Chapter Three #2
“When I was eighteen, I’d gotten this little scholarship to a community college and went there for two years, and then I transferred to Idaho and finished college there.
Two of my best friends went with me. We got an apartment together and just…
lived it up.” She grinned. “Partied way too much sometimes, maybe let my grades slip a little, got my dad on my ass about graduating, pulled it together last semester and did graduate with a degree in biology.”
“Smarty-farty.”
“Right?”
“So where did you start working with that biology degree, fancy pants?”
“I work at the hospital in the bloodwork lab. I poke people with needles all day.”
Tabian was stunned. “For real?”
“For really real. I can find a good vein on anyone and get it first try. It’s my super skill.”
“Well, color me impressed.”
“I’m not rich,” she pointed out. “Just so you know that. It makes me enough to pay for my little house and my car and bills and breaking even without too much debt each month. I have a sixteen-year-old to feed. They eat a lot.”
He chuckled. “God, I remember when I was sixteen. I was eating my dad out of house and home. It was a little different though. I’m a natural born werewolf, so at sixteen, my appetite was ridiculous.”
A flash of something washed across her face, but before he could ask, she rearranged her lips into a smile once again. “What was your favorite food at sixteen.”
He frowned, trying to think back that far. “In my human body, cheeseburgers. In my wolf body, rabbits. I still like rabbits, and why don’t you look grossed out at all?”
Her eyes went wide and she stopped nodding like she understood. “Uuuh, I just assumed the wolf side likes live prey.” There was a hitch to her tone that said she wasn’t being entirely truthful though. Huh. Okay, mystery girl.
“Why are you raising your stepson? Where’s his dad?” he asked. This had been eating at him since he’d met her yesterday.
“I…” She frowned and pursed her lips. “I’m not ready to talk about it.” Oooh, hurt soaked her words.
Tabian’s hackles tingled up his spine. “Why not?” he asked. Yeah, he knew he was pushing.
“Because…” She forced an empty smile. “Talking about it doesn’t fix anything.
I made mistakes. I wrestle with it. Daily.
I messed up, and I didn’t listen, and I threw away my support system for a man who hadn’t earned any loyalty.
” She blew out a long breath and stared at something over the camera.
“If I could go back and do it all over again, I would change everything. That’s what I think most days. But…”
“But what?”
A soft smile stretched her lips. “Then Bayen will have a good day with me, and I think I was supposed to make all those mistakes.”
“Bayen is your stepson?”
She nodded.
“Cool name.”
“Bayen Alexander. He gets the first and middle name when he’s in trouble, which is all the time,” she said, huffing a laugh. “He keeps me on my toes. Ninety-five percent of the time, I’m convinced I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with him. But that five percent…oof.”
“Pretty fulfilling, huh?”
Her smile got even sweeter. “He’s growing protective of me. Sometimes he hates me, but sometimes he talks to me like I’m a person.”
“Teenage boys can be tough.”
“Chhh, I had no idea how tough until I was thrown into the fire with one. I didn’t get to bond with him when he was a little kid. Sometimes I regret that part too. Just a life of regrets, yeah?”
Tabian leaned over and plucked a dead leaf from the porch and spun it slowly by the stem between his fingers. “I think any life can be one of regret if you look at it like that. You control your life though, Tru. You just don’t realize it yet.”
“That’s rich coming from a werewolf who is controlled by Elders, and government, and by Pack dynamics, and last but biggest, controlled by the wolf.”
Clever girl.
“I think we are both trapped pretty efficiently by circumstances beyond our control,” she said softly.
Her pert little nose flared as she leaned forward and glanced at her front door. “Bayen will be home from school soon. I’m going to start on dinner.”
“Mmm, what are we having?”
“We aren’t having anything. Bayen and I are having spaghetti.”
“Save me some,” he teased, messing with her.
“I honestly can’t remember a single time I cooked that Bayen left a single bite of leftovers.”
“Damn, that boy can eat. Prop me up while you cook.”
“What?”
“Prop the phone up and hang out with me while you cook. I’m going to start dragging furniture inside.”
“Oh. Okay, but we will both be busy.”
“Yeah, but isn’t it nice to be busy with someone?”
He caught a glimpse of the smile on her face before she ducked her gaze away from him. “That actually sounds nice. I’ve been pretty lonely.”
