When she put it that way, Frank had no option but to accept. It meant a lot that Annie had given him the store manager job. He’d turned up in Waycroft Falls little more than a teenager, and she’d offered him not only a job but helped him get established in town. Frank wouldn’t have survived the first year on his own without Annie’s mothering guidance. He’d worked his tail off since then to make sure she didn’t regret it. But this request was more than he’d expected. A pleased flush heated his cheeks. He’d do anything for Annie. And her ultra-hot brother from New York would be there too… Well, no way would Frank let his embarrassment keep him from helping out.
“Sure. What time should I arrive?”
Annie gave him a quick hug. “We’re closing early at five that day, so dinner should be at six. And wear your good jeans.” She sauntered back to the main counter.
Frank puzzled over the command but didn’t question it. Tom would be there. Frank needed to duck out at lunch today and buy a new pair of jeans. Maybe a shirt. Should he get a suit? Did he know how to tie a tie? No. He didn’t. But she’d said jeans. New jeans and a new shirt. He looked at his scuffed dollar-store tennis shoes. And a new set of kicks. Maybe loafers like his dad wore. He needed to look nice. He needed to prove to Tom he looked good in clothes too.
Chapter Five
Tom rinsed the arugula, shaking off the water over the sink. “I couldn’t find candied walnuts, so I bought pecans instead.”
“The thweet oneth?” His niece Marcie jumped up and down, trying to see what he was doing. Her lisp was a new development caused by a couple of missing front teeth.
“Yep, the sweet ones, sweet pea.” Tom held one up for her inspection. Marcie smiled back, all but two of her teeth showing, and then took off out of the room.
“I had to drive to Waynesboro to get the gorgonzola, but it will totally be worth it.”
Annie stopped whisking her salad dressing and fixed Tom with a funny stare. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind, but I invited my store manager to dinner tonight.”
Tom shook the greens again but glanced back at his sister. “Sure. Why would I mind?”
“Well, he might be gay.”
Tom set the colander down beside the sink and turned around to face her. He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Might? Might, as in, you’d like to play matchmaker?”
Annie stirred the vinaigrette again. “Maybeee?”
“Uh-huh.” Tom grabbed the greens and tossed them into the waiting bowl. “I thought we were going to discuss what show to put on in your performance space.”
“Oh, we are.” Annie tipped her vinaigrette onto the waiting arugula. “He’s a creative guy, and he’ll have some good ideas. You’ll like him.”
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Marcie’s footsteps thundered down the hall.
“Don’t forget to look out the glass first,” Annie called out to her. “You don’t open the door to strangers, remember?”
“Hey, kiddo.” The deep voice wasn’t strange at all.
Tom grabbed a rag to wipe off his hands and ambled into the hallway.
There was the buff guy from his apartment, Frank, clothed this time, in dark jeans so stiff and pressed they could have been dry-cleaned. His biceps bulged out of a short-sleeved brown shirt that brought out the auburn highlights in his hair and made his eyes appear almost golden. Frank’s cheeks reddened just enough to spread across the bridge of his nose, making him utterly adorkable. And gay. Tom so wanted to tap that. All those lascivious thoughts he’d tried to bury about Frank’s lickable frame were now roaring back to the forefront of his mind. And his pants.
“Hey, neighbor.” Tom transferred the towel to his other hand and held his right out to Frank.
“Neighbor? I didn’t realize you two knew each other.” Annie had followed Tom out of the kitchen. Her eyebrows rose in faux innocence. “So glad to see you, Frank.” She pecked him on the cheek as she closed the door behind him.
“I’m sure you didn’t, Sis. Especially since you were the one that told me Mrs. Anderson had a vacancy.” Tom booped her on the nose to let her know she wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Fwank, come and thee my new printheth pony!” Marcie hauled on Frank’s hand, her little sock feet sliding as she lost traction on the parquet floor.
“Hey, Frank.” Annie’s husband, John, swooped in to grab his six-year-old around the middle, hefting her up in a tickle hold. “Let’s get you washed up for dinner, young lady.” Marcie’s squeals and giggles echoed down the hall as John carried his daughter to the bathroom.
