Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
CHRISTIAN
They turned left at the end of the road, heading back to the center of town.
“I’m not sure it gets us any further forward, but it’s interesting that things with the pack changed right around the time Jesse’s pack was murdered,” Dave said. “Did you see Barton last night?”
A coldness crept down Christian’s spine, out of proportion with the threat the alpha had posed. At least, he hoped it was.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Didn’t talk to him, but there was something about him… Like Matt, only doesn’t use his powers for good.” He flashed a quick grin, letting Dave know he didn’t mean that seriously. Maybe. “He was only watching, but he came across like a mean fucker.”
“D’you think he sent half the pack away, or they left because they didn’t want to be part of his setup?”
Christian sighed. “How the fuck would I know?”
It came out sharper than he meant, because he hated uncertainty. But Dave didn’t flinch. He knew the frustration wasn’t aimed at him.
“Maybe he just kept the mean ones,” Dave said. “Maybe that’s why he’s isolated them, turning them half-feral so they’ll fight for him.”
They’d been having such a good day, and he didn’t need this. Dave didn’t understand fighting, what made a man want it, and sometimes he cloaked that lack of understanding in what felt like unearned judgment.
“Being feral or isolated has nothing to do with choosing to fight,” he said, and he tried to make it calm, not to lose the sense of peace they’d had between them just a moment earlier. “No, I figure he doesn’t like non-shifters. He’s not exactly alone in that, is he?”
He cut a sideways glance at Dave, who grimaced. “Guess not,” he admitted. “Though if Justin had the chance to get out, I’m not sure why he’s still sticking around.”
The scent of fresh peanut butter cookies was too much for Christian, and he dived into the package Sara had given them. “Sure he has his reasons,” he mumbled through a mouthful of sweet, chewy goodness, not knowing who Justin was but not really caring either.
“The other thing is,” he said indistinctly, as he reviewed the conversation with Sara and Frank, “it’s a hell of a coincidence the Council had its attention on the town about the same time.”
“Shit,” Dave said. “I didn’t pick up on that. You don’t think…”
“I don’t know,” Christian said honestly.
“Just, there’s a member of the Council after Jesse and involved in the murder of Cale’s pack, and now we know that someone on the Council had something to do with this town.
It’s not like a councilor would have come down here themselves to sort things out, but if their eye was drawn here and… ”
He paused and blew out an impatient breath. “Honestly, I have no idea how they might have come to know about Jesse’s pack, given how carefully it was hidden away. But even if it’s just a coincidence, I don’t like it.”
Dave didn’t like it either, from the way he shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at his feet. Then he pulled out his phone.
“We should let Matt know anyway,” he said. “He might know who West is and get a fuller story from him.”
He sent Matt a text as they walked, and had only just put his phone away when Christian squinted at something up ahead and came to a halt.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he said.
Sitting there like something lost in time was an elderly mini golf course, complete with half-toppled windmill and what looked like a drunk clown head grimacing at them.
“Mini golf? Seriously?”
Of course they ended up playing. The obstacles were chipped, and the clown at hole six only had one eye, but Christian still beat the course record.
Well, he would have, if not for cheating cheaters who cheated—aka Dave Mitchell, who moved his damn ball in front of Christian’s and stole the win. Which Christian was definitely not bitter about. At all.
“Cheater,” Christian said, but for some reason, he couldn’t stop smiling and it just didn’t sound threatening enough.
Back on the main drag, they found a dusty little antique-cum-junk shop, and Christian pretended to care about a hundred cracked picture frames and chipped glass dishes because Dave looked like he was cataloging treasure.
Christian leaned against a display case and just watched him, arms crossed, seeing the tiny pinch between Dave’s brows as he deciphered the handwriting on a vintage postcard like it might hold a secret.
And then Dave threw his head back and laughed, and it was like sunshine had cracked into the heart of the shop—warmth and goodness and life.
