Stag and the Ash

by Sam Burns

  Andrei shook his head. “This feels dumb.”

  “Having a crush on a girl, or talking to me about it?”

  For a second, Andrei frowned at him, but then he sighed and went back to staring at the ground ahead of them. “Talking to you. But Dad says that’s how it works.”

  “What?”

  Andrei sighed, shoulders slumping in relief. “Dad says if I want to ask Madison out, I have to ask the alpha, which is you. Something about pack dynamics or keeping the peace. I don’t know—I was focused on how ridiculous it was.”

  “It’s pretty ridiculous.”

  “So ridiculous. Like you care if I date another werewolf.” Andrei shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe in old-school packs, the alpha controlled who got married. Seems like a waste of your time to me, and I want to take her to dinner or something, not have kids.”

  Jesse was struck with the urge to laugh. “So I should ask about your intentions is what you’re saying?”

  “I intend to spend time with a pretty girl, who seems nice. Is that cool?”

  As nonsensical as it was for Andrei to ask permission to date someone, there was a good aspect of it. Jesse had the chance to talk to him about what was going on, and Andrei would be on guard. Jesse wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Sounds awesome. But we should talk about some stuff.”

  “Please tell me you’re not going to—”

  “Definitely not, whatever you’re thinking. The thing is, you know how everyone thinks Madame Cormier has been threatened?” Andrei nodded, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “So it’s not actually about her. It’s me. And we’re worried Madison and the boys are part of it.”

  “You think she’s going to help someone against the town?” Andrei looked horrified.

  The fact that he was so emotional about a girl whose name he barely knew gave Jesse suspicions about a zap in their future, but he decided to let them discover that on their own. He didn’t need to be interfering in other wolves’ dating lives, just protecting their actual lives where possible.

  “No, I don’t. At least, not on purpose.” He took a moment to organize his thoughts and decide how to explain before continuing. “On Tuesday, we found out that there was a threat. On Wednesday, Madison and the guys rolled into town. I’ve been living with them for a couple of days, and they seem nice, but you’ve got to take the timing into account, you know?”

  Andrei nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a good point. It’s odd timing if it’s not related. Maybe there’s a spell on one of them?”

  Jesse didn’t think that too likely, given the villain’s hatred of the supernatural, but it was worth considering. They didn’t have the luxury of ignoring possible threats. “I’ll have to look into that.”

  “Should I wait until after we know what’s going on?” Andrei asked.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary, unless you’re worried about it. I just didn’t want you blindsided if something comes up. As nice as she seems, I need you to be on your guard when you’re around the three of them.” It felt gross, telling the guy he could ask Madison out but to be suspicious of her.

  In the end, however, Jesse’s first loyalty was to his people. Andrei was one of his people, and Madison wasn’t yet. He hoped if the kids weren’t working with Charles, that they could all move past this when the threat was resolved.

  For some reason, he was dismissing the idea that they would fail to handle it. He had a whole town at his back. His friends and family would be there to help, and he could handle anything with them behind him. He wasn’t alone with Charles this time, hadn’t spent the last three years having his resistance broken down by constant gaslighting.

  Jesse realized that they’d been walking in silence for a while when they reached the pier, mostly quiet in the late morning, fishermen having left hours earlier for their work.

  “Do you think they’ll stay?” Andrei asked.

  “I think they’re considering it. I don’t think any of them have ever been part of a normal pack before. This is new, and they’re overwhelmed, but they seem hopeful.” Jesse leaned against the railing and looked out at the cove the town was named for. He should spend more time near the ocean; like all the things he had, he suspected he didn’t appreciate it enough.

  “Are you scared?” Andrei asked. “If you’re the one someone wants to kill, that’s got to be scary, right?”

  After a moment’s consideration, Jesse realized that he wasn’t. His friends had been worried about him at dinner, but finding out that he was the real target had been a relief. “I was more scared when I thought someone was going to attack Madame Cormier. She’s under the weather, and one of my best friends has been staying with her, so they’d both be in danger. It’s so much easier that it’s me.”