Annie gestured at the kitchen with a thumb that made her look like she was hitchhiking her way back to dinner. “I’ll go finish cooking.” Her sly grin hitched up the corner of her mouth. “Tom, could you entertain our guest for me?”
Tom smirked as his sister scooted past. He waited until she disappeared around the corner before zeroing in on Frank again. Frank stood frozen in the hallway next to him.
“So, clothes.” Tom did a visual sweep of Frank from head to toe, not missing the fidgeting fingers or the crooked eyetooth that bit into the pad of Frank’s lip.
Frank’s cheeks went strawberry red, and he ducked away from Tom’s gaze. “I usually wear clothes.”
“That is a shame.” Tom laughed as Frank’s ears turned red too. “You’ve got to tell me—what were you really doing in the bushes?” Because no way could somebody this well put together be that stupid. Annie had nothing but good things to say about her “store manager,” so Frank couldn’t be the guy brainless enough to fall out of an open second-story window.
Frank studied his shoes before peeping up, shamefaced. “Running naked in the woods?”
Tom almost laughed out loud at the absurd, obviously untrue answer. And then he sobered up as the image took shape in his mind of Frank’s gorgeous frame, free and unbound, dashing through the forest. That would be a sight to behold. And Tom would pay premium for a front-row ticket.
But he realized that whatever Frank had been doing, it had embarrassed the man, or he wouldn’t keep evading. Tom should just drop it, but Frank was so fun to tease.
“Is that what they’re calling it nowadays…?” Tom strode back toward the kitchen. “Wanna help set the table?”
Frank hesitated a moment in the entryway and then followed him.
Annie had already set out the stacks of plates and silverware. Tom handed the plates to Frank with a bow, their fingers brushing. The heat of that small touch sent a frisson of excitement down Tom’s spine. He met the golden brown of Frank’s eyes, seeing them wide and shocked as if he’d felt it too.
“I haven’t seen you around the apartments much lately.” Tom grabbed the silverware, and they escaped Annie’s watchful eyes by ducking into the formal dining room.
Frank smiled, but it flattened a little around the edges of his mouth. He moved to the other side of the table, laying down plates as he went. “I was afraid of giving you a worse impression than the first one.”
Tom tilted his head and nodded, placing the flatware at attention beside the plates. “Hey, I understand. I’m willing to put awkward first meetings behind us if you are.” He finished with the last spoon and found himself in front of Frank again. “But I have to say, some of what I saw was too good to forget.”
For a moment, Tom stared straight into the gold of Frank’s eyes. A rising anticipation fizzed in his veins. He was definitely going to get to know Frank better on this trip.
Frank had just shoved a forkful of salad in his mouth when the questions started flying over the dinner table. Since he’d been invited to several Myers dinners in the past few years, he knew to keep his head down and eat. They’d ask for his opinion if they wanted it.
“So when are auditions? The mayor’s wife, Gabriella Englebottom, has been bugging me ever since I made the mistake of mentioning the play within her earshot.” Annie speared a chunk of pear and sniffed it before putting it in her mouth.
“Of course, she’s much more in
terested in a theater than an old bookstore.” John sighed.
“She’s only married to the mayor, not the town council.” Annie sprinkled more gorgonzola over her salad.
“Running a theater is a little different from running a bookstore.” John crunched around the arugula in his mouth. “Have you considered how this is going to affect your insurance?”
“We also need to break down marketing. We need a unique selling point.” Tom pointed his fork at Annie.
Frank marveled at Tom’s neat insertion into the family dinner. He looked out of place with his model good looks, but he was gesturing with his silverware and had the same habit as Annie of covering his mouth with a hand when he wanted to talk and eat. Frank’s dad had always told him to keep his mouth shut if there was food in it. But the Myerses all had too much to say to abstain from talking during dinner. Including Marcie, who even stuck her tongue out to show off chewed-up food to her dad.
