Chapter 15
Dorian
“Is there some kind of cultural norm I’m missing?” Half the rooms in the house were empty or just felt unfinished. “Why are his bedroom and the living room upstairs the only ones in the house that look lived in?”
Emeric shrugged as he looked around at the large open plan living room on the lower level that the pack used as a meeting room. “We never had an indoor space for meetings because blood is hard to get out of carpets, so I don’t know.”
Good grief.
A therapist was moving to the top of the to-do list.
“They don’t seem to have that problem here.” Thankfully. “I think he might’ve been underestimating how many hours he’s been working. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Alpha Braun’s mother said she’s not a babysitter but the kids said she volunteers a lot.
” Emeric had picked up a lot of information in his short visit to Braun’s mother’s house, but it still felt like we were missing pieces.
“I think she meant she wasn’t going to babysit the Alpha because I’m pretty sure watching us was technically babysitting even though we’re not little kids. ”
Me too.
“We’ll figure it out.” At the very least I’d see what kind of budget I had to fix up the pack room. “Let’s go look at the rooms upstairs again. There might be some things we can bring down here and we’ll look to see what we can find to make your room nicer until your aunt gets back.”
Emeric gave me a side-eye before he started wandering around the room. He probably thought he’d been very subtle, so I played dumb as I waited to see what he’d say. “Alpha Braun said I was pack.”
“Yes, and until we figure out what’s going on with your aunt, you need a comfortable room here.
” Frowning, I looked around what was supposed to be a bonus room.
“And even if you move in with her officially, I think Braun would be disappointed if you didn’t hang out here.
So we’re going to need a comfy space for you. ”
Sighing, I shook my head. “He doesn’t even have a good space for you to hang out or get homework done besides the kitchen table.”
Looking relieved, he nodded and stood straighter. “You need to grade papers and he’s got the only office.”
My groan got a laugh out of him. “Don’t say that word.”
My weekend adventure was going to put me behind if I wasn’t careful.
“Let’s look for office stuff for you.” Grabbing my hand, Emeric started tugging me toward the stairs. “And stuff to make a place for me too. The guest room is for visitors. I’m not visiting. I’m pack.”
“I think that sounds like a good plan but let’s be quiet going upstairs. Braun’s still on the phone.” The volume of his voice had gone up and down dramatically, but my hearing wasn’t good enough to know what he’d been saying.
“He’s talking to his mom again, but we’ll be quiet.” Emeric didn’t have the same problem. “She likes attention. We might have to go visit her so he gets work done.”
“Would it be rude to just show up?” I wouldn’t normally do something like that but they did things differently.
Emeric shrugged and dropped his voice to a whisper as we went through the upstairs living room. “She’s not the type to attack you but she’s probably going to feed you.”
How was attacking me something I should’ve needed to worry about?
“That’s good to know.” The way food seemed to be important socially was good to know was well. “We need to make sure we have everything we need to bake cookies soon. It seems like that would make a good impression for visitors.”
“Oh yeah.” He nearly bounced up the stairs taking them two at a time. “Chocolate chip.”
“We’ll start making another grocery list later.” The list of lists we needed was growing by leaps and bounds, but it couldn’t be helped. “We’ve got meals for this week, though.”
Meals.
“Let’s get the slow cooker while we’re up here.” We’d picked out several options that could go in there. “And let me know if anything looks interesting to you.”
I couldn’t decide if it was like wandering through Walmart or some kind of strange boutique store, but it definitely felt like going shopping. “And then we’re going to work on lunch.”
It felt like it had to be later than that, but the clock was disagreeing with me.
“Wow.” Emeric stopped in the strange junk room. “Then we’re going to have to start organizing again.”
Unfortunately.
“I can see why Alpha Braun needed us.” Shaking his head, he looked like I felt. “The fates knew he needed someone to take care of him.”
And they knew Emeric needed someone to take care of him too.
“The fates gave us a big job.”
One that I wasn’t sure anyone had given me all the fine print for…but fine print could come later…on my date with the Alpha.
Which I wasn’t going to think about at the moment.
“This is going to make a nice room once it’s cleaned out.” Braun had several rooms that would eventually be nice. “Okay. First.”
First what?
“First you need stuff in that office room that’s nearly empty.” Emeric started looking around stacks like he was expecting an opening to Narnia.
Oh, I needed to get that so I could read it to him.
“And maybe we start making a donation pile? I saw a TV show about hoarders and that’s what they said to do.”
We were in hoarding territory.
Good grief.
“Okay. Yes. We sort through anything that can be used in the house currently and then we’ll start working on things that need to be donated. We’ll keep practical things for families that have emergencies or who come into the pack quickly, but nothing that seems useless.” Like boxes of boxes.
Emeric put his hands on his hips and frowned as he sighed. “Do you think Alpha Braun wants any of this?”
“No. I think he’s afraid of being rude and doesn’t understand boundaries.” Before I could explain we’d take care of that, something banged on the ceiling.
“That’s rude.”
Drama queen.
Frowning down at the floor, I shrugged as if Braun could see me. “It’s true.”
I was pretty sure I heard our Alpha hoarder groan but Emeric’s giggle made it hard to hear. “Crockpot for dinner.”
“There’s chairs up in the attic. Let me know if you need help moving anything.”
He was going to helpful himself into an early grave.
“If you add anything else to your to-do list you will not like what I’ll do.” I’d have to figure out what that would be but his laughter said I’d made my point.
