Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Mason
“Dude, did you see her tits?” Kip’s voice rippled with excitement as he held his hands over his shirtless broad, furry chest, showing off what would be massive boobs. “I wouldn’t even be able to fit one in my mouth, but you’d better believe I’d die trying.”
I sighed. I really liked Kip. He’d been a great friend ever since his family had moved into the area.
The parents and siblings were quiet, keeping to themselves for the most part, but not Kip.
He always stood center stage and stole the whole freaking show.
Big, buff, and irreverent, he set the standard at Milton Holbrook Junior High School.
Girls wanted him and boys wanted to be buddies with him or, better still, to be one of the five guys in his inner circle.
And for some reason, he’d chosen me to be his best friend, earning the ire of the others.
While the goodwill he fostered was appreciated, sometimes it could be exhausting.
Kip had a sharp mind when he applied it, but normally, the only thing in there was a string of horny thoughts held together by some pornographic images.
Which he always felt free to share with me, much to my consternation.
“I wasn’t looking,” I answered honestly.
That earned me a frustrated sigh. “Oh, I forgot. Gay boys don’t look at boobs.”
When I’d realized I was gay, Kip was the first one I’d told.
My declaration was met with little more than a yawn and a ‘duh’.
He said he’d known it for a while, and was waiting for me to tell him so he could show me it didn’t matter to him in the least. After that, I came out to others, and most of the time all it got me was a shrug from them as well.
I grinned and reached out to tweak Kip’s nipple. “We like them fine. Lean in a little closer and I’ll show you.”
Kip’s eyes widened as he covered his barrel chest. “Back off or I’ll smack you,” he barked. “No one touches my nips but the ladies.”
And there were ladies, lots and lots of them.
Kip was a dog. He couldn’t go one day or maybe two without a girl on his arm.
It wasn’t uncommon to see them backed against a locker, lips dueling, his hand on her breast while he massaged it gently.
When he got caught, he’d smile and give an aw-shucks expression and say how sorry he was before promising it wouldn’t happen again.
The teachers were always more than willing to look in the other direction.
Kip was a superstar athlete, incredible at nearly every sport, and even those he wasn’t champion-level at, he buckled down and got good.
Looking at him, you could tell how natural it came to him.
He was a shade over six-foot-two inches, weighing in at one-eighty-five pounds of solid muscle. And as for his chest?
I’d seen wolves that were less hairy.
“C’mon, man,” I teased. “One little tweak. Those nipples are begging for a pinch.”
Kip quickly got to his feet, covering his chest with those big, thick hands. “I will punch you,” he promised, but I knew he wouldn’t. I’d egged him on more than enough to earn that punch several times over.
“No, you won’t.”
He huffed out a breath. “Then I’ll think about it real hard.”
I snickered. “So you’re saying I make you hard?”
“I can’t stand you,” he groused, putting his shirt back on, depriving everyone of perfect eye candy.
Except me, of course. I didn’t think of Kip that way.
Trust me when I say I needed friends more than I needed to get laid.
And besides, if my parents even caught a whiff of someone’s sexual scent on me?
I’d be lucky to be shipped to the male version of a nunnery.
“If you were a chick—”
I mimed my hand speaking. “You’d have bent me over the nearest flat surface as you rode my ass off into the sunset. Yeah, I know.”
“Well, you got what most chicks don’t.”
A deep sigh rolled out of me. “It’s very misogynistic to call women ‘chicks’.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, and it’s degrading. How you ever get them to let you touch them is beyond me.”
He slid his hand down to his crotch. “The legends of this bad boy keep them coming back for more.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re a pig. I hope you realize it.”
He smirked. “Oink, baby.”
“Oh my god, you’re disgusting.”
His features softened. “I apologize. I don’t think of women as conquests. I’m always very respectful of the girls I’m with. I talk shit with you because… well, because you’re my best friend.”
“What about the rest of your crew?”
He sighed. “They want to be friends because I’ve got the reputation of a stud.
They keep asking me for stories of the girls who they think put out, because they want a shot at them when I move on to the next one.
