Chapter 3
Chapter three
Ricky
Walking home after stopping at Motorvated, I felt like an idiot. If I thought maybe he was checking me out, it didn’t matter, because he was back to ignoring me again. I was a fine piece of ass, dammit. How was he able to resist me?
All I wanted was for Fin to treat me like he used to. Like a friend. Or to at least look at me. I caught him looking, really looking, and then he ignored me. I felt like I was a fly running into a light over and over again instead of a man hitting a punching bag for half an hour.
My father’s voice tried to tell me I was an annoying, no-good, piece of trash on his shoe, but I mentally punched him in the face and the voice stopped.
Dear-old dad was the one who was worthless, not me, as my mom reminded me whenever we chatted.
I missed her, but I understood her need for a fresh start.
Opening the door to the little house I shared with Rel, I smelled something good with garlic and meat. “You cooking?”
“It’s just spaghetti,” Rel called back from the kitchen. I made my way through the living room at the back of the house and found my best friend in an apron that used to be his mom’s over gray sweats and a white tanktop. “And meatballs.”
The house was technically his parents, but they’d left town when the former leaders all started acting like assholes and mismanaging the pack and Rel graduated from high school. We didn’t have to pay rent, and we both got a bedroom, so I was happy living there.
“You don’t normally have energy to cook after your shift,” I pointed out, seeing he also made cheesy garlic bread. I snagged a piece and he didn’t stop me, making me grin. “Nothing exciting today?"
“It was twelve hours of cleaning the station and napping,” Rel pouted, pouring the strained spaghetti into the sauce pan. “If anything, I’m full of energy from boredom.”
“Well you won’t find me complaining,” I shrugged.
Aurelius Kazen was an omega, and gender fluid, but I never expected him to do the cooking and cleaning like our father’s generation. He worked more hours than me, and I figured my free housing meant I should do most of that stuff. Neither of us was overly fussy, anyway.
“Not working tonight?” Rel asked as I grabbed bowls from the cabinet.
“Nope. Did inventory this morning, since Norman says I’m the only one who can count over a hundred,” I joked, holding my bowl out for him to scoop some food in. I put on a bad British accent when it was not enough, “Please, sir, I want some more?”
Rel laughed but gave me another generous serving. “You’ve read Oliver Twist?”
“Read, no,” I replied around a mouthful of pasta while Rel served himself. “But the movie was on the other night at the Barn and that part was so overdramatic it stuck out.”
“If you’re watching old movies at work instead of flirting with customers, I think you need to go somewhere and get laid,” Rel pointed out, moving to the table by the back door.
“Wouldn’t I flirt more if I needed to get laid,” I tried to deflect, but he wasn’t buying it. I sat across from Rel and he lifted one eyebrow. “What? I still flirt.”
“Yeah, with the wrong people. I know about your little crush,” Rel said, not unkindly. Our pack thought my flirting was funny, but Rel knew me better. “It’s never going to happen.”
My wolf was more impulsive than me and wanted me to tell him I’d already sort of hooked up with Clark Finley. I made him come. That counted. So clearly, it could happen again. Maybe.
What I thought I’d also hidden from Rel was the fact I hadn’t been able to get laid since that hookup. It had been almost a year of solo orgasms in the shower and a lot of frustrated running to get my energy out.
The fact that I’m bi, and Rel doesn’t care about gender should have meant I could tell him anything.
Hell, we could be hooking up with each other to scratch that itch.
But we’re like brothers, and giving him details of how I sucked-off a man we looked up to as kids felt weird. Plus, Fin was Rowen’s dad.
“Wanna go for a run after this?” I asked to change the subject.
“Sure,” Rel nodded, accepting my abrupt shift. That’s why we were such good friends. He was the calm, steady balance to my impulsive ass. “After we clean up.”
“Of course, Dad,” I countered, soaking up the last of my sauce with a bit of bread.
“You do have Daddy issues,” Rel replied and stood too quickly for me to punch him.
“Fuck off,” I replied with a laugh.
We put away the food for later and stripped down at the back door.
The house had a porch that faced the woods with a straight shot to the King property and pack land.
If we needed to shift back over there, they kept extra clothes for us.
I could live there, too, but I liked hanging with Rel so neither of us were too lonely.
Stepping off the porch and onto the worn dirt path behind the house, I felt the shift coming before I consciously decided to change.
My wolf always wanted out, but I had control until he knew what was coming.
My legs and arms elongated as they were covered with a gradient of gray-black to creamy white hair.
I fell to all fours as my vision sharpened and my nose stretched.
My teeth got sharper and I sniffed the air.
Beside me, Rel was finishing his shift to a slightly smaller dark gray and black-coated wolf.
I was leaner but taller as a beta, where his omega wolf reflected the muscle mass my friend put on his human body.
As a human, he was stronger than your average man.
Shifted, he was weaker than an alpha wolf, but still bigger than most wolves in nature.
Hopping over to nip at his tail, Rel yipped what amounted to a startled laugh and jumped out of the way.
I moved to pounce on him and he rolled to avoid me.
In my effort to turn around after my miss, he took off and I gave chase.
Rel was one of the only people who could best me in wolf form or when sparring, because he knew me so well. And he was fast.
We still played like pups when we went for a run. The only difference was that we also listened and looked out for trouble. We tried to be helpful now instead of single-minded idiots like in our teens when we started shifting.
When we were at the border of pack land, I let out a high pitched howl that was hard for humans to hear, but let the King family know we were there. We didn’t need the alpha coming to investigate intruders when it was just us.
Rel and I made it almost to Wolf Creek before we heard an answering call from our Alpha signalling for us to come in. He needed to talk.
Looking at Rel, he shook his head to tell me he didn’t know what the call was about, either, and I led us toward the pack house.
Approaching on four legs, we stopped out of sight from the house to assess the situation.
I smelled the normal scents: fresh dirt from Fowler’s Gramps gardening, motorcycles in the driveway, dinner from the kitchen and covered garbage behind the house, half a dozen kinds of trees, woodland creatures, and a certain alpha I would know anywhere.
My wolf honed in on the smoked bourbon and oak I want to bury my face in, and the scent overpowered everything else.
We weren’t the only pack members visiting the house. Clark Finley was already there.