“What?” Christian asked, though he was already smiling.
“If you’re gonna start a postcard with ‘You’ll never guess where we are,’ it’s probably best not send it with a picture of the place where you are on the front,” Dave said, voice still unsteady with laughter.
Christian couldn’t stop himself. He leaned in to look at the card in Dave’s hands, using the move as an excuse to kiss him.
Dave huffed a soft laugh against his mouth. “What was that for?”
Christian shrugged. “No reason.” Except that he’d wanted to. And sometimes it still stunned him, how much he did.
Dave arched an eyebrow, amused. And pleased. Really pleased.
Christian huffed, suddenly and bizarrely shy. “Don’t make it a thing.”
“Wasn’t gonna,” Dave said, but his smile lingered like sunshine anyway.
* * *
For lunch, Dave chose a place that seemed to be a throwback to better times in the town, with white tablecloths and linen napkins that made Christian itch just looking at them. But the food was good, and Dave was happy, and Christian found he didn’t really mind.
“You going to order dessert?” Dave asked, when they were done.
Christian shook his head. “Nah. Saving room to steal yours.”
Dave rolled his eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”
“You know it,” Christian said.
Once Dave’s coconut pudding arrived, Christian stole a spoonful before Dave had lifted his own spoon.
And Dave let him. He even pushed the dish a little closer, and Christian thought maybe he’d done something amazing in a past life to deserve this. Then he realized what a Dave-type thought that was, and mentally kicked himself.
Both their phones sounded at the same time. Riley, with a picture of…
“Is that Diablo being friendly with Mayhem?” Dave asked, tilting his phone as if that might change what he was seeing.
“Oh, God, that’s going to be a disaster,” Christian said, trying for gloomy and missing. It was so good to see his horse happy, even if he was making catastrophically bad friendship judgments about one of Tristan’s damn goats.
They wandered again after lunch, aimless in the fall sunshine.
It wasn’t much of a place—just a grid of streets with too many vacant storefronts and a smell of sun-baked asphalt clinging to everything.
But Dave was beside him, close and easy, and Christian didn’t think they’d ever just existed like this, with no pack responsibilities or interruptions. Just the two of them, together.
They ended up by a tiny municipal park, which was little more than a patch of grass with one sad-looking slide and a battered picnic table.
Christian bought an ice cream sandwich and a fruit popsicle from the grocery store opposite, checked the ingredients automatically, then lobbed the popsicle at Dave as they dropped onto the bench.
He let the silence stretch. As always with Dave, he felt no pressure to fill it.
“This what you imagined when you said ‘romantic getaway’?” he asked at last, kicking Dave’s boot.
Dave’s lips curved faintly. “It’s better, actually.”
Christian wasn’t expecting the twist of something deeply fond in his chest at that. He nodded, looked away, pretended to focus on a cracked bit of pavement where weeds were clawing their way up.
They sat like that for a while, quiet and easy. At one point, Dave leaned back against the table behind them and stretched out his long legs, face turned up to the sun. Christian watched him shamelessly, loving the way he gave himself over to happiness and sensation.
Eventually, he nudged Dave’s knee. “We should probably head back.”
“Yeah.” Dave didn’t move.
“Got another fight lined up tonight.”
Dave said nothing for a moment, then, his eyes fixed on the slide, he said, “You sure you want to do that? Shouldn’t we be mingling, asking questions?”
Christian shrugged. “It’s just a fight.”
Dave’s mouth tightened in a way Christian had learned to recognize. It meant there was more he wanted to say, but he wasn’t going to. And Christian had always figured that if it mattered enough, he would.
Dave stood up, brushing off his jeans.
Christian didn’t say anything else. Didn’t explain why the fights called to him, why they made something in him feel right. He couldn’t explain what he didn’t understand, and he didn’t want to ruin the day they’d had.
So he just stood up, tossed their wrappers in the bin, and followed Dave back toward the car.