Chapter 11
Jason
This is ridiculous. I shouldn’t be sweating this much.
To be fair, I shouldn’t be standing here about to make a bad decision, yet I am, clutching the collar I usually wear as Dog-Jason like it’s my emotional support collar.
Seeing Violet break down like that yesterday…
Her pain was all-encompassing, and I’d felt so fucking helpless.
So, while she slept, I watched YouTube videos on how I could help her while not taking away her independence.
It sparked an idea I couldn’t exactly carry out in wolf form, so here I am, with palms that have turned into a personal hydration system.
My heart is doing this weird double-thump thing, like it’s trying to punch its way out of my ribs. My wolf is pacing, claws scraping the inside of my chest, muttering things like coward and why are we still wearing clothes?
He’s not helpful.
I wipe my hands on my jeans again, but they’re still clammy and traitorous, like they’ve joined forces with my anxiety.
The porch boards creak loudly under my feet. Too loud.
I freeze, holding my breath, like she can somehow see me through the door just because she heard me.
Pride, fear, and anticipation all twist so tight I can’t separate them. I straighten my shirt. Yes, it’s stupid. She can’t see me. And yet…
“Okay,” I whisper. “Just breathe. Just cook. Don’t bark. Don’t sniff. Don’t get attached.”
I’ve faced challenges without blinking, yet one blind woman with a soft voice and too much trust is turning my spine to jelly.
I knock.
My knuckles barely leave the wood before the door swings open, like she’d been standing right there.
“Hello?”
Her voice is warm, surprised, soft at the edges, and it lands straight in my sternum like a blow. My breath stumbles. My wolf goes still, ears forward, every instinct sharpening toward her like she just called my true name.
Then I see her, and yeah, that’s a problem.
She’s wearing a long-sleeved red dress that almost skims the floor, soft and flowing like she stepped out of someone’s dream. Then I look down at her feet.
Sloth slippers.
Ridiculous, fuzzy, not-at-all-menacing sloth slippers. It should ruin everything, but instead it hits me like a truck. She’s devastating.
“H-Hi.” My voice cracks. Great. “Uh, I’m Jason. From the… program.”
“What program?” she asks carefully.
I lift my fake ID tag even though she can’t see it. Buff made it in case Hattie was around. May the universe save me from Hattie and her manic, unsolicited touching. I know I’m supposed to be a dog, but damn, woman.
“The cooking one,” I clarify. “I specialize in lessons for visually and auditorily impaired clients. French, Italian, Asian cuisine, some baking basics… I wanted to see if you were interested.”
Silence.
Terrifying silence. This was a bad idea. I should’ve stayed Dog-Jason.
“Jason?” she repeats, lips parting.
“Yes?”
Oh God.
“You’re kidding.” She laughs, and the warmth of it makes my wolf press closer to my ribs. “That’s my dog’s name.”
“Oh,” I say, trying—and failing—to be casual. I should’ve picked any other name. “Well. Uh. I guess… ” I shrug and offer a tight smile. Thank fuck she can’t see me. “I can be Jason Two Legs?”
She snorts. “Or Human-Jason?”
“That works.” Kill me.
“Well,” she says brightly, “I’d love lessons. Especially after last night. My kitchen was a crime scene. When can we start?”
“Today, if you want? Maybe something French? Like… beef bourguignon?”
She goes still. “How do you…?”
Shit.
“I mean, it’s just a classic?”
She grins. “That’s literally the dish I tried to make last night. Isn’t that a happy coincidence?”
“Happy you had a disaster?” I ask.
She pokes my arm lightly, a flick of touch that shoots straight down my spine. “Hey, don’t mock the visually impaired.”
My wolf reacts like she licked my throat.
I swallow. “Sorry. I’ll behave.”
“Come on, Human-Jason.”
She steps back, and I step inside. I take in her place, not because it’s the natural thing to do when you’re supposedly seeing the inside of a person’s home for the first time, but because in wolf form everything looks more intense, like the world is on steroids, each sense trying to out-win the next.
I find I like seeing it through my shifter eyes.
The muted tones of beige and pale yellow suit her, and I wonder who helped her decorate.
“So, where do we start?”
“I think the kitchen would be best.” There’s a smile in my voice when I tease her.
“Haha, very funny.”
I follow her to the kitchen, trying hard not to stare at her perfect ass. Let’s hope I do better at cooking, I watched a ton of cooking videos in preparation for this. How to cut, how to sauté. Thankfully, as a shifter, I don’t need a lot of sleep.
“Okay, so what do we do first?”
