Chapter 18 Huston
HUSTON
No brother of his
Things were weird around the house. I felt Candrin was avoiding me and that made me feel guilty because the only reason he would be doing it was because I made him uncomfortable. Or so my pesky brain kept telling me. What I could do to fix that, I didn’t know.
So instead I continued to do what would at least make him smile—I started to cook. He liked my boring baked chicken well enough, so I decided to make my famous Buttered Chicken for him. True, it was only famous in my family, but fame is fleeting so I might as well embrace it.
I was just putting the chicken in the fridge to marinate when Candrin came home.
Just like always, I couldn’t read him. Part of that was his scent calling me and stealing a bit of my brain, but part of it was the deep-seated sadness he tried not to show.
It was like a veil covering him at all times and I hated it for him.
“I’m making buttered chicken. This needs to go in the fridge for half an hour, but I can probably have dinner on the table in just about sixty minutes.” I went to the fridge instead of to Candrin, where I wanted to be.
I longed to hug him close and let him know, whatever it was, it would be okay and that I was there for him.
But it would be too much, too soon. He wasn’t like me.
He couldn’t just inhale my scent and then poof know that I was his always and forever.
That wasn’t how humans worked and I needed to be cognizant of that, to respect it, to be patient.
“I haven’t had buttered chicken in a long time.” He shoved his hands in his front pockets. “Are you sure there’s enough? I was going to make some spaghetti or something easy.”
Feed.
Protect.
Provide.
My bear very much didn’t like hearing our mate’s confession.
I had nothing against spaghetti. But if you weren’t going to add any protein, it wasn't the best meal after a long day, one I suspected didn’t include lunch.
And if it was his dietary choice because he loved it and couldn’t get enough of the carby goodness, that would be one thing.
But money was tight for him, despite what his fancy clothes might say.
“My recipe feeds four. I don’t know how to cut it down and still have it taste nice.
I halved it once and it wasn’t good.” The sauce just wasn’t enough and it ended up dry.
But he didn’t need all of those details and I wasn’t sure he was going to believe the ones I gave him based on how he was looking at me.
“I like buttered chicken.” He started to cross the kitchen and for a split second I thought it was to hug me and my heart started pounding. But he wasn’t, instead he was heading out of the room.
“I’m glad. Are you… are you okay?”
He shook his head.
“Do you need a hug?”
A single nod had me racing to his side and opening my arms for him. He fell into them, accepting the comfort I was offering. I held him tightly and neither of us spoke for at least a full minute when he thanked me, said he was going to take a shower, and would be down in time for dinner.
It felt important that he allowed me to give him that comfort, like it somehow deepened our connection. I just wished that there were indicators aside from his words that it helped. He still had that aura of discontent as he walked away.
I put the rice cooker on and got everything else ready for dinner, cooking it as soon as the marinating was complete. Ideally I’d have left the chicken overnight, but I hadn’t thought of doing it yesterday.
True to his word, Candrin came down as the food was getting ready. He kissed my cheek, thanking me again and then set the table, asking if anyone else would be here for the night. It was only the two of us.
I dished up our food and brought him a plate before sitting across from him.
“This is really good,” Candrin praised, his mouth still full. “Like restaurant quality good.”
“Thanks. It’s one of my favorites.” I took a forkful of mine.
We ate silently until about half our food was gone. “You know, you can tell me what’s bothering you.” I didn’t know a lot about the kind of work he did, but it sounded like it had the potential to be stressful. I was surprised to hear it was a family issue.
“I need to figure out how to stop my so-called brother.” He set his fork down.
“Brother?” I asked, crossing my fingers that I hadn’t overstepped.
“My dad left him everything.”
Which explained his fancy clothes. I had a feeling there was more to his story. Being cut out of a will wasn’t how I imagined that tale.
“Only thing is I don’t believe he is my brother. He just kind of showed up out of nowhere.”
He went on to explain the story of Charles and how the man destroyed Candrin’s entire life without a single regret. And then he got to what today was, what would’ve been his father’s birthday, what had his mood so off… so many emotions crossed his face as he spoke, but I only had one— anger.
With each detail he shared, I got angrier and my beast—shit I could scent him, he was so close to the surface. I needed to keep his sorry ass at bay. The last thing Candrin needed on top of this was me shifting at the kitchen table when he didn’t know I was a bear to begin with.
“You know when they say ‘it’s complicated’ in all the movies? My current situation really is and I have no idea how to get out of it. I can’t just hire a lawyer. They seem to have this pesky habit of billing their clients.”
And even if he’d accept my money, the kind I had floating around wouldn’t come close to the amount needed to fight someone with the funds Charles had.
“Let me help you at least try and figure out where he came from? He has to have a fingerprint on the internet… socials or what have you. Maybe if we’re lucky and the google gods are with us, we’ll be able to get the ammunition we need.
” The odds of it being as easy as that were slim, but at least I’d feel as though I was doing something.
“As much as I wished I didn’t need your help, I do.” He placed his hand on mine. “Thank you.”
We cleaned up the kitchen and I took out my laptop. Starting with a basic google search we got quite a few hits and photos. But there was something strange about it. Like it was the same twenty photos on repeat.
We went into his social media and checked out his about pages hoping for a link that could help us dig further. We didn’t find any, but we did discover something interesting and by interesting I meant sketchy.
“All of these accounts are less than a year old?” I noted.
“I hadn’t, I was more looking at how each platform has all of the same content. He’s not a business. Why would he show the same picture of him eating ice cream on every platform?” He scrolled down the page. “And look, only a handful of followers.”
The more we looked, the more we discovered oddities. It was almost as if Charles wasn’t a real person and was a bot from overseas. Only he was real. Candrin had met him.
“I think we need to dive deeper.” I leaned back in the chair. Charles was good. Very good from the looks of things. Even reverse image searches weren’t helping us get any more information. We could keep going like this for a week and I doubted we’d get any further.
“How do you propose we do that? I don’t see hits coming up from those websites that say they can give us more information for only $49.99. This feels like it’s pretty much all there is.” And he wasn’t wrong on that.
“I think I should follow him. See where he goes and who he sees. Maybe then we can start to piece together what’s going on.”
“No. Absolutely not. I won’t let you get in trouble trying to help me.” Candrin was adamant and stubborn.
And so was I. “It’s the only way I can think of to get the information. We can’t let him steal your life from you. We can’t.”
Candrin closed his eyes. “I don’t know what to do?”
And in his shoes, I wouldn’t either.