“Good thing their exhibit isn’t close by, then,” Cooper countered.
Eli pursed his lips. “I understand you’re pathologically nosy, but it really is critical that no one knows I’m here. No one. Broadcasting my affairs to every busybody and his brother who barges into my business isn’t exactly conducive to that, wouldn’t you agree?”
Cooper opened his mouth, but Dean spoke first. “If it’s so important no one knows you’re here, why did you reveal yourself to us in the first place?”
“Yes, I can see now that was my mistake.” Eli sighed. “To be brutally honest with you, I thought Cooper had recognized me. But I’m beginning to understand this whole glaring, staring, nostril-flaring thing is less ‘I know that wolf’ and more of a permanent feature of his face.”
Dean snorted and Cooper shot him a betrayed look. “Well, he’s not wrong,” Dean muttered defensively.
Eli jerked his head to the left suddenly and stood. “Someone’s coming. I need to go.”
“Wait—” Cooper protested.
“We’ll be seeing each other again, soon. Just...buy me some time? Please?” Eli pleaded, already fetching a pile of clothes that had been hidden behind the concrete pile.
“You could have been dressed all along?” Cooper asked.
At the same time Dean said, “We’ve got this. Go. And good luck.”
Eli blew a quick air kiss in their general direction and hurried deeper into the brush with the long green shimmery fabric trailing behind him.
“C’mon.” Dean tugged Cooper in the opposite direction, toward where even human ears could hear the approach of another person by now. “We need to cut them off before they can get closer and risk seeing your friend.”
“You certainly jumped on Team Eli pretty fast,” Cooper said, even as he followed quickly.
“Obviously I’m Team Eli. A wolf just turned into a man and asked for our help. This couldn’t be any more of a quest if he’d unfurled a scroll that said This is a quest on it,” Dean hissed. “Which is why I keep saying, you need to get into gaming. Your literal job is helping werewolves. You have got to start being cooler than—”
“Excuse me! Hey! You—you can’t be back here.” An extremely tall young white man was approaching them from down the dirt path, about twenty feet into the brush from the paved trail. He wore a zoo employee uniform of gray polo shirt tucked into unfortunate cargo pants and—more strikingly—had brown, fuzzy, pointed animal ears sticking out of his shaggy blond surfer hair and whiskers painted on his face. “Sorry, guys. But this is not open to the public.” He looked between the two of them suspiciously and then over their shoulders, as if searching for other ne’er-do-wells. He had a remarkably deep voice for someone so lanky, and though the kid had to be a decade younger than them at least, Cooper felt a bit like a teenager caught sneaking around by his dad.
Dean just waved a greeting and in the amiable, unconcerned voice of someone who didn’t often experience consequences, said, “Sorry, man. We got carried away following one of those wandering peacocks.”
Cooper hoped Eli heard that.
The zoo worker was still scanning the trees and took a step closer as if to walk past them. “Is anyone else—”
“Just us,” Dean cut him off. “Well, us and the peacock. I’ve always wondered why you guys let them roam loose. Aren’t you worried they’ll fly away? Or wander into a wolf’s den?” He gestured at the exhibit.
“Nah, they’re just big, fancy chickens really,” the man said, turning his attention safely back on Dean. “If any of them ever do get brazen enough to fly straight into a predator’s den, well, let’s just say those aren’t the ones passing any grand ideas to the next generation.”
“Hear that, Cooper?” Dean said cheerfully. “I think we’re politely being told to keep to the path or natural selection is going get us.”
“No, no.” The man laughed, much more relaxed now. Dean had a knack for putting people at ease with his simple, easygoing nature that had both bewildered and filled Cooper with jealousy when they were kids. “That’s not quite how it works. Not for people, anyway.” The man winked at Dean. “I’ve seen you picking up Dr. Odell before. You’re her...”
“Her husband. For now.” Dean laughed. “She might change her mind if she finds out I’ve forgotten my fifth-grade science.”
“I won’t rat you out. We’ve just got to be careful, you know? Lots of kids running around today and parents who think the perfect photo op outranks safety.” He looked at Cooper curiously.
“My bad, this is my brother, Cooper,” Dean said. “And sorry, remind me of your—”
“Ryan. Ryan Basque.” They all shook hands. “I’m one of the curators here.”
“That’s like a head zookeeper, right?” Cooper asked.