“I ate the green thuff, thee?”
“That’s not very ladylike.” Annie lifted her hand in front of her own mouth to cover up her chewing as she admonished her child.
Marcie gulped and grabbed for her water.
John caught Marcie’s cup that threatened to spill as she set it back on the table. “Have you considered seeking additional funding? Maybe from another business? If Hattie’s Alterations would throw in costuming, it would cut down on some of the bookstore’s layout for the play.”
Tom sighed. “I still haven’t decided what play to do. I’ve been going over some that have had success with small thrust theater staging, since I suspect you don’t want a lot of construction initially—”
“Beauty and the Beatht! Uncle Tomath, you have to do Beauty and the Beatht!” Marcie’s whole body bumped up and down in her chair, and she knocked into the table, sending the water glasses swaying. Frank snatched his up for a quick sip.
“And why is that, Marcelony Baloney?” Tom smiled at his niece.
The little girl wiggled as excited as a puppy. “Becauth ith my favorite movie.”
Tom shook his head. “There’s no way we could pay for the rights to the Disney version, sweet pea.”
Marcie stuck her bottom lip out and looked mutinous.
“But you wouldn’t have to.” The words escaped from Frank before he could catch them. When everyone turned to him, including Marcie with her big imploring eyes, he continued. “You could do that story pretty cheaply.”
“Really?” Marcie’s squeal reached an upper register. “Pleathe, Uncle Tomath. Pleathe!”
Tom took his hands away from his ears. “How cheaply?”
Frank swore he could feel Tom’s gaze burning into his skin. He distracted himself by shoving another forkful of salad into his mouth. As if caught by a spell, they all remained quiet, everyone at the table waiting for him to swallow.
“It’s a fairy tale. Public domain. All you have to do is adapt it yourself.”
John nodded. “No copyright on folktales.”
Tom shoved his plate forward and sat back. “But I’ve got no experience with adaptation. I’m still not entirely sold on directing. Where am I gonna find someone to adapt the story here?”
Annie’s eyes twinkled as she rose to get the chicken casserole out of the oven. “Frank’s a writer.”
“Yep. Got a book on the shelves at the store and everything.” John poked at the last of his salad.
Frank’s face heated, and he worried his cheeks would never turn back to their normal color. “It’s an indie pub.”
He’d worked on the young adult novel for the better part of a year before handing it over to Sadie, one of the high school English teachers who moonlighted as a freelance fiction editor. After an excruciating three months of editing, he’d only had to save a month’s salary to pay the artist for the book cover and upload it all to the online distributor’s site. And now he had a copy he could hold in his hand. His work. Annie had made him autograph every single copy she kept on the shelves at the store.
“It’s really good.” Annie’s stage whisper to Tom could be heard by everyone at the table. Frank wanted the floor to open up under him.
“I think Frank and I might need to discuss this more. You doing anything tomorrow?” Tom folded his hands on the table and looked at Frank with a smoldering expression that said he wanted to see how adaptable Frank could be.
Frank glanced back down at his empty plate so fast his eyes blurred. This was it. No lame pickup lines required. He just needed to accept. “I was going to watch the game on TV.”
“Great.” Tom’s grin dazzled him. “I wanted to catch that too. I have to do some maintenance for Mrs. Anderson in the morning, but I should be able to knock off at eleven, and we can talk shop before the kickoff.” He thumped the table in a jaunty rhythm.
“All right. We’re moving right along.” Annie toasted the table with her water glass. Tom lifted his and met her glass with a clink. John added his, and Marcie held up her plastic cup, which her parents and uncle knocked their glasses against.
“Come on, Frank, aren’t you a little excited?” Annie nudged him with her shoulder.
He picked up his water glass and held it up as well. “To Beauty and the Beast.” His gaze strayed to Tom as he said it, and his inner wolf whined.
“To directorial debuts.” Tom added his glass. “And Marcelony Baloney.” He goosed his niece, who giggled.
“To continued solvency.” John lifted an eyebrow but also touched his water glass to Frank’s and Tom’s.
