CHAPTER TWENTY
The vacation finally settled into what it was supposed to be. At the two-week mark, I was sitting in Declan’s apartment, and we were good. At least we knew how to exist without bringing up the worst stuff. We could figure that out pretty quickly.
“So, what game are you going to challenge me to tonight?” I asked, kicking my feet up on his ottoman. “Because you’ve lost every single time at everything so far.”
“You have better reflexes now.”
“Declan, I’ve always been better than you at video games. You were busy being an extrovert, and I was an introvert. I’d say those things are still true as well. We have different priorities.”
“You’re barely an introvert now,” he said, narrowing his eyes on me, and for a moment, I was worried we would drag up the fight we had earlier in this vacation.
He smirked, though. “I mean, you will still eventually crash and be done with all this social stuff, but you seem much better than you used to be.”
“Yeah, once I’m back in Savannah, I won’t want to speak to anyone for a month.” I sighed. “And you’re my brother. It’s different.”
“And I have this week off, so we’ve got all sorts of time! And tomorrow, you, me, and Lexi, we’re going out. Dinner, midnight movie showing. The whole thing.”
Speaking of a bad topic.
“Sounds like I’ll just be the third wheel on a date, but fine.”
“Please behave. Please.”
“How are you feeling since you found out she’s a werewolf?” I asked, tilting my head. Everything was fine and good with my brother until Lexi was brought up.
“Do you want an honest answer or for me to be mad that she hid it?” It was a very fair question.
“Honest,” I answered somewhat truthfully. I did wish he was more angry, but Declan was always more carefree than me.
“It’s the strength and immortality I’ll have to get used to.
From what I hear from everyone else who knows her, she’s never acted differently in front of me.
She was raised to be careful with her strength; it’s second nature to every moon-cursed born to it, from what she’s explained.
” Declan looked at the DVD he was holding.
Not a game. A movie. But it had handwriting.
“And immortality… which leads to the kids problem.”
“You want kids?”
“Definitely,” Declan answered, huffing, pushing the DVD into the old player he had. “And it’ll be so much harder with her. We could adopt… but either way, we might have children who are either born werewolves or want to be one when they grow up.”
“And you wanted normal,” I said.
“I wanted normal,” he agreed. “But I really love her, Everly.” He gave me a desperate look. “Like I don’t think I’d get over her if I let her walk away. We’re perfect together… when she’s not in the same room as you.”
That made me wince.
“You’re not the problem, but I need you to realize that she isn’t, either. She caused a bit of a mess, and we’re cleaning it up, but in the grand scheme of things… she didn’t cheat on me.”
“The bar is down here, and I need it up here,” I said, first my hand near the floor then raising it above my head.
“See, it’s stuff like that, Everly. That’s the problem.” Declan shook his head. “And what would you know about it? When was the last time you were in a relationship? Do you see yourself dating in… the next century?”
“Uh…” I certainly wasn’t going to tell him I was now sleeping with Alexius.
“So, let me make my own choices that do not hurt you,” he said, smiling.
“Fine,” I conceded. “I will say nothing else about this unless you ask. So stop asking.”
“So, you’re not coming out with us tomorrow,” he said, sighing.
“I will. If you two stay together, I know where it ends. She’ll be my sister-in-law. I need to be ready for that. We need to be cordial if I want to meet any future nieces or nephews.”
“Yeah, though I’d like if it was better than thinly veiled anger or fear of each other,” he said, grabbing his remote. “Now, onto what I found in Mom’s stuff you sent me.”
“Looking through all of that had been so hard,” I muttered, remembering the long and tedious task. I was out of it for so much of it.
“Watch,” he said, nudging me.
I did, and it took only a few minutes for me to be captured, eyes going wide as I realized what this was.
“Mom and Dad came from that VHS home movie era, yeah? Mom must have had a bunch of us as kids digitized and put on this to preserve them better. I found the VHS tapes, too, but they are in rough shape.” He smiled, leaning back.
Me at the kitchen table with the first PC my dad let me take apart. Declan’s middle school graduation and a girl next to him. I think his first girlfriend.
“She stopped recording when Dad died,” I whispered.
“Yeah, yeah, she did. But we have this.”
Declan and I were shoving each other, like little kids, in an argument in the yard.
Dad swooped in and was able to broker a peace.