“Same.” He heard the truth in his own voice. Even with the Pack, he’d been lonely for a while. The wolves here had been pairing up and morphing into something he didn’t recognize, and he’d been left behind. At least, that’s how it felt.
What harm could it do to hang out with this little human and hear stories of her childhood and about her stepson. Tru was a beautiful distraction from the monotony of his daily life. She was so…wholesome.
It was a breath of fresh air, learning about her life.
He carried the phone with him and showed her the shed he’d been stacking furniture in, all covered in different colors of plastic.
She was boiling spaghetti noodles and stirring red sauce by the time he was on his second trip inside.
He kept the phone in his pocket when he was carrying anything heavy.
“Hey, if you have a Pack, why aren’t they helping you?” she asked from his pocket.
“I didn’t tell them about my house being delivered.”
“Why not?” There was curiosity in her pretty voice.
He frowned and set the couch he’d been carrying on its side so it would fit into the doorway.
He eased it through and then pulled his phone from his pocket and checked on her dinner progress.
She was buttering hot dog buns and putting them on a foil lined cookie sheet.
From the looks of the butter, it had garlic and parsley stirred into it.
He could practically smell the garlic bread from here, and his stomach growled.
“I guess I got scared a couple months back. One of my Packmates was taken. It was a public thing, with his abductors pretending to be police. It happened right in the middle of town, and he was shot in the face. I felt the Pack bond, and his was almost gone. I thought we lost him. For a while afterward, we did. He had been badly injured and got stuck as a wolf. I came out to the woods every day in the weeks he was stuck, just hoping to find him human again, you know? I couldn’t sleep.
I didn’t like him out alone in the woods at nights, but he wouldn’t let any of the Pack Change with him.
He fought us when we tried. It kind of…”
“Kind of what?” she asked softly.
“Tortured me.”
“The Pack bonds scared you after that?”
Tabian pursed his lips. “I’ve barely talked to him since.”
“It wasn’t his fault though,” she said.
“I know. Logically, I know. I’ll sit up at nights feeling like this is the stupidest silent treatment in the world.
I know I’m wrong. Doesn’t change the instinct to protect myself.
We’ve been through so much war since we’ve been kicked out of the Coeur d’Alene Lake Pack, and we’ve come so close to losing people.
It can happen at any time. I guess somewhere along the way, I got weak about it. ”
“Or you grew a heart about it,” she said.
Smart little human.
“Yeah, maybe. I hate it. Having a heart when you’re a werewolf is the worst.”
She giggled and took the phone with her as she slid the pan of cheap hotdog buns into the oven to toast them.
He set the phone on the wall so she could see him dragging in the couch. “I don’t know how to arrange this.” His voice echoed through the nearly empty living room and kitchen space.
“Uuuuh, come pick me up and show me the whole living room.”
“Yeah?” he asked, his heartrate kicking into a faster pace. “Where do you live?”
“No, no, I don’t mean pick me up. I mean pick the phone up.”
“Oh. Right.” He frowned. “I knew that.” Damn, why had he gotten so excited there for a second?
He picked up the phone and panned it slowly around the living room.
“Probably television above the mantle of the fireplace, and the couch on that back wall,” she said, pointing.
Tabian nodded. Sounded good enough for him. He set her back down and picked up the couch, so he didn’t scuff the wood floors.
“Dear Lord, you make that look like it weighs nothing,” she said.
He chuckled and set it down gently. “It doesn’t weigh much to me. Have you ever been around werewolves before?”
“Um, hang on, I’ve got to finish dinner. Bayen is almost home.”
“Okay, I’ve got to go get the kitchen table from the shed. I’ll be right back.”
He left the phone there with the intention of returning immediately with the table, but when he did roll it through the front door, angling carefully to work around the legs of the table, Tru had hung up on him.
Dang. Bayen must’ve returned home. He didn’t really understand. She’d told him yesterday that her stepson was interested in meeting a werewolf, but now she was keeping them carefully separate. Strange.
A text came through from her as he stared at the blank screen of his phone.
The kiddo is home. About to eat dinner. Want to call me later? He’s going camping tonight, and he doesn’t like me hanging around for it. He just told me. I’ll have a messy bun and pajama night, with perhaps a glass of wine.
He read the text twice with this stupid smile on his face. Instead of answering, Of course though, he texted her his address and left it at that. She could make her decision for how her night would go from here.