Chapter 2
Reid
Having had seventeen jobs by the age of twenty-three had to be some kind of record.
It wasn’t my fault I kept getting fired. Well, it was, but it wasn’t like I was fucking up intentionally.
Most of them had been lost due to my time blindness.
Time didn’t work the same way for me as it did for others, especially if I was focused on something.
I could lose hours and think only minutes had passed.
Then there were the simple things like leaving the house.
I’d seen it on TV and in movies. Hell, I’d seen my own friends do it.
They’d stand up a few minutes before they were due to leave, pick up whatever they needed, and head straight out the door.
It seemed so straightforward. But to me, it was a complete fucking mystery. My things were never where they were ‘supposed’ to be. I’d tried creating places for them to live, but that didn’t help when I picked something up and walked off with it.
Take my keys, for example. I had a little hook right by the door that my friend Mac had made me.
He was good with wood. Not that kind of wood—get your mind out of the gutter.
I mean, he might have been, but I wouldn’t know.
Mac was like a brother to me. He was the first friend I’d made when I’d run away from the clan lands.
I didn’t ever call it ‘home.’ That implied it was safe and comforting. The Clarkson lands had never represented that. Not for me, at least.
Anyway, after I locked myself out for the third time in the space of a fortnight, Mac had made me this handy little hook. He’d even etched ‘Don’t forget your keys’ along it as a reminder.
Problem was, to remember them, I had to put them there in the first place.
That was what tripped me up. In principle, it was simple.
In actuality, it just didn’t happen. Whenever I got home, I’d be too busy juggling whatever I was carrying and taking my shoes off.
My keys tended to end up wherever I went first. Sometimes it was on the dining room table or the kitchen counter.
Other times it was next to the kettle or in the bathroom.
I’d even found them in the fridge beside the milk once.
My point was that things rarely went as I planned—especially when it came to my timekeeping. My punctuality, or lack thereof, was the number one reason I’d been fired from so many jobs.
For some miraculous reason, Chester hadn’t fired me yet.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I chanted as I crashed through the back door to the shop. The coffees I was carrying sloshed out over both my hands, but fortunately I’d gone for the iced variety. “I know I’m late, but I come bearing coffee!”
Chester, my boss and owner of Thistle Do Nicely, shook his head with a wry chuckle. “You might’ve made it on time if you hadn’t stopped for coffee.”
“True, but then we wouldn’t be caffeinated.”
I put the cups on the counter, grabbed the mop to clean up the mess I’d made, and quickly washed my hands. See? Moving fast wasn’t the issue.
“Are you sure you need caffeine?” Chester raised a brow at me. “Maybe cutting back would help.”
“Nah.” I shook my head rapidly as I pulled out the massive bucket we mixed the feeding solution in. I’d noticed pretty early on that it wasn’t one of Chester’s favourite jobs, so I always tackled it first. “Caffeine is necessary. Helps me focus. Trust me, I’m far more scatty without it.”
Chester smiled kindly. “I don’t think you’re scatty, Reid. Your brain is like…a dozen train tracks operating all at once. It looks confusing to anyone on the outside, but you know where each train is going.”
I paused in what I was doing to blink at him. “That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”
A small frown appeared between his brows. “Then perhaps you need to surround yourself with nicer people.”
I shrugged, turning my attention to filling the bucket with water. “Sometimes that’s easier said than done.”
Especially when you’d grown up with a family like mine. It was easier to expect cruelty over kindness when that was all you knew as a kid.
Ready to be done with this topic, I flipped it back onto Chester with a sunny smile. “Seems like you could be following the same advice, boss.”
He coughed, trying to hide his reddening cheeks behind his hand. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
I smirked. Since working here, I’d made it my mission to try and improve Chester’s social life.
The quiet man was only in his early thirties, but he lived like he was approaching retirement.
He came in, did his work, and went home.
That was it. I suspected I knew why, too.
From the few hints he’d dropped, I thought he’d been hurt before. Badly. Maybe similarly to how I had.
It made me burn to help him.
Chester had upped sticks recently, moving from southern England to the Scottish Highlands, and presumably leaving behind everyone he knew.