“Yes, Wolfchen.”
Ignoring both their giggles was hard but not impossible.
Ignoring the chaos in the attic wouldn’t be as easy.
****
“I think we’ve made a lot of progress.” Chairs in what was going to be my office and a few appliances in the kitchen hadn’t made a dent in the organized attic chaos, but it’d been a start. “We’re going to need help bringing down that couch.”
I was stubborn, not stupid.
Luckily for everyone, there were full stairs in the garage that went up to the attic, but that was also the reason it’d become a dumping ground. It was entirely too easy to reach and didn’t have any kind of lock on the door.
“Do you think he knows he’s got Easter decorations up there? Do you celebrate that?” I wasn’t surprised when Emeric shook his head as we headed into the kitchen, but I’d been surprised at the new boxes that seemed to have appeared. “I didn’t think so.”
“I know a lot of us do Christmas because that’s fun? Oh, and kids like to debate if Santa is a shifter or mage?” Emeric’s brows pulled together as he shrugged. “We weren’t allowed to do that, though. So I just saw it online.”
“I think—” I managed not to squeak but I probably looked like a startled rabbit at the woman sitting at the kitchen table.
We were going to have a talk about knocking too.
I didn’t care if it was the packhouse or not, everyone was going to at least announce their presence.
“Hello, ma’am.” Emeric seemed to know her which told me the woman who looked too young to be Braun’s mother was actually Braun’s mother.
Before she could respond, he turned to me. “Uncle Dorian, this is Alpha Braun’s mother Sylvia.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
In my kitchen.
“Braun spoke so highly of you, I had to come and meet you myself.” She was doing her best to sound like June Cleaver but she looked a bit like she was thinking about climbing on the back of a motorcycle and heading off with her boyfriend Rocky.
Emeric wasn’t buying it for a second based on how he was coughing, but I pretended the whole thing was perfectly reasonable. “Emeric and I had been thinking about coming to visit you after lunch. I hope that would’ve been alright.”
Before she could do more than clap her hands together and give me wide eyes, Braun appeared in the doorway. “Mother.”
Werewolf hearing was amazing.
“Your mother stopped in to visit.” As I smiled at Braun and went over to finish getting lunch organized, I realized we needed to make sure the bedrooms had solid locks.
“She’s nosy.” Braun’s unsurprising announcement had her inhaling like she was shocked, but I just did my best not to react at all.
“She’s not staying for lunch, though. She’s got a meeting at what’s basically the magical chamber of commerce in about thirty minutes and it takes thirty-five to get there. ”
Ah.
“I don’t know why the mages think their hall is the end-all, be-all of meeting spaces.” Rolling her eyes, she rose gracefully. “They don’t even have coffee.”
“They don’t like you. I’m pretty sure they remove all the coffee for those meetings.” He shrugged as she pretended to be offended. “You shouldn’t have shot down that mage so rudely. He was nice.”
Oh.
Had Braun said what happened to his father?
“He was rude first.” Sticking up her nose, she stomped toward the back door.
“He asked if you knew your bra was showing.” Braun rolled his eyes. “He was trying to be helpful.”
They had the weirdest relationship and even Emeric’s gaze was darting back and forth between them like we were watching a soap opera.
“It’s a beautiful shirt.” She didn’t argue about the seemingly see-through nature of it, though. “And he keeps downvoting every option I put up just because he’s a pain in the…butt.”
Emeric managed not to laugh, but as she headed out of the house, his grin was ear-to-ear.
We all waited in silence until we heard a car start up, but once we were safe, I turned to Braun. “Your mother was waiting in the kitchen when we came down. She wanted to introduce herself.”
He winced.
Smart man.
“Was this her house before you became Alpha?” That would make sense but he shook his head.
“No. She’s always lived in her current house.
My uncle was the previous Alpha and I took over when he passed about eight years ago.
” The loss didn’t seem fresh anymore based on the matter-of-fact tone he was using.
“She’s just nosy and I think she’s the reason I don’t have the ability to set boundaries. ”
Possibly.
“We’ll help you, Alpha.” Emeric bounced over and gave Braun a hug. “You should’ve seen Uncle Dorian jump, though.”
“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be sitting at the table.” I shouldn’t have had to defend myself about that. “Someone didn’t warn me.”
Emeric had the good graces to look sorry for that as he shrugged. “I forgot you’re human.”
Ah, the hearing thing.
“That’s alright.” Maybe I could put some kind of bells on the door like stores used? “You’ll get used to the human senses issue eventually.”
And I’d get used to the non-human ones eventually.
Hopefully before one of the pack members gave me a heart attack.
“Just remind yourself that she’s useful and has good intentions.” Braun’s sigh had me trying not to smile. “That’s what I do.”
“I’m going to remember she’s got chocolate and poor impulse control.” Emeric laughed as my eyebrows went up. “That’s what Sammy’s mother said when she came to get him from chocolate time yesterday. He’s almost my age and his mom is bossy too.”
“I’m not sure if I should point out that’s rude or not.” Braun’s snicker said he wasn’t going to be any help. “But thank you for not repeating that while Braun’s mother was in hearing distance.”
I wasn’t sure she’d ever let us live it down otherwise.
“I’m smart.” Emeric bounced over to the fridge to grab the juice he’d picked out earlier. “Girls are hard work, so I’ve decided I’m going to be gay too.”
Oh.
Did he know that wasn’t how it worked?
Whose job was it going to be to point that out?