Chapter 7 - Bryce
I’d only spent just over a day in Honeycreek, and I was already finding it suffocating. Being so close to the wolf pack was unnerving, but I was relieved to find that they often dispersed during the day.
Jackson told me most of them were on the town’s fire brigade, while others who had been sworn into the pack had other jobs around town. It was good because it meant that I felt less watched throughout the day, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I went out, I would run into one of them.
“Mommy, look!” Cassie bounded over to me, lifting a packet of colored pens. “Uncle Jackson got me these at the store. I told him I liked drawing, and he said I could have them as a birthday gift.”
“Yeah?” I smiled at her, petting her hair. “I bet he’s happy you like them, then.”
“Me too! Can I draw next to you?”
“Always, sweetheart.”
I pulled the coffee table over to me, happy that Cassie was already trying to find some normalcy here. I didn’t want her to get too comfortable, but the last thing I wanted was for her to be distressed by our brief change in home.
She’d often sat next to me during my work appointments, drawing the words I muttered during my visions. I hadn’t realized I spoke aloud when I was hit with them until Cassie had shoved a sketch in front of me, proud of herself for drawing a vision of death, much to my own horror.
I couldn’t shield her from the darkness in the world, not when I was a shifter and clairvoyant, but I didn’t want her so exposed so early. And now with the ifrit attack…
I just wanted to protect my baby.
“Shall we make some warm milk?” I asked her as she began to get out her pens, arranging them in order of her favorite colors. “Just like I used to with you when you were little.”
Cassie wrinkled her nose. “I’m not little anymore. I’m really grown up. Uncle Jackson said so.”
I laughed softly, standing up to head to my brother’s kitchen.
Everything was homely, rustic, with beautiful wooden counters and a surprisingly tidy sink.
I had envisioned Jackson to still be the messy teenager he’d once been.
Quickly heating up milk that I found in the fridge, I brought it back to the living room, only to be stopped by a frantic knock on the door.
“Bryce Calloway, open this door immediately!” The high-pitched demand came from the other side of the door, accompanied by more knocking, and I set down the drinks, hurrying to the door. I yanked it open, my eyes widening to find the woman on the other side.
“Juniper?” I whispered, my eyes prickling. “Oh, my God!”
Juniper Leone hadn’t changed one bit since I’d last been in town.
Her hair was still blonde and double braided, the way she’d always sported.
Round glasses perched on the end of her nose, and bangs hung down to the thicker, defined brows that she raised at me.
Her freckles were less pronounced, her blush more so, and I could only gaze at her, happiness rising in me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she insisted, barging past me into the house.
“I can’t believe the only way I heard that you were back in town was because some women were talking about it at the museum?
” She whirled on me. Juniper scowled at me.
“The betrayal of you cutting me off was enough, but not to even tell me that you were coming back? It kind of stings, girl, I can’t lie. ”
Her eyes cut to Cassie behind me.
“Who’s this?” she asked, her voice higher with surprise. “Oh, my God, don’t tell me—”
“This is Cassandra, my daughter,” I told her. “And I guess we have a lot to catch up on.”
“You guess? Bryce, you have a child! You—you left town. You—Christ, I need to sit down.”
I laughed and immediately rushed Juniper to the sofa across from where I’d sat before. I took my space again, while Cassie just watched the two of us for a moment before picking up a pen.
“I have a lot of explaining to do,” I told Juniper.
“Just a little.” Still, a small smile lifted her mouth. “But aside from that, it’s good to see you. I’ve missed my best friend.”
“I shouldn’t have cut you off,” I admitted. “I was just… scared.”
“Of what?”
Of you finding out I’d slept with Mason and carried his child. That he’d find out where I was if I kept in touch with you. That he’d find out about Cassie.
So I kept it simple. “Just… the pack, you know? Mason, for one. You know I liked him, and he rejected me. I couldn’t really stand it.”
“Did you have to cut me out, though?” Her question was gentle, even if her voice was tight with hurt. “I would have been there for you.”
I shook my head. “I needed the fresh start, and I’m sorry that involved cutting you off.”
“We’ve been best friends since we were kids. Hell, we’ve been friends as long as Mase and Jackson have been. I hoped that would count for something, like being in on where you lived. Being able to keep in touch, you know?”