Seeing him, I wanted to cry, but I blinked back the tears I had cried on and off for over fifteen years.
In one of the last clips, I saw a surprising face.
Not surprising for Declan and me back then.
Surprising that he’d allowed himself to be on camera.
Uncle Henry, grinning next to our father in one shot and swinging Declan around in another.
He watched me messing with a computer, listening as I tried to explain it to him since he was secretly old, we liked to say, and everyone knew old people didn’t know computers.
He called me Evie, which made my mother very obviously frustrated.
“I can’t believe you said that to his face,” Declan said with a chuckle.
“I can.” I would say it to him today if he was in the room. “I can’t believe Mom somehow kept all these, and we didn’t know.”
“How often do you think she rewatched them?”
“Enough to think of converting the VHS tapes into a DVD. How much is there?”
“Like seven hours,” he answered. “And it’s not the only one. Our parents recorded us so much.”
“We’ll have to constantly record whatever kids you have,” I said, smiling. “Everything. Every little award and game and birthday. Hold these memories for them the way they were held for us.”
“I like that.”
It was another twenty minutes of footage before Henry showed back up. I still hadn’t told Declan about finding Henry nor Henry about Declan. Henry had wanted to walk away from the human family. Declan was still human. I was going to keep them separate.
But I really wanted to tell Declan. It sat on the edge of my tongue, wanting to tumble out.
I was going to see Henry in two nights, another attempt to continue to try not to hate the vampire who had walked away from the family.
I was trying to let go of my resentment for his absence during the nightmare after Jacob’s death; we had so little family left, I had to try.
But there was something about how he was willing to leave us before that made me want to keep him an old memory for Declan.
Declan and I watched the video late into the night. We laughed and got teary-eyed at the old memories. When our dad was passing our Christmas presents during his last Christmas with us, Declan stabbed me in the heart.
“I can see myself doing that with Lexi on the couch with our kids,” he whispered. “I can see Lucas being a patient grandfather, who doesn’t look old enough, but kids won’t notice at first. Her mother, Yiva, is a fantastic cook. The dinners we can have during the holidays...”
“Yiva? Where does that name come from?”
“I knew she had some Norse background when I met her. I learned last week that she was a real Viking, and she teasingly told me I should have guessed. Her name literally means she-wolf,” Declan explained, chuckling.
“Lucas told me she should probably be a higher rank in the pack than she is. She enjoys where she is, though, and doesn’t fight anyone up. ”
“You really like Lexi’s family.”
“Yeah, and I thought I would just marry a woman from an amazing family, but then…” Declan laughed. “Werewolves.”
“Having grown up with vampires and now rubbing elbows with werewolves, what do you think?” I asked, propping my head on a hand, watching him.
“Certain vampires can be warm, but in general, vampires are just colder. Physically, emotionally… and vampires eat humans. The fear is more instinctual. Like with you, I’m fine, but I’ll admit that Alexius, your boss, actually scared me a bit.
He walked like a predator. Werewolves are always warm.
It’s always community and bonding and protecting those lower than you and following the wisdom and strength of those above.
And learning about Callahan? How much he really cares about every single werewolf in his pack?
Apparently, he wasn’t even mad that you called him, or at Lexi, or at me, from what Lucas told me. ”
“No, Lucas was the mad one,” I said, remembering the call. “Callahan was just tired. I caught him in the middle of a meeting. Lucas seemed to be mad for you. You know, he gave you some very sweet compliments before he blew up about needing to yell at Lexi.”
“I love her parents,” he said, smiling sleepily.
“So warm. Always a big family gathering or, now that I know, a pack event. They invite everyone to their weddings, and they bond really tightly. The pack takes care of its orphans and protects each other from human-caused problems.” He was beginning to slur his words from how tired he was.
I stood up slowly.
“I should get going,” I told him, reaching for a blanket. I threw it over him as I watched him fight his eyes.
“Really? You can crash here,” he said, waving a hand.
“No, no. I’ve got two hours to get home.
” It was two and a half hours to sunrise, but I liked giving myself that thirty minutes of safe time inside.
“I should use them. And you are going to destroy your sleep schedule if we do this too much.” I knew he was going to pass out right there on the couch. “Thank you for the memories.”
“We should make copies,” he mumbled, but then those eyes closed, and I knew he was going to be out like a light.