Chapter Fifteen #2
Tabian’s shoulders were shaking and he wiped his eye with the back of his hand as he held his marshmallows over the fire. “Your wolf does that on purpose you know.”
“I’m aware. He’s a jerk.” But Bay was smiling as he talked about him.
“He’s big,” Tru said softly.
“Yeah?” Bay asked.
She nodded. “I wouldn’t know unless I saw him right up next to a grown werewolf, but last night was eye opening.”
“My dad’s wolf is big. My mom’s is petite.”
“Where’s your mom?” Tabian asked, sliding his mushy marshmallows between two chocolate layered Graham Crackers.
“She’s around. I don’t know. She messages sometimes.”
Tabian frowned. “Want to try that again?”
Bay pursed his lips. “Not really. I have to piss.”
He propped his marshmallow rod against his chair and stood, then made his way toward the woods.
Tabian watched him leave and then leaned over and pulled Tru’s chair closer to his. He leaned in and kissed her and then handed her a s’more. “This one is yours.”
“For me?” she said softly, surprised at his thoughtfulness.
“How many do you want? I can make you another one.”
“This is good,” she said low, holding up her treat. She didn’t want to be greedy when he was probably hungry.
“I’ll make you another one,” Tabian said around a chuckle.
He loaded two more marshmallows onto his wire and pulled her legs into his lap.
His hand was gentle on her shin, rubbing it slowly as he cooked.
Tru relaxed back into her camp chair and took a bite.
The chocolate had melted, and the marshmallow pull was huge.
She laughed as she tried to wipe the mess off her lips, but Tabian reached over and wiped her lip.
His eyes were so full as he looked at her face. “You’re so beautiful, Tru.”
Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies.
“I wish you were a werewolf sometimes so you could hear my honesty.”
“I can hear it well enough,” she whispered.
Tabian leaned over and slipped his hand behind her neck, then kissed her. It was quick because Bayen was crashing through the woods headed this way, and there were only so many yacking sounds she and Tabian could take, but the kiss had done its job.
Between his lips, the sip of beer, the sugar high from the s’mores, and the innate feeling of contentment running through her right now, she felt high as a freakin’ kite.
“Whatever good mojo you are giving off right now is addictive,” Tabian said, then blew flames off his marshmallows. He liked them well done, and honestly, they were delicious that way.
“I don’t think I’ve been accused of having good mojo in a long time.”
“You’ve got it now,” he said. “Shooting star.” Tabian pointed to the sky.
She caught the last second of it. “Make a wish,” she whispered and closed her eyes. I wish Bayen can steady out and find his place and enjoy the rest of high school.
When she opened them again, Tabian was watching her with this soft smile stretching his lips.
“What did you wish for?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”
“Can I guess what it’s about?”
“You won’t gues—”
“It’s a wish for Bayen.”
Tru froze. Oh, he was starting to figure her out. “You think you’re so smart,” she teased.
“I am about some stuff.”
“You think you know everything.”
“I know enough.”
Indeed, he did know how to do so much more than anyone else she’d ever met. Tonight she’d watched him put together and advertise three new camping gear products and he’d looked like he’d put them together a hundred times before.
He was just a man who knew how to do things.
It was so hot.
Bayen returned, but he seemed agitated. He came stomping out of the woods and sat down, poked at his now cold marshmallows, then stood and paced away, and back. He put his marshmallows over the fire, but changed his mind and set them down again, and clenched his fists together.
“Are you okay?” Tru asked softly.
“If I tell you something, you have to promise not to do that girly, human, emotional pout thing.”
“Emotional pout thing,” she repeated, confused.
“Yeah, you know. The thing where everything I do hurts your feelings.”
“Are you going to yell at me or insult me?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then I think I’ll be fine.”
“I messaged my mom and asked her to come get me.”
Pain sliced through her chest, but she kept her face as still as possible. Tru nodded. She had met Marissa one time, and it had been…interesting. She’d spoken a lot about being an amazing mom, but her actions said different. She was a woman who was all talk.
Tru swallowed hard and asked, “Is she going to take you?”
