Chapter 33 #2
Knife knew the history of the place because his brothers had told him.
Cora and Kirsten had bought the land, contracted with Randall’s company to build the mansion, and were the official owners, but Homewood was now home to five powerful supernaturals.
Cora, alpha werewolf over most of the Southeast, was mated to the Master Vampire over much of the same territory, and Kirsten was in a long-term relationship with the King of the Lions, and a man purported to be one of the Gods of Old.
Harmony had told them the scuttlebutt said he was Ares, now called Mordecai, but no one seemed to know for sure.
It seemed telling that the two original owners were the ones who greeted them and welcomed them. Knife didn’t know what Kirsten was, but she felt like Mother Nature to him, or something equally as powerful.
They walked into the crowd and he scented eagles, hawks, owls, wolves, deer, a few horses, and every kind of cat imaginable — lions, tigers, bobcats, cougars, and more.
Knife kept his shoulders loose and stayed with his brothers, but he tracked Tuesday by scent without meaning to, at the start.
He was near the waterfall when he first scented her, and he went to the bar area to get another beer.
Anytime he scented her close, he moved, to make sure they stayed out of sight of each other. If he could pull it off, they might survive this.
Two hours in, Dawg wanted more of the brisket, and Knife went with him and Horse to load plates once again.
It was easy and normal, and he let himself relax into it — the familiar weight of his brothers beside him, so many smells coming from the food on warming plates, and he reached for the serving tongs and recognized the hand from across the table also reaching for them.
He looked up, and came eye-to-eye with Tuesday.
She’d clearly just arrived at the table from the other direction, and now she was standing three feet away from him with a plate in her hand and an expression that told him she hadn’t planned this any more than he had.
He held her gaze for a few seconds longer than he should have before he found his tongue.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said.
And then they both looked down at the food.
- - - ? - - -
Tuesday made it back to her grandmother with a full plate and no memory of putting anything on it.
Her hands were steady. Her face was composed. She was not going to fall apart in front of the entire Chattanooga supernatural community.
But inside, she was a mess, and she needed to get that under control before everyone within a hundred yards scented it.
The man she loved had been across the table from her, and they’d had to pretend it meant nothing.
She’d understood on a logical level why the guy in 1984 admitting that two-plus-two-equals-five changed everything, but she hadn’t truly understood it until this moment. The situation had forced two people who love each other to deny who they are to each other. To fucking abjure each other.
And that moment changed everything.
She’d watched him from a distance, earlier. Cutting up with his biker friends. He called them his brothers, and she thought she got that a little more, watching them all move through the crowd with their matching vests, talking to most everyone here.
She saw the way people moved to him to talk to him, the way he listened when someone spoke.
And it struck her, the camaraderie of these men who’d chosen each other and meant it. The casual physical language of a group that’d likely been through things together she couldn’t comprehend.
Things the man she loved couldn’t share with her.
Her grandmother had told her he wouldn’t be the same man without his club, and again, Tuesday hadn’t fully understood it at the time.
But watching him with his people, she got it.
He’d grown up sheltered from the world, living in practically another universe, and somehow, when he’d gone out into the world to live his life, he’d found another family. He’d found his people.
Take the club away and she’d lose the man she’d fallen in love with.
But this wasn’t working. Not being able to acknowledge each other wasn’t… relationships can’t survive under those conditions.
And that was fine when it was just supposed to be fuckbuddies, but it’d grown into more than that.
She didn’t want a version of him that’d given this up, but she also couldn’t just leave the pack. Any thoughts she’d had about that’d been erased Saturday when most everyone had at least stopped by to wish her grandmother a happy birthday. The pack was her family just as Knife’s club was his.
But she couldn’t keep doing this.
She had one more goodbye in her, and it was going to have to be the last one.
And this week would be the time to do it.
She’d been trying to figure out how to get home to see him between some major trips.
Two weeks in New York, a few days between, then a week in Paris, followed by nearly three weeks in Miami.
She’d been working on how to get home on Mondays, but it would be easier, and a helluva lot cheaper, to just stay gone the whole time. Nearly two months.
She wouldn’t leave for New York for nearly two weeks, but she could find something to do between. The little spa she liked in upstate New York was probably booked, but she was willing to bet she could find one that wasn’t.
And with that, she dug into her plate and rejoined the conversation around her, determined to at least participate in the rest of the day. This was her chance to spend time with people from other groups that she rarely saw.
She’d cry later.