  Andrei gave a low whistle and shook his head. “Better you than me. I’d be hiding in my apartment. Guess that’s why you’re the alpha, and I’m a short-order cook.”

  “Dude, you’re gonna be the next owner of the Half Moon, and even if you weren’t, cooking is hard. I wouldn’t want your job. People are jerks about food.” He’d never done a food-service job, but he’d been told by multiple friends that it was some of the most stressful, thankless work available.

  The only answer from Andrei was a half-hearted shrug. The difficulty accepting a compliment seemed common to the Volkov family, so he figured that at least Andrei knew it was intended as a compliment.

  “So recapping: sure, ask Madison out, that’s none of my business, good luck, she’s nice, and be careful.” He turned a sly grin on Andrei. “Now you’re sure you don’t need the safe-sex talk?”

  Andrei gave him a glare, but then blushed bright red and looked away.

  “I’m gonna take that as a no. Seriously, though, if you do need anything, you can always come to me. Except for a safe-sex talk—I’m not actually doing that.”

  They walked back to the house in silence again, and Jesse found himself wondering if Andrei would wolf up and ask the girl out. She deserved something good in her life, and Jess might be biased by pack bonds, but he thought Andrei was something good.

  As they reached the door, he shoulder bumped the shorter man. “Right now we’re eating breakfast, but how do you feel about lunch down at the beach? You bring sandwiches for an army, I’ll bring chips and drinks, and we’ll make an afternoon of it.”

  “I have to work at four,” Andrei told him. “And Madison, too. Maybe I could drive her.”

  “Sounds like a plan, if she’s down with it,” Jesse agreed. “See you at noon?”

  Jesse’s plate hadn’t been so much as touched when he got back, but everything else on the table had been consumed. It reminded him of when his mother used to complain that he and Wade were going to “eat her out of house and home” when they were teenagers. Not that Jesse ate much less as an adult, he just paid for it himself.

  “So Andrei’s gonna make some sandwiches for lunch, and I thought we’d have a picnic on the beach.”

  Sean lifted an eyebrow. “He came to ask us all to a picnic?”

  “Nah, I scammed him into cooking. He came to ask about something else. Werewolf-hierarchy nonsense, but it’s all good.”

  Madison had a little food left on her plate, and she was biting her lip. It was a heck of a tell if she ever picked up poker. It also firmed up Jesse’s belief that the kids weren’t deliberately involved in Charles’s plan, whatever it was. She wasn’t a good enough liar to help the guy.

  “He seems like a good guy,” she said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.

  “He is,” Sean said before Jesse had a chance to swallow his mouthful of toast. He looked at Jesse. “He’s, what, twenty-six?”

  He tried to remember which math he’d tutored Andrei in. Algebra, he thought. “Yeah. He must have been starting high school my senior year. Crappy at math, but a great cook, and a nice guy. Friendliest family in the harbor too, the Volkovs.”

  Joshua cocked his head. “Werewolves are the friendliest family in t
own?”

  Madison cringed, and Jesse felt her pain. Her father was responsible for Joshua’s early impression of werewolves being less than pleasant, and since it was her family now, she felt responsible. Jesse hated feeling responsible for things he couldn’t control.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Being a werewolf doesn’t make you nicer or less nice. It just makes you a werewolf.”

  “What about the full moon? Doesn’t it make you, like, crazy?”

  Everyone at the table looked at him in shock except Anthony, but Sean was the first to regain his composure. “I take it you haven’t been through a full moon yet?”

  Joshua shrugged. “One. I might have gotten my hands on some vodka and gotten blackout drunk, so I didn’t have to deal.”

  Madison looked at Anthony, who stared at the table for a while before muttering, “He was nervous. I thought it would help.”

  With one word, Sean summed up Jesse’s feelings. “Wow.”

  “We’ll have to change that this moon,” Jesse said matter-of-factly, setting down his fork as he finished the last of his sausage. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, but whatever it is, you’re wrong.”