Bayen puffed out a breath of air and strode for the woods, stopped halfway and returned.
He rested his hands on his hips. His entire frame was strung with tension.
“I knew what my dad was doing in that last Pack. He was messing with the Alpha’s mate, and he didn’t care that I saw it, and he kept dropping me off with you more and more, and I felt really bad for you, and I knew you were going to be like the other girls, you know? ”
“The other girls.”
“My dad has been putting me on random women for years.”
“Oh shit,” Tabian murmured.
“You weren’t the love of his life, Tru. You were a means to an end, and I wanted to tell you, and I’ve always felt really bad that I didn’t.
I was selfish and I wanted to keep you, and I wanted you to stay no matter what.
You were so nice to me. The other women would keep me for a few weeks and then ditch me somewhere.
Restaurant eating pancakes. Hotel room. Side of the road.
They would call my dad to come and get me, and every time I would get in touch with my mom and tell her I wanted to live with her, and every time she got closer to saying yes, you know?
I could feel it. Or maybe I wanted to believe it, I don’t know.
So, when my dad left and you were supposed to be this…
this…stepparent or whatever you humans think was happening, I called my mom.
You weren’t married to him. You didn’t have any obligations to me, you know? ”
“Bayen,” she murmured, heart aching for him.
“No, just hear me out.”
Tru nodded. “Okay.”
He blew out a big breath and continued. “I called my mom and she said she was coming to get me, and I waited. Day after day, I would wake up and I just knew she was on her way. She had to travel to get me was all. I would text her asking where she was and how much longer, and she would say, ‘not long.’” He paced away and back.
“So, I was polite to you, but I knew you were just like all the other ones Dad dumped me onto.”
“What happened with your mom?”
“She stopped texting back. Days turned into months and now it’s been a year. I message her every Monday at six o’clock, and she ignores me. She doesn’t even read my texts anymore.”
“Fuck,” Tabian rumbled, hanging his head.
Tru could see the chills on his forearms from here, and she understood. She had chills too.
What pain this boy had been carrying.
“I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I belong.
Moving around is familiar, staying steady feels like battle.
I don’t want friends at school because I thought any day now, my mom would come.
I thought if I started acting happy, my dad would sense it and come back to take me away and put me back into chaos.
I don’t trust steady.” He inhaled sharply. “So, I don’t trust you. Tru.”
Tears burned her eyes and she looked at the fire to hide the hurt.
“You’re doing it. You’re doing the emotional thing.”
“No, boy, you don’t get to tell me how to react. Let me have a minute,” she murmured.
“You’re going to be mad at me now and it’ll be weird for a week, and I won’t know how to fix it—”
Tru stood suddenly and threw the blanket off her lap and pulled him into a hug.
Bay stood there stiffly, and she could hear his heartbeat drumming against his chest.
“Those other women stayed for weeks, yes?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been here for years. I’m not going anywhere.”
“And when my mom shows up? And takes me away?”
“Do you want to be taken away?” Tru asked, releasing him from that one-sided hug.
“I…” He frowned and glanced at Tabian, and around camp. “I don’t know.”
“When you figure it out, you tell me. And if the answer is no, you don’t want to be taken away, then I will fight to keep you.”
Bay’s face crumpled for a split second. She saw the emotion flicker through his expression before he dropped his gaze to the ground.
“What power would you have against my parents?”
And she understood. He wanted reassurance that she was in this. Reassurance that he wasn’t just some burden on her life.
“I think between the two of us, we make a good team.”
He huffed a sarcastic sound and sat in his chair, shaking his head. “Disagree.”
“You haven’t bitten anyone,” Tabian pointed out.
“What?” Bay asked.
“Tru has been raising a hurt, cornered, adolescent werewolf in human society and you’re going to public school. You haven’t lost it on anyone, and that’s with no guidance from a Pack, or an Alpha. She keeps you fed, right?”
He nodded.
“She hasn’t dropped you off at a pancake breakfast or on the side of the road, has she?”
He shook his head.
“She makes wishes on shooting stars for you.”
