Chapter Nineteen
Tru was vibrating with excitement. It was Friday and she had two days off and big plans to stay at Tabian’s tonight. She’d taken a few days off work this week and was that going to make bills a little tougher to pay this month? Yes. Was that a problem for tomorrow? Also, yes.
“I am a surprise ruiner,” she said, wringing her hands.
“Are you really?” Tabian asked as he took a left onto Filson Avenue.
“Super bad surprise ruiner.”
“Oh that’s a deal breaker,” he teased.
“I can try really hard, but I basically just have to get presents for holidays the day before because I will spill the beans.”
“Are we going to the gym?” she guessed, studying the sign that listed the businesses in the parking lot he was turning into.
“Nope. Stop guessing.”
“Oh! There’s my car. Bay is here!”
He was holding open the passenger side door for a pretty girl to get out. That must be Breah.
Bay waved and Tabian backed his truck in a couple parking spots down from him.
Distracted by the happy look on Bay’s face, she stopped trying to guess what they were doing, and focused on unbuckling, shoving her phone into her purse, organizing her three water bottles she was hoarding in the side of the door, and then pulling on her zip-up hoodie.
Why she hadn’t done any of that before they parked was a mystery to her. She was always chaotic like this.
Tabian stood there holding the door open for her with a patient demeanor as he talked to Bay behind him. She liked that he never rushed her, even when her mind was in a dozen places at once.
He held his hand out when she was ready and helped her down, then closed the door behind her and pulled her fingertips to the crook of his elbow.
“Tru, this is Breah,” Bay introduced her to the smiling girl standing beside her. “Breah, this is my mom, Tru.”
Tru dropped her gaze immediately because her eyes were burning in an instant. Oof, he’d never called her that before. Tru stepped forward and shook Breah’s hand.
“Are you okay?” Breah asked.
“Yeah, I’m better than okay. Just a little emotional lately, but in a good way.”
The boys stepped in front of them and led the way, and Breah fell into pace with Tru. “I get like that when it’s my time of the month.” Her eyes went wide. “I’m so sorry. That is so TMI. I’m…I’m sorry, I’m nervous.”
Tru slipped her arm through hers. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“I’m so awkward.”
“Oh no, just watch me for eight seconds. It’ll make you feel better.”
“It’s just meeting a lot of people. And they’re all…you know. Werewolves.”
“Not me,” Tru assured her. “And the Alpha’s mate is a human. They’re all super nice.”
“Um, I’m sorry for getting Bayen in trouble yesterday. I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t know who to call when it happened.”
“You call Bay. If you like him and he makes you feel safe? You call him. I’m not mad at him or at you. I would be disappointed if he didn’t stick up for you. That shouldn’t have happened to you.”
Breah’s tremulous smile was genuine and thankful.
Tru had dressed up tonight, in her favorite wedge heels, medium blue wash skinny jeans and a tank top. The breeze was chilly tonight though, so she was happy for the zip hoodie.
The building in front of them had a big sign with a pizza on it.
“Pizza night?” she asked, excited. Pizza was her all-time favorite.
“Yep, it’s just a pizza night,” Bay said. But Tru saw him toss Tabian a wink.
At the front door, there was a sign drawn in neon chalk. Welcome Wolf Outdoors Viewing Party.
She frowned and read it again. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Tabian opened the door and gestured the teenagers inside, then leaned in and kissed Tru as she passed. “You’ll see.”
Inside, Tabian took her hand and led her straight past the ordering counter and to the back of the restaurant to a door with another Welcome Wolf Outdoors Viewing Party sign with balloons tied to it.
Inside were two rows of tables with steaming pizzas being delivered by two servers. There was a soda machine to the right and a salad bar across the room. On the back wall was a screen, and a projector was set up.
The entire Rogue Pack was here—Liam and Nory, Nathan and Delta, Dodger and Destiny, Vic and Lyric, and even Bridger was here.
The girls flooded toward them while the guys gave nods of greeting and piled plates with pizza slices.
Bay led Breah around the room, introducing her to the Rogue Pack one by one.
Tru watched, but she seemed settled and even relieved by the third or fourth introduction.
Bay was making it easy on her. Atta boy.
He wasn’t going to be anything like his father.
Tru would make sure of it, but also Tabian would too.
And the boy was smart. He was a watcher. He knew right from wrong, and he wasn’t going to be dragged into being any kind of man he didn’t want to be. She just had this confident feeling about him and his future.
He was going to be okay.
Tabian led her to a pair of empty seats at the second-row table and pulled a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza onto a plate and set it down at her spot, then made his own.
“Do you want salad?” she asked him, feeling so mushy right now with the wash of good mojo flowing through this room.
“You’re already at half a million views,” Vic announced, looking at his phone.
“You had an episode go live?” she asked excitedly.
“An hour ago,” he told her, with this knowing smile on his face. “You might hate it. I don’t know. I’m kind of nervous for you to see it.”
Confused, she followed him to the salad bar and filled a plate. Breah came up and chatted with her through it as she got her own, and Delta and Nory followed.
With drinks and salads in hand, they took their seats as Vic told them all to quiet down. “Speech, Tabian! Speech!”
Tabian held her chair out for her and then scooted it in before he made his way to the front of the room while Vic fiddled with the projector.
Bay took the seat right by her and bumped her shoulder before he went to eating.
And here she sat in a room full of werewolves, in the middle of a real Pack who were fast turning into dear friends, watching her Tabian search for words in front of them all.
“Over the past couple of days, most of you have approached me about the reasons why I hid what I was doing with my camping life. Some have been a sentence…Delta.” He shrugged.
“Some have been jokes…Vic. Some have voiced frustration…Dodger and Bridger and Nory. One got me. Liam. You were worried that I didn’t feel home enough with your Pack to share about my life, and I watched you search for the words to reassure me.
And maybe there were a lot of reasons. I’m a slow open.
Well, until Tru I was a slow open. I liked having something for just me.
This secret life, but it wasn’t really a secret, right?
I was sharing with a million strangers while my Pack didn’t know a huge part of my life.
I’ve thought about it so much. I tried to justify it and told myself that I didn’t really share anything real with my viewers.
But I did, didn’t I? I showed them the wolf.
I brought them into my church…the woods.
That’s what the forest is to me, you know?
It’s my church. It’s where I figure everything out.
I was so scared that one of you would stumble across my channel one of these days and find out about me.
See me.” Tabian frowned. “I don’t know why it was so scary to think about that.
The other day, when you crashed our campsite, I was frustrated at first. I’d taken Tru and Bay out there to bond with them and see how we all feel outside of the stress and pressure of Coeur d’Alene, and jobs, and school.
For a minute I felt like you were taking something sacred away from me.
And then I saw the look on Tru and Bay’s face, and I think everything happened the way it was supposed to happen.
So…I put this episode together. I hope none of you mind.
” He ducked his head and came to sit next to Tru as Vic pushed play on an episode on his channel called Now You See Me.
It had five hundred twenty-seven thousand views already.
Dodger turned the lights off in the back, and Tabian moved his chair closer to hers and draped his arm around the back of her chair.