  “What is it like?” Sean asked. “I mean, I was with you on the last full moon, and you didn’t act that much different from normal”—Jesse mentally thanked his boyfriend for not mentioning what an aggressive cuddler he became on full-moon nights—“so I don’t know if it makes much difference to you.”

  Before Jesse had a chance, Madison said, “It makes you more—you. Whatever you are, you’re more like that.” Her eyes widened, and she looked at Jesse like she was worried she’d committed a faux pas by speaking instead of waiting on him. He wondered if her father had been that kind of dick, and resolved to support her in every way he could, despite the fact that he was way the hell too young to be her dad. He’d have had to father a kid at, like, eight. Ew.

  He looked to Joshua, who was watching him closely. “The lady puts it better than I could. The full moon’s a little like being tipsy. It exacerbates your underlying personality, makes you more likely to do things you want to instead of things you need to.”

  “I said it better than that?” Madison asked, dubious, and then bit her lip again.

  “I liked the way you put it.” Jesse downed his orange juice before setting the empty glass back on the table. “Full moon’s not that different from what you deal with every day. That instinct that tells you to protect your people, be wary of strangers, and all that. It’s just, you know, turned up to eleven.”

  That seemed to confuse Joshua. “Eleven?”

  Sean had to get up and leave the table, he failed so hard at not laughing.

  “We’re never having kids,” Jesse called after him. “It’ll be even worse than this.”

  “These go to eleven,” Anthony said, so softly Jesse almost missed it.

  Madison and Joshua looked at him blankly, but Jesse held up a hand for a high five, then pointed at Anthony. “You can stay.”

  “So picnic on the beach in March,” Sean said as he set the bags of chips on one of the picnic tables littered along the section of beach they’d chosen. “Is that a thing a lot of people do, or is it as weird as it seems?”

  Jesse hadn’t thought the suggestion through that far, so he shrugged. “I dunno. Wade and Devon are always going on picnics, I think because Ms. O’Meara did. It seemed like a cool idea, and it’s not raining or anything.” It was also a nice, neutral location, the wolf pointed out, putting Andrei and Madison on the most even playing field possible without leaving town. He told it to mind its own business. He didn’t make these decisions based on feral instincts. Probably.

  He sighed. Oh, fuck his life.

  Sean raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t say anything about it, instead changing the subject. “It’s nice. It’s been warm, and it looks like the clouds might clear before the end of the month.”

  March in Rowan Harbor was a cloudy affair, with lots of thunderstorms at night. They hadn’t gotten a lot of rain this spring so far, which made Jesse happy, since Devon seemed to cringe every time rain threatened. He didn’t know what that was about, but he figured Devon would tell him in his own time, or if it were important.

  Like you told them about Charles right away because it was important? his asshole conscience asked, and he told it to shut the hell up.

  An unexpected pressure grabbed his attention. Sean had seated himself on the table next to where Jesse stood, and was leaning on his shoulder. Jesse responded with an arm around his boyfriend.

  It was nice.

  “I hope everyone likes anchovies,” Andrei announced as he arrived, bags weighing down his arms. It looked like he really had made enough for an army. Jesse would have given him a glare, but he didn’t smell anything like anchovies. Did people even put those in sandwiches?

  Sean snorted and didn’t bother lifting his head from Jesse’s shoulder. “Please. Like you’d try to feed Jesse that. You know how he feels about fish.”

  “Fish is fine,” Jesse protested. “Like, fried fish. And fried shrimp. And those fish tacos you make, ’cause, you know, tacos.”

  “Spoken like a true land-bound carnivore,” Madison said as she walked up, bag of water bottles in hand. She smiled shyly at Andrei and ducked her head. “And I’m willing to try anything once.”

  “There it is,” Sean whispered in Jesse’s ear. “I’ve never seen a guy fall completely in love before.”

  Indeed, Andrei was looking at her like the offer to try anything was an offer to give him anything. He held up the bag of sandwiches, as though to shake her hand, then seemed to remember that he was carrying something. He blushed and headed for the table to set down his burden, and she followed to do the same.