I bit my lip, nodding. Juniper didn’t know that Mason and I had slept together one night, and Cassie had been the result of that. If she’d known the truth, she would have pieced together that Mason was Cassie’s father.
“I know,” I told her, ashamed even if I knew why I had done it.
“Well, I’m not going to sit here and make you feel bad.” Juniper smiled brightly at me. “I want to know you again, girl! Why don’t we go out for coffee? Some burgers? Lenny’s Burgers is still open down on Main.”
“Still? God, that place has been there forever.”
“Yeah, it’s Lenny Junior now running the place, but the Lenny we knew still buses the tables now and then, chatting away. What do you say? We’ll catch up, show Cassandra the town?”
I wanted to eagerly agree, but the thought of any of the pack seeing me out and about, indulging in food, made me uncomfortable.
On the other hand, Juniper was toned from a lifetime of running as a hobby.
When we’d been younger, she’d woken up at the crack of dawn to run laps around the main part of town.
By the looks of it, she still did, and that left me feeling pretty down in comparison.
“Uh, maybe another time? I still have a lot to unpack here. But, well, June, I’m not really… staying in town. At least not permanently. It’s just a temporary fix Jackson put in place until my place gets sorted out.”
I tried not to feel an insane amount of guilt at the way my old best friend’s face fell before she quickly brightened up again. “Yeah, of course. I mean, I think I’ll change your mind. I want to help you rediscover everything awesome about this place.”
I thought of Mason and the pack, and chuckled. “Yeah, that so won’t happen, but give it your best shot.”
“Challenge accepted.” She flashed a smile. “Besides, I’m on a research trail that I think you’ll love, unless these last few years have taken away your love of a good research?”
I snorted. “How could it? The nights we spent at my parents’ house were the best.”
“My search history must have looked insane,” Juniper laughed. “Why don’t we go out for those burgers, Bryce? What makes you not want to go?”
“I already said, I have enough to do—”
“The pack won’t bother you with me around,” Juniper interrupted.
“If that’s what you’re worried about. I remember how heinous they were to you.
You put up with too much from them, and you can bet your ass they got a mouthful about it from me once you skipped town.
But if you really don’t want to yet, I won’t push. You want to order in?”
“Lenny’s does that now?” I asked, surprised. “Isn’t he still using one of those old cash registers?”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “That’s the funny thing. But LJ—Lenny Junior—has his nephew running the orders on a bike. In fact, we are ordering. Come on, my treat. Cassandra, you want a cheeseburger?”
I watched as Cassandra jumped up and rushed over to check the menu on Juniper’s phone.
It was strange how easily June had slid back into our easy ways, and how Cassie felt comfortable around her already, as if she had instincts for Juniper’s kindness.
In fact, Cassie had seemed comfortable around Mason, and I didn’t want to think too hard on that.
Instead, I focused on how it’d be good to eat junk comfort food with my best friend, unjudged, even if everything in my brain screamed I shouldn’t eat it, that I hadn’t earned it, but who was I kidding? I’d eat it anyway and store the guilt away for later.
***
Half an hour later, the three of us were on the guest room floor, where our belongings had been half unpacked into the wardrobe, dresser, and shelves.
Mason and Jackson had collected a lot of my belongings, on top of what I’d put together myself, and it was strange to be surrounded by the things I had built a home with in a place that wasn’t that home.
Cross-legged and surrounded by burger wrappers and fries containers, June and I had her laptop open with her notes on this new research topic.
“Okay, so this is all about the town’s historic museum,” June said, pointing at the picture of the flat-roofed, wide building.
It had at least ten windows on each story, and a whitewashed facade.
In the front, a wrought steel gate was closed, framed by perfectly tended hedges.
A sign on the front lawn read Welcome to Honeycreek’s Historic Museum.
Simple, but then again, Honeycreek always had been.
“Uh-huh,” I acknowledged, one eye on her screen and the other on Cassie, who had abandoned all colored pens except for black and green. I was on guard for what, exactly, she was drawing.
“I had the idea when I did my thesis,” June was saying, her voice animated. “I got my degree in history right here at PCU, but you probably won’t know that.” She frowned. “Did you ever go to college?”