“I’d like to see how you do in the kitchen before I try to reinvent the wheel. Let’s get the ingredients organized. Supposing you have them, that is?” I need to be more careful about what I say. I can’t let on that I know exactly what she has in the fridge.
“As it happens, I do. I bought double of everything so I could make it for my friend and Meemaw if it worked out. Which we now know it didn’t. It’s still bizarre that you want to teach me how to make beef bourguignon. The universe must know I desperately need help with that one.”
“Sometimes strange things happen,” I squeak out. Lying to Violet is not easy, and it doesn’t sit well with me. Violet mistakes my voice mishap with thirst.
“How rude of me, I didn’t offer you a drink. What can I get you?”
“Water is fine, thank you.”
She carefully takes a glass out of the cupboard and hooks her level indicator to the glass.
The beeping sound when the glass is nearly full grates through my anxiety.
I need to calm down, or she’ll sense something is off.
When she hands me the glass, I take a healthy gulp.
My hands are sweating, but my mouth is dry. Go figure.
I set the glass on the table away from where it can be bumped and head to the sink to wash my hands. Violet comes over to me and does the same. It’s nice having her next to me, doing something so normal. When we’re done, I lean against the counter. “Right, shall we get those ingredients?”
“Sounds good to me.”
I stand back and watch her take the ingredients from the fridge and line them up in the order they will be cooked. I’ve noticed she’s got a great memory, but I’m still impressed with how much information she retains all the time.
She finds her knife drawer with confident, practiced movements. My chest tightens as I watch her set up.
“Let’s see how you chop the ingredients,” I say, grabbing the chopping board from behind the faucet and placing it in front of her. “We’ll start with the aromatics.”
She grabs her antiquated chopping thing out of her drawer, and I’m tempted to take it from her and shove it in the bin.
The tines on the cutter have bent in all sorts of directions, which makes whatever she’s cutting come out in weird chunks or paper-thin slices. Not at all conducive to even cooking.
The urge to guide her hand is almost overpowering, but I don’t want to spook her during the first lesson, so she doesn’t want more.
“So, what happened last night?” It feels deceptive to ask her something I already know the answer to, but I’m interested to see if she will share with me what she shared with Dog-Jason.
“I was a tad overconfident and had a few mishaps. Jason scored a bunch of beef when I mistook the floor for the bowl.”
Warmth rushes through me. She’s so fucking incredibly brave.
“So, how did you become involved with the program?” she asks, nimbly changing the subject.
I’m equally relieved and disappointed she didn’t share everything she had last night.
It’s stupid that I want her to trust me enough to open up to me but at the same time, I’m glad she doesn’t tell simply anyone her deepest vulnerabilities.
I go into the lie I concocted in case she asked the question, and she listens intently.
We talk about the sanctuary and how much joy she’s found in going there, which makes me feel even more like a dick, because there are people out there doing good, and here I am, lying my ass off.
“Weird, Jason’s awfully quiet today.” She looks around the kitchen like she can see. It must be instinct.
My wolf still freezes.
I freeze harder.
I did not think this through.
“Jason? Where are you, boy? Are you tired today?” she asks.
Shit!
I need to shift. And now.
Before she can turn, I move away from her as fast and as stealthily as I can so she doesn’t feel the heat explode from my body during the shift. I drop into a crouch and shift in a blur, landing as a wolf with all the grace of a sack of wet laundry. My tail thumps loud against a cabinet.
She tilts her head. “Jason?”
I let out the world’s weakest, most pathetic whine—and I will never emotionally recover from it.
She smiles. “Aww. He must be sleepy.”
I nod as a wolf. She can’t see me. Idiot.
She turns back to the counter.
I shift again, scrambling upright so fast my shoulder bangs against the fridge. Her head snaps around, and my brain just about detonates.
I grab the nearest distraction, a wooden spoon, and slap it on the counter. “Hot pan!”
She jumps. “Where?”
“Uh… nowhere. I’m just making sure you’re alert in the kitchen. You got distracted right now, and that was okay because there’s nothing on the stove, but there might be a time when you’re alone and dealing with hot oil and get distracted.”
Yeah, I don’t think I’m ever going to win a Golden Globe.
She steadies herself and resumes chopping. I exhale in relief. I’m so distracted by being an idiot that I knock the metal mixing bowl off the counter. It hits the leg of a chair, the chair tips and clatters to the floor.
“What was that?” she calls out, alarmed. “Did Jason knock something off the counter?”
Shift. Shift. Shift.
I don’t think.