Chapter 5 #2
Nico blinked at me. “Really? You’re going to cook?”
“Yeah. If that’s okay.”
“Sure!” His face lit up in a way that felt almost tragic.
He dropped the bag of rotisserie chicken he’d been holding and crouched to pull out a frying pan from a lower cabinet, handing it to me like he’d just discovered treasure.
I took it and paused. There was still a cardboard tag looped around the handle.
Judging from the thin layer of dust, it was clearly not brand new, but it was definitely unused. I quietly ripped the tag off and carried the pan to the sink to wash it.
“So,” I said casually as I ran water over it, “you guys don’t cook much, huh?”
Behind me, Nico laughed. He’d started cutting up the chicken with surprising skill and was tossing the pieces into an air fryer, then turning it on.
That, I noticed, looked well-used, with its scratched and slightly warped basket.
“We don’t really have time,” he said. “The pack keeps us busy. And if it’s not work…” He shrugged. “We just can’t be bothered most days.”
I dried the pan and set it on the stove, turning the heat on low.
Busy.
I peeled several of the baby carrots, trying to make them look salvageable.
This was my chance. Keep it light.
“So what do you guys do?” I asked. “For the pack, I mean.”
Nico made a small noise of confusion. “Hmm?”
“They must keep you running a lot if you don’t even have time to cook.”
Shut up.
Shut up. Shut up.
Why did I say that like that? I risked a glance at him.
His knife had paused for half a second mid-chop.
Oh God. He knows. He definitely knows.
He’s going to realize I was standing outside that door for a reason. He’s going to tell Cooper. Or Levi. He’s going to—
The doorbell rang, the sound cutting through the tension like a lifeline.
Nico blinked, then set the knife down. “Coming!” he called out.
He gave me an all-too-polite smile on his way past.
I waited until his footsteps faded toward the front of the house before exhaling.
“What the hell am I doing?” I muttered under my breath. Did I want to get caught?
I turned back to the stove and dumped the cabbage and chopped carrots into the pan, listening to the faint sizzle as they hit the heat. The vegetables had just started to soften when a warm, sharp scent drifted into the kitchen. Levi.
It was ridiculous how quickly my body reacted to him. My pulse immediately steadied, and the tight coil in my chest unwound a little.
Nico’s voice drifted in from the hallway. “…I don’t know why you keep coming back here. Don’t you trust me?”
“I just want to make sure—” Levi started, stepping into the kitchen mid-sentence. He stopped when he saw me. “Oh, Mason. You’re here.”
“Hey.”
I turned back to the stove quickly, pretending to be very focused on the pan. I dumped in the last of the vegetables and tore open a few seasoning packets I’d scavenged from the drawer—soy sauce, salt, pepper—and poured them in.
Levi came up beside me. “You’re cooking?”
I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the pan. “Yeah. Just something quick.”
“It smells really good.” He leaned in slightly to look.
“Thanks,” I said, a little too quickly. “I used to cook it for my brother all the time.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Levi didn’t respond right away. He looked at me for a moment longer than necessary, like he was taking it in, before turning his attention back to the pan.
Something in his expression had softened. He stayed close, and I was suddenly aware of the warmth of him just behind my shoulder. His scent deepened, quieter now, more curious.
His head tilted slightly, like he was catching something in the air.
My coyote stirred, uneasy. Lean back, it urged.
Lean into him.
I stepped away a little too quickly and cleared my throat. “We were just about to have lunch.”
“Yes, and there’s not enough for you.” Nico set the air fryer basket down a little harder than necessary, glancing at Levi. “Or are you only here for food? You were here at breakfast too.”
My stomach dropped. Levi was here this morning?
Had something happened? Had they found something at the campsite?
“Is everything okay?” I asked quickly, turning toward him. “Did you find anything back at the old logging roads?”
Levi raised both hands immediately. “No, no. Everything’s fine. I’m not here because of that.” The tips of his ears were faintly red.
Nico crossed his arms. “Then why do you keep coming by?”
Levi shot him an annoyed look, like he wanted to argue but stopped himself. When he looked back at me, his expression softened.
Something warm settled low in my chest before I could stop it.
Nico muttered under his breath, something that sounded like “unbelievable,” and sat down at the table. Levi hesitated only a second before pulling out a chair as well.
I turned off the stove, transferred the stir-fry onto a large plate, and set it in the center of the table before taking the seat beside Levi.
Levi waited until Nico had started eating before speaking again, quieter this time.
“I know what it’s like,” he said, looking at his plate but not really seeing it. “Living out there. On your own. It’s not easy.”
He thought I’d been alone all this time. The warmth in my chest swelled, then twisted.
“I wasn’t really alone.” The words left my mouth before my brain caught up.
Levi looked at me. “What do you mean?”
I swallowed. “Shifters like me, we keep in touch.”
“We’ve got a network.” My heart started to pound. I didn’t know why I couldn’t stop talking. “It’s nothing official, just ways to check in with others.”
“There’s a network?” Levi asked, mid-bite, his fork hovering in the air.
“I mean,” I backtracked weakly, “it’s not— it’s just word of mouth mostly. Passing messages. Safe spots.”
“That’s huge,” he said. “If there’s already a system in place…”
My stomach dropped. This was not the direction this was supposed to go.
“We could use that,” he continued, thinking out loud. “If there’s another threat out there, we could warn them. Or they could warn us.”
I glanced at Nico. He was watching me closely. My palms felt damp.
Daniel’s voice echoed in my head. Stay low. Don’t improvise.
“I—I can reach out,” I heard myself say.
Why was I doing this? I shouldn’t have said any of it.
Levi’s expression lit up in a way that made something in my chest ache. “You’d do that?”
He sounded hopeful. I nodded slowly, even as dread coiled tight in my stomach. “Yeah. I mean… if it helps.”
Nico’s gaze lingered on me for a moment longer before he went back to eating.
Levi let out a breath, relieved. “That would mean a lot.”
Our eyes met. His were warm and grateful and I hated what it did to me.
Because he was looking at me like I was someone good. Someone he could trust. Like I’d just done something right.
Not someone who had almost been caught with his ear pressed to a locked door, someone who was lying straight to his face.
Under the table, his knee brushed mine again. Probably accidental.
But he didn’t move away. And neither did I.
My coyote stirred, drawn to the steady heat of him, to the the quiet sincerity in his face, to the way he leaned in without thinking,
It was dangerous, the way part of me wanted to do the same.
The way part of me already had.