  Anthony and Joshua watched with pensive expressions, and Jesse felt for them. They had to be worried that everything would change, and not for the best, if Madison went and fell in love.

  Unless they were all in on some scheme against the town, in which case Madison falling for Andrei was more than inconvenient for them.

  Anthony’s expression turned hopeful as he watched them set down their bags and reach out to shake hands. It was kind of adorable, so much so that Jesse didn’t look himself, content to watch Anthony’s reaction. He already knew what was going to happen.

  Madison gave a little giggle, and when Jesse glanced over, Andrei was grinning like a kid on Christmas.

  “I guess that settles whether you’re staying,” Sean said, his voice as hopeful as Anthony’s face.

  Madison ducked her head, and Andrei mumbled something about people getting ahead of themselves, both blushing brightly.

  “Well then,” Jesse said, voice loud even to himself. “Why don’t we eat all this food, and you two go chat?”

  Andrei glared at him. “Don’t even try to eat our sandwiches, Hunter.”

  Jesse pretended to pout as Andrei pulled two sandwiches from the bag. Madison took two water bottles, and the two of them drifted off to another picnic table, walking barely inches apart, leaning toward each other.

  “That’s adorable,” Sean said with a sigh.

  “I hope she’s a good waitress.” Jesse reached over and grabbed two more sandwiches at random, handing one to Sean. “Otherwise we’ll have trouble in paradise.”

  “I think she liked it,” Joshua said, taking his own food and sitting down. “She smiled the whole time, anyway.”

  “Is it okay that he’s so rude to you?” Joshua asked after a long silence while everyone ate. “I don’t think Madison and Anthony were ever like that with their dad.”

  Anthony shook his head, agreeing. “Dad would never have let us mouth off like that.”

  Jesse couldn’t control the frown that crossed his face. “Andrei gets to decide how he talks to me. Also, I’m not his father. I'm sure he’d be fine talking to his father that way, but that’s how their relationship works. Anatoly isn’t the kind of guy who gets mad at people for speaking their minds. Unless they say
they don’t like beer.”

  When Sean almost choked on his food, Jesse patted his back until he got it under control. “Have you seen someone tell the man whose whole life revolves around beer that they don’t like it?”

  Surprised the whole town hadn’t heard about the incident, Jesse stared at him for a moment. “Um, my dad. They had . . . words.”

  “I am so sorry I missed that.”

  Jesse shivered. “I wish I had. The two nicest old dudes I know talking smack to each other. It was so wrong.”

  “Didn’t your mother make them stop?” Joshua asked.

  “You guys have a really different idea of what an alpha does than how it works around here,” Jesse answered. “But you’ll get used to it. I think you’ll like it.”

  He turned to find Sean giving them both a thoughtful look, but when he raised a brow askance, Sean shook his head and waved him off. “Later.”

  After they ate, Joshua and Anthony went out into the surf and splashed around, shoving each other into the water and other general teenage beach activities. Andrei and Madison sat close together and talked for hours. Sean and Jesse were content to do the same, but mostly sat in comfortable silence. It was one of the nicest afternoons in Jesse’s recent memory.

  Too bad it was tainted with the reminder that he was keeping secrets.

  Jesse waited until later that evening to talk to Joshua about the upcoming full moon. The kid obviously didn’t want to have the conversation, or any conversation, but he didn’t leave when Jesse approached him.

  Joshua pursed his lips, and he gave Jesse the side-eye that only a suspicious teenager could, but he didn’t move from his spot on the couch in front of the TV. “I’m guessing you’re not here to watch TV with me?”

  It only took a glance at the television to confirm that was true. “Oh man, are you watching a reality show on my poor innocent TV? What did it ever do to you?”

  Joshua snorted, but he hit the mute button on some woman who looked like she was having a breakdown over a haircut. Jesse hoped she didn’t hurt herself. That was why he didn’t watch reality shows: too stressful. Poor lady.