Chapter 9 #3
“Did yer family do a lot of moving?”
“Fuck family.” Austin’s response came sharply before he went silent again.
Roscoe’s ears fell to the side, and he turned up the radio, this time at a lower volume. I expected him to get angry, but that didn’t happen. Roscoe was a smooth talker and obviously had a lot more patience than I did.
“How much longer?” Adam asked, squinting to get a better look at my phone’s screen.
“Two hours and forty minutes,” I replied. “I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed again.”
“I can’t wait to sleep in yer bed again, either,” Roscoe added, running his clawed hand along my inner thigh while keeping his eyes on the road.
I glared at him.
“Aw, don’t look at me like that. Think of how warm you’ll be when it starts gettin’ colder. Remember when you fell asleep with my dick still in you? You looked so cute. It can be like that every night.”
“Cute? I slipped into unconsciousness because I was exhausted.” It was hard not to think about that night without smiling.
He’d come into my life like a whirlwind, and just like that, we were about to start our lives in a whole new area.
“Just don’t piss me off, and I won’t make you sleep on the floor… like a dog.”
Roscoe’s smile widened to a sinister grin.
“I mean it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
My threats didn’t work on him anymore, and Adam’s description of what was in store for this new body was all I could think about lately.
Were the cravings really going to get worse than this?
I’d gone from thinking I had control to knowing it was actually Roscoe who held the cards, similar to how Austin kept Adam coming back.
There were major differences, and the more I thought about it, the more I may have lucked out.
The werewolf leaned in, and our lips met.
“God dammit! Keep your eyes on the road,” Austin shouted, grabbing onto the ‘oh shit’ handle as the truck veered onto the rumble strips.
“I got it, I got it,” Roscoe said, centering the vehicle again.
“It ain’t terrible,” Roscoe said while looking around the darkened living room. He flipped on the light switch, and a few roaches scattered into the cracks in the walls. “I’ve lived in worse.”
Adam slipped into the hallway, turning on more lights. “Is it too late to get a hotel?”
I was in a strange state of mind—shocked at how awful the place looked, but too tired to react.
Austin ran his claws along the cracks in the paint. “Needs a little work, but at least it’s roomy.” I had expected him to complain the loudest, but he didn’t seem fazed at all. When he opened the door to the garage, his tail went from limp to a rapid wag. “Hell yeah!”
“What?” Roscoe asked.
“Look at all this space. I can actually use my tools.”
Adam peeked around the corner. “What tools?”
“I had to keep them in storage because we didn’t have any room in that shitty little apartment.”
The half-turn stomped on a small roach skittering past his foot. “Ugh. I can’t live here.”
“They’re just bugs, damn. Try sharing a dumpster with rats some time,” Austin said, closing the garage door. “This place can be a palace, especially if you’ve ever lived on the streets. Ain’t that right?” He gave Roscoe a nudge.
“Palace it is.” Roscoe peeked into both bedrooms before examining the one bathroom we’d all end up sharing. “Just needs some cleaning and a bit o’ love.” He looked over at me. “You okay?”
“I…” I trailed off, letting out a sigh before walking toward the door. “Let’s just get our beds. We’ll deal with this tomorrow.”
Later that night
“Yer not seein’ the possibilities,” Roscoe whispered. “I bet we’ll have this place looking like home in a few weeks.”
“I’m almost afraid to look at the town now.”
He tightened his arms around me. “It’s an adventure, Cody.
You gotta live in the moment and think about the cool shit we can do here.
” He leaned in, his cold, wet snout settling on the crook of my neck.
“And yer lucky you ain’t gotta go through the tough times alone.
Having those two living with us is pretty lucky, too.
We got two sources of income now. When you hit yer full turn, you want to be around other werewolves more, especially the older you get. ”
“When do you think I’ll get to be a werewolf?”
“Hmm…” Roscoe slipped his hand under my pants, running his finger along the cleft of my ass. “You don’t have a little tail, and there ain’t a lot of fur, so it’ll be a while. I know it ain’t fun, and sometimes it can hurt, but try to enjoy the good parts.” He pulled at the fabric until it ripped.
“Damn it, Roscoe. I’m running out of underwear.” I pushed his hand away. “And I’m not in the mood.”