I never tell them anything.” He stared at me so hard, I thought he might bore holes into me.
“Why do you think I asked you to go to school with me? You, my man, are my one true friend in this whole shit show school, and I couldn’t ask for a better one.
So I need you to know I’m always chill with the women I go with. ”
And that was the truth. I’d heard the stories.
He’d always take them out for a nice dinner—well, that meant the Applejack diner, which was the nicest place we had in our town—but he paid for the food, then they went dancing at the all-age club, The Funky Fiasco.
The owners were refugees from the seventies and were trying to recapture a disco vibe.
It kinda worked. Kinda. Still, we flocked there for the cheap sodas, the weird dancing, and a chance to get handsy with a date.
Kip was a gentleman during those outings.
He didn’t do more than dance and pay for unlimited sodas, though at times they might order some fries or onion rings if they were splurging.
And it obviously worked for him. The girls he dated hung on his every word because, they said, he treated them like a princess.
So sure, he talked a big game, but he was by and large a decent guy who got laid. A lot. I dunno, it could have been my jealousy talking. I didn’t get to go on dates. In fact, I had a pretty strict curfew, so being out late at night was a no go.
Now, about my parents… They were watching out for me. Even if half the town was in the same boat, I was the one who couldn’t control himself. I was always the one who was a threat to others. It was me who would shift if he got worked up.
Yes, I said shift. Yes, I know how that reads
My family and I, along with a bunch of others in town, were werewolves.
It was meant to be a guarded secret. And me?
I was the threat to it. So no going out at night.
In by six. No sports—even though I was an awesome runner, the fastest in the pack—and absolutely no dating.
If it wasn’t for Kip talking to them, I doubt I ever would have been allowed to try.
To them it was a major concession I got to hang out with Kip.
I guess they were afraid our teen hormones would get the best of us, and we’d tumble into bed together.
But as much as I liked Kip, it was as a friend, nothing more.
Which I always thought was weird, because he was my ideal of what a man was.
Beefy, brawny, hairy, with a deep, rich laugh, dark blue-black eyes that flashed like a storm when something interested him, and a caring, passionate nature—at least judging by the hickeys some girls displayed proudly.
And no, Kip didn’t know what I was, or that werewolves even existed.
It was a big no-no for us to let others know what we were.
In fact, any time someone saw a wolf, it was a pretty good chance one of us was out for a run.
Initially, people had been worried about the slavering beasts stealing their pets or children, but for the most part we were just eager to get home to have the Wednesday Rotisserie Chicken special from Cost Cutters.
Many was the day that I ate second dinner with Kip’s family.
They were hilarious. All prim and proper, saying please and thank you.
You’d never hear any of them belch at the table without a huge outcry from their parents about manners.
My house? Belching was expected, mostly because my parents had long ago given up on making me into a proper young man.
One night I heard my parents whispering to each other, their tones uncertain and filled with what I could only describe as fear.
“What is he going to do?” Mom asked.
“I wish I knew. We lost four other families when they moved out to Los Angeles. Our population is continuing to decline, and even letting the humans in hasn’t helped to stabilize it.
I knew things were bad. All we had to do was look around town and see.
A couple of businesses had shuttered operations, and storefronts sat empty with huge For Rent signs in the window.
The prices they were asking were a pittance, because they were hoping to get something out of the property.
I knew, without a doubt, we’d soon be one of the families who left.
So… Imagine my surprise when, on my seventeenth birthday, my parents called me to the dinner table.
They were buzzing with nervous energy, which made my neck hairs stand on edge.
I could feel my wolf clawing, wanting out so he could run from whatever was about to happen. I needed to learn to listen to him.
“So, Mason….” Dad coughed.
“We need to talk to you,” Mom continued.
“Are we moving?” Leaving the town I loved would suck, but leaving my best friend would be even worse.
“What? No. It’s good news, honest.”
Whenever they said honest, I knew to expect something bad.
Dad cleared his throat. “Alpha John has been in talks with the Gray pack, and he thinks they’ve worked out a solution to our problems.”