yeah,” Devin said, guilt gnawing a little on his vocal cords. “That’s exactly right.” Lou wouldn’t mind covering for him.
The idea that Devin might somehow help Tompkins’s abandoned horse population made Rowen warm to him. They even said they thought Colby was “an early aughts bisexual icon.”
It just made sense, once people started flooding in for bingo, for Devin to keep up the same cover story when locals tried to make small talk. He was surprised to find he was good at volunteering, at least the chitchatting portion. Obviously being a celebrity smoothed the way. It made people want to talk to him.
The residents of Tompkins seemed to relish this clearly delineated window where they could ask what he was doing in town, especially after his antics at the fair.
There was an easy assumption that he was interested in horse racing. Apparently quite a few Hollywood types had brought their cash to Tompkins over the years to try to invest or go big on a bet. As Devin checked tickets, passed out cards, and escorted little old ladies to their tables, his retired racehorse rescue story grew in detail like a massive ball of yarn.
By the time they rang the bell for the first game to start, he’d concocted a whole saga about his plans to buy farmland and set up an equine therapy program. People kept slapping his back and patting his arm and generally telling him what a welcome addition he was to town. They called him a “great guy” and thanked him for using his money and influence to do “such important work.”
A lady who apparently worked on one of the local farms offered to cut him a deal on feed, and another couple gave him a card, said to call when he started looking for ranch hands.
Devin’s throat got tight for a little while at the idea of being a contributing member of society beyond entertainment. In a pollen-allergy kinda way.
So what if he kinda wanted to play this new role, Devin Ashwood With Good Intentions? Sure, it was gonna be shitty when he went back to LA and they all found out he was just another rich asshole blowing smoke, but that was still a week away.
“You’re pretty good at service work for a celebrity,” Isaac Lawson said, coming to stand next to him at one point between rounds.
“Thanks.” Devin shoved his hands into his pockets. “I did a stint in my twenties as one of those shirtless guys standing outside Abercrombie she’d been stirring so hard she’d splashed juice in a macabre spatter across the front of her flannel.
“His name’s Taylor Chapman.” Alex noticed the damage spilled down her front—“Shit!”—and grabbed a rag. “He’s this guy from Tampa I slept with a few times,” she hissed.
“ You slept with that guy ?!” Devin supposed he was sort of handsome. In a Brooks Brothers kinda way. “He looks like he was breastfed until he was five.”
“Oh my god.” Alex slapped him on the arm.
“Here.” He unbuttoned and shrugged out of his denim overshirt. “You can put this on.”
Alex stared at him like he’d stripped off and started whirling the thing like a lasso over his head.
“I can’t wear your shirt.”
“Why?”
She lowered her voice. “It’s intimate.”
Was she fucking kidding?
“Alex, I had your come dripping down my chin, like, twelve hours ago.”
“That’s different.” She covered his mouth with her palm, which, yeah, did not have the impact she thought it would. He took a big slutty inhale and then had to stop so he didn’t go half-chub within ten feet of a bunch of grandmas.
Different how? Like he was good enough for sex but not some small gesture of familiarity?
“You’re being unreasonable.” He gestured to her chest—er, to the splotch—and felt his ears heat. “You look like you stabbed someone.”
That much was true, but it wasn’t the whole story. The wolf, poor confused bastard, mistakenly saw Taylor Chapman and his boat shoes as a threat. It would be best, he suggested, if Alex wore the protection of Devin’s scent. So, whatever, they could kill two birds with one stone.
Alex peered down at the mess and then out of the corner of her eye at Captain Yacht Club and then sighed.
“Fine.”
Devin stepped behind her, holding out the shirt like a jacket for her to slip into.
“What are you doing?” Alex tried to talk out of the side of her mouth. “I don’t need you to put it on me.”
This communication choice was completely ineffective as far as making their conversation incognito. In fact, it had the opposite impact, drawing attention to her lips, which, yeah, there weren’t enough grandmas in the world; he was gonna have a situation.
“I’m being nice .” Also, his wolf had some possessive instincts Devin was going to have to work on when he got back to the hotel.
Alex looked over her shoulder at the shirt, then at Devin’s face.
“Are you trying to scent me?”
“What? No. You are. ” Shit. Why did she have to know so much about werewolves?
“Give me that.” She tugged the shirt out of his hands, gently, and put it on.
His dick thought the mingling of his scent and hers in public was—uh, Something. When Alex turned back to the punch, Devin gripped the edge of the table and didn’t stop until he heard the metal legs groan.
“Hey.” Taylor Chapman definitely had veneers. Cheap ones. “You know where a guy can get some punch?”
To her credit, Alex didn’t indulge this dopey joke. She handed him a cup, and not even one of the fuller ones. Though her heartbeat hadn’t returned to a resting rate. “What are you doing all the way over here?”
“You mentioned you guys were doing this fundraiser a while back, and you seemed worried about attendance. Since I had the night off from the bar, I thought I’d come over. I know how much this place means to you.”
So what? Devin wanted to say. Everyone knew how much this place meant to Alex. This guy thought he could play the hero, huh? Chump.
“Anyway.” Taylor smiled, closemouthed and self-deprecating as he looked out at the crowd. “Guess you didn’t need me. Nice work. And hey, isn’t this the room where you did the mural?”
Alex nodded. Modest.
Devin ground his molars. He knew the brushstrokes felt familiar. Why hadn’t he said something to her about the art when he’d first admired it? The wolf demanded to know every part of her. Now if Devin paid Alex a compliment on her work, she’d think he stole the idea from this finance bro.
The guy finally looked over at Devin, who might have, through no fault of his own, been glowering a little.
“Hey, man. I’m Taylor.” He held out a tan hand.
Devin took it and did not let the wolf squeeze any harder than normal.
“Devin Ashwood.” Okay, maybe a little harder than normal.
“Oh. Wait.” Taylor leaned back to look at him. “Like, the actor?”
“Yeah.” Devin, remembering he had a public persona to uphold, stood up a little straighter. He didn’t always get recognized after he’d grown out his hair and beard during the pandemic, but it happened often enough, especially in context.
“I thought you were in rehab.”
Alex stepped in front of him before he could work himself into a growl. “There’s a good seat up front. You might want to snag it.” She pointed and Taylor Chapman went.
Devin glowered. “Why that guy?”
“I don’t know.” Alex shook her head. “We met at a bar. He’s hot and rich. Guys like that aren’t usually interested in me. When he asked me out, it seemed exotic. Interesting. You know. The chance to see how the other half fucked.”
The wolf receded, deciding the perceived threat had been neutralized. Devin didn’t agree. He kept his eyes on Taylor even as Alex passed out punch to other, nonthreatening guests.
In some ways, he liked when the wolf took the wheel on his emotions. Those impulses were always clear, strong, singular. Devin’s own feelings? They were murkier and harder to pull apart.
He knew he didn’t like Taylor Chapman and his easy smiles. But why, exactly?
It might be because he looked like he was actually six feet tall, unlike Devin, who was five ten, despite what it claimed on his IMDb page.
Grabbing a glass of punch, Devin downed it in one gulp.
It had been easy, these past couple of weeks, to pretend any sense of attraction he felt toward Alex came from somewhere inside him that was feral, other, wrong. But this feeling? This dizzy desperation? There was no denying that it was all him.
Maybe this draw to Alex wasn’t just a sex thing. Maybe it was, like…a feelings thing? Where he didn’t want her to be with anyone else because—
No. That couldn’t be right.
Rowen called him over to help gather more chairs.
“Nice job today,” Alex said later, brushing his forearm when they were folding up tables.
Devin beamed.