Having done something similar myself, albeit over a smaller distance, I knew how hard that was.
Not only were you trying to figure out where everything was, you were sliding into a community where everyone knew each other already.
I’d found it tough, and there’d been nothing I wanted more than friends.
I hadn’t let it get me down though. I’d put myself out there time and again.
I’d picked up acquaintances at every workplace I trailed through.
I’d scouted Facebook for local events, signing up for everything from book clubs to sip-and-paint evenings.
I went to bars. Clubs. Restaurants. I’d forced myself out night after night, even when I didn’t feel much like it.
My hard work and determination had paid off. After a lifetime of being the loner, I now had a solid group of friends. People I could rely on. People who actually wanted my company. People who thought I was funny. Kind. Caring.
Mac didn’t sneer at me whenever I tripped, judging me for my human senses. Cole didn’t ignore me in favour of literally anyone else. Bryce didn’t look down his nose at me for not being a shifter.
It was…refreshing. Finally, I was seen as an equal. As someone people wanted around. It had given me a sense of purpose and joy unlike anything I’d known before. Being lonely fucking sucked.
Which was why I was so determined to help Chester.
Even if he hadn’t kept me on when he’d had every right to fire me, I’d still want to help the guy. It was in my nature. As a kid, I’d found Neil and my cousin, Martha, poking a tiny bird with a stick. It must’ve fallen out of his nest.
I’d waited until they got bored and wandered off before swooping in.
I’d snuck the bird back into my room and set about making myself an expert in hatchling rearing.
Thankfully, the library was one of the few rooms that wasn’t off-limits to me in the clan house.
Probably because no one else bothered to go in there.
Made sense given all the stupid decisions the council seemed to make. History was bound to repeat itself if they didn’t know what had happened the first time.
As with that little bird, I couldn’t ignore Chester’s suffering, especially when it was something that was so easily fixed. All he needed was a little bit of confidence.
Fortunately, that was something I had in spades.
“You know exactly what I mean.” I rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you come out with us tonight? My friends are all great. They’d love to meet you.”
Chester grunted and I smiled. His grumpiness was adorable.
He wasn’t my type, but I could appreciate the aesthetic. I wouldn’t go there even if he were my type though. I had no trouble getting laid.
Keeping a job, on the other hand…that I definitely had trouble with. A quick fuck wasn’t worth risking the good thing I had going here.
“Your friends are all your age,” Chester said. “I’d be the old man among you.”
I snorted. “Being in your thirties isn’t old.”
“Tell that to my knees,” Chester muttered darkly.
I hefted the bucket over to my station, waggling my brows at my boss. “If age is the issue, why don’t you go out with Finlay?”
As I’d expected, Chester’s cheeks flushed. “Finn is a customer, Reid. Let’s keep it professional.”
I snorted, but didn’t say anything. Professional. Sure. That was what Chester wanted with him. That was why he blushed and stammered around the other man, insisting on serving him himself.
Chester totally had a crush on Finn. I couldn’t blame him—the dude was hot as fuck. I’d even flirted with him a little before I’d realised Chester was into him.
Given the hungry way Finlay had watched Chester, the feeling was entirely mutual.
I might’ve flirted with Finn, but I never would’ve taken it further. Not when I knew exactly what and who he was.
Finlay was a wolf shifter. The leader of the McCarthy Clan. It was the main reason I’d chosen this town to settle in. It wasn’t the most hip place, but it was the safest…for me, at least.
Thanks to a treaty that had been signed after my former family did the unthinkable, none of the Clarkson Clan could cross the borders of the McCarthy lands if they intended on inciting or participating in violence.
That in itself would’ve been enough to protect me. None of those fuckers did anything outside of clan lands unless it involved hurting others in some way. But there was another part to the treaty that had had me putting down roots.
The Clarkson Clan were banned from taking anyone from the McCarthy lands, shifter or human.
Which meant, so long as I stayed within the borders, I was safe.
They couldn’t drag me back there without inciting the wrath of the McCarthys.
Not that they’d probably want to. I imagined Da would’ve popped a bottle of champagne the night I’d run away.
I was nothing more than a stain on his bloodline.
A blight he regretted not drowning the day I was born.