“To happy ever afters.” Annie laughed, and the clink of their combined glasses rang across the dinner table.
Chapter Six
Frank had rearranged the pillows on the sofa for the third time when he heard the knock. Wiping his palms on his jeans, he glanced back, making sure the room looked presentable. When he jerked the door open, Tom lounged against the frame, looking like he’d just stepped out of a GQ photo shoot in a shirt and vest with matching pants that screamed designer. Frank’s inner wolf lolled its tongue in appreciation.
“C-come on in.” Frank cursed his stammer as his human tongue tried to mimic his inner wolf, but motioned Tom inside. Tom waited in the entryway as Frank closed the door.
“So, no barking?” Tom asked, the quizzical look making a slight wrinkle in the perfect skin of his forehead.
Frank blanched. Did Tom know? How had Tom— Had Annie told him?
“I know you’ve got a dog.” Tom stepped forward, looking around. “I heard it the other night. Where is it? I love dogs. I haven’t had one since I was a kid.” He whistled then and bent down, his pants molding to his backside. “Come here, boy!”
Frank’s relief that Tom didn’t know about his condition was short-lived. He shuffled from one foot to the other, fighting his momentary panic. Frank knew what night Tom referred to. Frank had smelled something he couldn’t pin down, and he’d just shifted before he thought better of it, snuffling at the door until his wolf ears had heard the sound of Tom’s footsteps and he realized it was Tom’s scent that had intrigued him. Frank had taken great lungfuls as the man passed, letting Tom’s warm smell coat the back of his tongue and sear itself into his brain.
Should he come right out and just tell Tom that he suffered from Galen’s syndrome? It wasn’t like Tom wouldn’t have heard about it, but it was different when you saw the nightly news making fun of werewolves at Halloween and actually meeting someone who could morph into the shape of a wolf. Frank remembered the kids at his high school toilet-papering the yard the year he first shifted and the papier-mâché wolf that had been hung from one tree.
It had happened at practice after school. His veins had raced with adrenaline as he ran the timed sprints around the track. He’d been reaching, cupping his hands to push against the air, to go faster, faster. And then his point of view had dropped, and his feet stumbled, sending him headlong into the polyurethane track.
Frank heard a yell from one of his teammates. He shook his head, trying to shake off the d
azed muzziness confusing his thoughts. His legs were tangled in something. His jaw hurt where it had thumped against the ground when he fell. Frank struggled to sit up, reaching to grab whatever was wrapped around his feet, but to his horror, he didn’t see a hand. All he saw was red-brown fur and a lupine paw. Where were his hands? Where were his legs and feet?
“Braden. Braden.”
Frank looked up into the scared eyes of his coach. He opened his mouth to answer, but only a whine escaped.
“It’s okay, son. I know what’s going on.” The coach reached out slowly toward Frank to pull his tangled running shorts off his legs. “Let’s get you to the nurse. Can you stand?”
And Frank realized it had happened. His father and mother had prepared him from childhood for this, but it had never really sunk in that…he was a manifestor. His parents’ cursed genes had given him Galen’s syndrome, which manifested by causing him to shift from human form to wolf.
Frank attempted to get to his feet, but his lupine legs were shaky, and he collapsed.
“Coach, what’s going on?” His friend Darryl Stewart loomed over them.
“We need to carry him. Stewart, get his legs.”
The news of his shift had spread through the high school by the end of the day. The knowledge led to whispers when he returned to school, and as the school year progressed, mocking. Leaving behind a whole town of people who knew he had Galen’s was one of the things Frank loved most about moving to Waycroft Falls.
“Uh, no dog, man. It’s against Mrs. Anderson’s rules.” Frank’s delivery only wavered a little at the almost lie.
“Huh.” Tom stood up. He plunked the bottle of tequila on the coffee table as Frank turned on his tiny television. “I could have sworn I heard a dog.”
“What’s that for?” Frank motioned to the bottle, trying to change the subject.
Wolf Around the Corner Page 3