7. Chapter 7 #2
“I was exaggerating.” I frowned at him. “But you love your work, and that means traveling the country, maybe the world.” Almost every day, in the downtime between jobs and meals and all, Micah had taken his camera into the woods or up the hiking trail to the top of Cresent Butte.
This little slice of Wyoming wouldn’t satisfy him long.
“Maybe we could set up a darkroom here. A bunch of my time is spent developing and printing, cropping and choosing which photos to submit. Packing up prints and negatives to mail.” He looked around. “The storeroom isn’t in much use.”
“We’d need to keep a bedroom for you, not to look suspicious.”
“Ah, sure. An outbuilding then? That’d keep the smell of the chemicals out of the house. We’d need to heat it so the liquids didn’t freeze.”
Micah talking practical solutions made me shiver with hope. “You really want this? Staying here, with me?”
“I really do.” He started to come toward me, then glanced at my uncurtained front windows. “Hang on. I’m not doing this naked.”
“I like you naked.” I couldn’t believe my own boldness. Except I’d had his dick in my mouth, and he’d had mine. Avoiding boldness had gone right out the window.
“And you shall have me. But not when the sheriff’s waiting for us and you could have a customer show up. You shower, I’ll wash, and then we can talk on the drive.”
I wanted to argue, to make sure we had all the important words said, right now. But Micah made a lot of sense.
So I took the fastest shower known to man, the water temperature going up and down as Micah washed himself right on the other side of the shower curtain.
We dressed in my bedroom in silence and then walked out to the truck.
Micah had left the keys in the ignition and he got into the passenger side, leaning over to touch the keyring.
“Hope that was okay. I’ve been places where leaving the keys in a car would get it stolen in thirty seconds flat. ”
“I guess you’ve seen more of the world than I have. In peacetime, anyhow.”
“Probably. Would you ever want to travel with me?”
I thought about travel as I steered down the drive and onto the road.
Part of me found the idea exciting, but more of me was settled in this place, my home, my territory.
For all that I had no pack, I felt protective of this pretty valley and the foothills and mountains around it.
Hedging, I asked, “What would you want to show me if we did?”
“Africa, maybe? Did your war take you there?”
“Rabat. Guarding POWs. Didn’t see much of Morocco before we were shipped out, though.”
“I’d take you on a safari, a lot farther south. Elephant, leopards, lions.” He laughed. “Somewhere back in my storage unit, I have rolls of film of two very homosexual male lions. Had to stay well downwind but I got the pictures.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Big pride, and those two were obsessed with each other. There was an Alpha lion— or whatever they’re called— a male who mated most of the females.
And one of the two queer males would go after a female in heat now and then, though the Alpha sometimes warned him off.
But the other male, the one who topped, he only wanted this blond-maned buddy of his.
I took pics, but I never tried to sell them anywhere.
” He glanced at me. “Shows how natural this is, though, right? One male like you, one like me, having sex.”
“And the top lion didn’t want females.” I gripped the wheel tighter, wanting to ask… not wanting to ask… “Have you ever thought about… that?”
“You might need to be more specific.”
“About, uh, fucking. Like two men do it.”
“Ass sex, you mean?”
I choked at the easy way he said it. “Yeah.”
“I’ve done it with a woman.” He chuckled at my reaction. “You didn’t think women might like that? She did. Plus she really, truly did not want to end up pregnant. It was a lot of fun. It’s not something I can’t live without, though, if you don’t like the idea.”
“We’d have to figure out who would…”
“Be on the bottom?” Micah shrugged, like that wasn’t a big deal. “I guess, if we ever get up the gumption, we’ll try it and see who likes what.”
“You’re awfully calm for a guy who thought he was normal just a few hours ago.”
“I’m a werewolf. That’s not normal.” He waved off my exasperated snort. “Yeah, I get it. But it’s not like this wasn’t sitting in the back of my mind all these years, shaping me even when I didn’t realize it. I think despite the pack tradition bullshit, being a wolf helped, too.”
“Helped?” Micah and I were the most unnatural things an Alpha could imagine.
But Micah nodded. “Sure. We’re already outside human society.
We don’t age like them, don’t heal like them, don’t live by their rules.
I don’t abide by their hunting regulations, I lie to them when I need to.
My mom got a lot of nasty whispers from humans about being a dark-skinned foreigner, but inside the packs, we didn’t care.
Why should I care what humans say about homosexuals?
My wolf likes you. He’s not worried or disgusted when we kiss. ”
“Mine, too.” I came to a stop sign and took a second to close my eyes and seek down inside me. My wolf felt happier and more settled than he had in years, maybe ever.
“You gonna drive?” Micah prompted me.
“Sorry.” I checked both ways and stepped on the gas.
“I bet it’s like the lions,” Micah mused.
“Being homosexual doesn’t seem to worry actual wild critters.
All that bullshit in the packs over queer wolves is probably a human-side thing.
It’s illegal, it’s not normal for humans, it’s blackmail material, and so on and so on.
Protect the pack! Destroy the homosexuals! My wolf doesn’t care.”
I spoke aloud a hope I’d been nursing all week. “We could be pack, of sorts, you and I. A new pack that’s fine with men like us.” My wolf rose at that thought, eager, pressing me forward.
“A pack of two, then. Except, who would be Alpha?”
Good question. I was stronger, a better fighter, could probably beat him in a formal Challenge. Except I wouldn’t try. And Micah had led us through all our escapades as boys. “Probably you.”
“Ooh, I’d get to boss you around.” He shook his head. “Maybe we won’t have an Alpha. I don’t think either of us should have that power over each other.”
“Odd kind of pack.”
“We’re odd kinds of men.”
“True.”
Micah reached over and set his hand on my thigh, the warmth of his fingers seeping through the fabric and into my once-cold heart. “You and me, Lee. Like we were meant to be from the start. To hell with what the world thinks or what the packs would think. What matters is you and me.”
I was a dozen yards from pulling into the police station. Then we’d have to be casual friends who worked together while filling out the paperwork to protect Peggy Fletcher’s future. But I had just enough time for five more words. “Love you,” I said. “Then, now, always.”
Micah smirked at me as I took the turn. “Me, too,” he said.
And although his words reminded me of a moment that had turned to bitter dust and ashes in my past, they sounded different now.
His hand stayed on my leg until I parked and turned off the engine.
Our future shone, bright as the sun, as we exchanged one more glance, pulled the pretense of “just friends” around us, and headed into the sheriff’s station, together.