Bay ghosted her with a wide-eyed glance and then looked back down where he was wringing his hands together.
“When you graduate high school in a couple of years, I will tell you what will happen. Tru will be sitting in those stands, with no support from your parents, prouder than any parent in there because she knows what the two of you went through to get you to that day. You’re holding back from her and keeping your distance because why? ”
Bay shrugged.
“Man up and answer it. Why are you keeping her pushed away from you?”
“Because no one stays steady in my life and I don’t want it to hurt when she leaves.”
Oooh, her heart. Tru’s eyes prickled with tears.
“You’re a werewolf and grown enough to hear the truth in a tone, right?” Tabian asked.
“Yes.”
“Tru, will you leave him?”
“Never,” she answered.
Bay didn’t look at her, but she saw his bottom lip tremble.
“Never,” she said again. It was the easiest answer.
He sat in the camp chair frozen.
“Never ever, Bay. I won’t leave. I don’t care that I wasn’t married to your dad. It’s been you and me against the world, kiddo. I don’t care what you call me. To me, you’re my kid. I’m not leaving. Leaving you never even crossed my mind.”
Bay wiped his face hard and then stood and left. He went directly into the woods. Tabian watched him with glowing blue eyes, and he stayed there frozen, watching those woods for another minute.
“Should I go find him?” she whispered thickly.
“Let him get ahold of it.”
“Is he crying?” she whispered. “Can you hear him?”
Tabian nodded, pulled her into his lap, and hugged her up tightly. “He’s going to be all right,” he murmured against her neck. “That was big for him. You’re both going to be all right.”
“He wanted to go back with his mom.”
“He wanted to protect himself from feeling safe with someone who could hurt him by leaving him.”
“But I would never hurt him.”
“That boy didn’t know that. He knew being left, and that’s all. Best thing to ever happen to that kid was you.”
God, it felt so good to hear that.
“The world needs more mothers like you, Tru.”
She melted against him as the tears flowed.
Those words opened up something inside of her that she’d been trying to deny.
She’d never had kids of her own. She’d wanted them.
She’d dreamed of the perfect family and the white picket fence, but everything had gone sideways.
She’d gotten Bay when he was an older kiddo and had already experienced so much, and he was her shot at mothering.
This was it. Every decision she had ever made had led her to Bay, and then to Tabian.
Time crept on, and with a heavy and thoughtful heart, Tru helped Tabian prepare camp for the night. They put out the fire in the firepit and fueled the fire in the wood stove. It was chilly tonight, and though Tabian and Bay wouldn’t feel the cold, Tru would if there wasn’t a heat source.
They talked quietly, and kept their minds occupied, but all the while, Tru’s attention was on the woods as she waited for Bay to return.
When he did, he gave her and Tabian a curt nod and made his way to his tent, disappeared inside and zipped it up.
Tru pursed her lips and wished she had the right words to comfort him.
Bay was a tough one and would get annoyed if she pushed too hard.
She didn’t have the words, but she knew a language he would understand.
So, she made him a couple roast beef sandwiches and a whole bag of hot Cheetos and brought it to the door of his tent.
“I have a snack for you,” she said softly.
Inside the tent, there was movement, and then he unzipped the door.
“Thank you, Tru,” he said as he took the food.
“You’re welcome,” she said lightly as she walked off.
“No, I mean thank you, Tru,” he repeated. His eyes were puffy, but his face looked more relaxed than when he’d left.
She hesitated there, and knowing the rejection was coming, she said what he needed to hear anyway. “I love you, kiddo.”
Bay ducked his gaze, and she walked away. As the zipper closed again, she swore she heard something that was barely audible.
“Love you too.”
She turned fast, but the tent was closed up.
He’d said he loved her too, right? She’d heard that, right? Or wait, maybe she’d made it up. Perhaps it was wishful thinking.
She twisted around to Tabian, who sat in a camp chair near the tent, fiddling with a camera.
He wore a big grin, and as if he knew what she was asking, he nodded.
Yep, she’d really heard it.
After years, Bayen had said he loved her back.
And just like that, she knew Tabian was right.
They were going to be okay.