“You’ll feel better. Trust me.” Roscoe’s long tongue trailed along my neck. “When have I ever been wrong about this?” He lifted me on top of him before sliding my boxers off. There wasn’t as much pain as the broad tip of his cock slipped inside.
The light flipped on, and Austin walked into the room, furiously sniffing the air.
“Looks fun. Got room for another?”
“Hell yeah,” Roscoe said, catching himself as I grabbed a tuft of fur on his neck. “Uh, that’s if it’s okay with Cody.”
“Get the hell out of here!” I shouted, throwing a pillow at the werewolf’s head. Austin snorted and left the room, closing the door behind him.
“Is it too late to kick them out?”
Adam and I spent much of the morning cleaning the layers of grime and rust from the kitchen and bathroom, while Roscoe worked on the floors. Austin was busy patching the walls; he’d need to head into town later to buy paint and necessities with the little money we had left.
After tossing the scrub brush into a blue plastic bucket, I rinsed my hands and walked through the hallway out the back door. I hadn’t really gotten a good look at the entire yard yet, but as the late morning sun unveiled what was hidden last night, a smile crossed my face.
The backyard was wild and overgrown but had a vine-covered firepit in the middle.
Where the backyard ended, the woods began.
It was pretty, and as Roscoe had said, I could kind of see the possibilities.
Maybe I’d make a garden, and we could clean up the firepit.
Perhaps we’d meet more people and invite them over for games and drinking.
“What’s with that look?” Adam asked. I hadn’t noticed him creeping up behind me.
“I haven’t had a yard since I was a kid.”
Adam kicked a small rotten log out of the way. “I want to go back to the city.”
“Well, nothing’s stopping you,” I muttered, walking the perimeter of the property. Adam trailed behind.
“I bet there’s not even a nightclub in this town. Just a bunch of old-people bars.”
“You don’t have to sell this town to me. I’m already liking it.”
Adam huffed like a child throwing a tantrum.
“I’m just trying to look on the bright side for once, and you’re not helping.” I pointed to the woods. “You think it’s really haunted?”
“Who cares?” Adam whined, looking back at the house. “I don’t like the way it smells here.”
“What are you talking about? It smells better than car exhaust and dumpsters.”
“You don’t smell it?”
I took a deep breath through my nose. “All I smell is bleach and window cleaner. I think I may have accidentally chlorine-gassed the entire house.”
Adam shook his head. “It’s not a scent I can describe. I don’t know. I’ve been noticing weird shit like that lately. Nothing seems to smell good or bad, but it’s different. Like information being shoved into my head that I can’t understand.”
I took in another whiff of air and shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t smell it.”
We stopped at the edge of the woods.
“Austin’s being weird again,” Adam said, shifting the subject.
“Now what?”
“He’s just weird.”
“He seems to be his same unpleasant self to me.”
“That’s the weird thing. He’s not. Last night, he was rough, but he wasn’t mean about it. And he hasn’t argued with me all day.”
I shot the half-turn another confused look. “Why is this a bad thing?”
He ran his fingers through his dreadlocks, scratching the back of his head. “When he’s quiet, it makes me more nervous than when he’s angry. It usually means he’ll be extra mean later.”
“Roscoe and I will put a stop to it.”
“How? You think Roscoe’s gonna be able to take Austin?” Adam laughed. “The guy can’t even fight his own appetite.”
“He pretends to be stupid and passive, but he’s pretty good at diffusing bad situations.” I thought back to our unfortunate interaction with the police a couple of weeks ago. “Sometimes.”
Adam turned toward the house. “We should probably finish cleaning this dump.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Fine. Let’s finish cleaning this—how do real estate agents make shitty houses seem appealing in advertisements?”
“Adam.”
“Oh yeah. Let’s finish cleaning this quaint little bungalow with a lot of investment potential.”
I opened the door, and we stepped inside, the sound of a disc sander whirring in the living room.
“I didn’t know Austin had tools,” Adam said, keeping his voice low. “I didn’t even know he knew how to do anything other than lie around the house scratching his balls all day.”
“Did you see him smile when he saw the garage?”
Adam muttered something I couldn’t hear before speaking up. “Yeah. We’ll see if it lasts.”