“Yeah! Well, kind of. I oversee a couple of the exhibits,” Ryan said. He rolled his shoulders back, clearly proud.
“Sounds like a cool job,” Cooper said, and Ryan grinned. He had a very friendly face now that it wasn’t furrowed with suspicion. Beyond boyish. Puppy-like.
“The coolest. But I’ve always been in the animal business. I grew up on a farm. Led tours abroad.”
“Is this lady one of the exhibits you oversee?” Dean asked, gesturing toward the wolf enclosure.
“Nah, not my specialty. I was just driving by when I saw you running into the woods.” He reached up and tweaked one of the furry ears on his head. “Ryan the Lion is giving tours this afternoon. You guys want to sign up? You get to ride in the jungle cart.”
“I don’t—”
Dean interrupted Cooper to his dismay. “Sounds great!”
Ryan clapped his hands together excitedly. “Awesome! Get ready to take a ride on the wild side!”
“What happened to that thing you were saying about people bending over backward to make me happy,” Cooper murmured to Dean as they followed Ryan back to the paved path where a large, black-and-white striped golf cart was parked. “Just so you know, this doesn’t make me happy.”
“But complaining about it sure does. Along with helping your friend,” Dean said knowingly. “The path to happiness isn’t always the most direct.” Ryan honked the horn, and a sound like an elephant’s trumpet rang out. “And sometimes you’ve got to take the zebra-striped jungle cart to get there.”
* * *
That evening, as Cooper was pulling down the driveway of their new house, the first thing he noticed was a waist-high, rectangular box on their front porch.
And here, to kick off the third act, he thought, getting out of the car. On top of the day he was already having, Cooper really should have expected this to be the day it arrived. The emblem of his and Park’s interior decorating conflict. The keystone of their very healthy adult relationship compromise.
A floor vase.
“For umbrellas?” Cooper guessed when Park had pointed it out to him at a market.
“No. For decoration. In the foyer. You don’t like it?”
Over three feet tall, handmade, ceramic and glazed in a wash of deep blues and greens, it was...pretty. And pricey.
“What if you lose something in there?” Cooper had complained. “How the hell do you get it out? It’s too long and narrow. Too heavy to turn upside down easily.”
Park had shaken his head, bewildered. “What the hell are you talking about? What are you losing?”
“Boogie? My sense of self? My core values?”
Eventually, Cooper had convinced Park to leave the vase behind. But the squabbling over house decor had gotten so bad that they’d established a rule that each person was allowed one non-arguable purchase every two months. To Cooper’s dismay, Park had immediately—and smugly—doubled back for the vase, which was clearly his plan all along.
“That’s cheating,” Cooper had protested.
“Or is it the brilliant stroke of strat
egy that wins the war,” Park had said, bowing with a flourish before running his hand suggestively up his thigh, frisky with victory. “Check and mate.”
“You’ll be checking if you still have a mate if you keep that up,” Cooper had snapped. Things had escalated pleasantly from there and, shame of shames, he had in fact agreed to the vase when he was feeling significantly more amenable for, ah, some reason or another.
The package weighed a ton and he nearly dropped it wrestling it into the foyer. And then did drop it when Boogie snuck up and tried to help.
“If it’s broken, you’re taking the blame,” Cooper said to his cat.
Boogie’s expression said fat chance, and sadly she was right.
He left the vase in the box and settled down in the living room with wine and his laptop to check some emails, Boogie prowling for a prime position on the couch with him. It was just after eight but he was exhausted and, though he’d never admit it, a tiny bit lonely, too. After the excitement of the day it felt anticlimactic and strange to come back to the house alone and sit in silence with Boogie.
An absurd and embarrassing thought. Park had only been gone for six days, and here was Cooper, as restless and horny and lamentful as a Tennessee Williams woman. Cooper enjoyed being alone. Even if Park was in the house, Cooper might choose to spend time by himself. But knowing Park was there, that Cooper could debrief the day, hear his opinions, intersect his orbit at whim, was, well, something he’d come to depend on.
What stage of love was it when another person became a habit? How quickly had the mere background hum of another person’s life become such an essential fixture of the house that its absence felt like a robbery? Like their home had been gutted and he was left drifting around the remains with the non-valuables like giant, ostentatious floor vases?
“Except for you. You’re priceless,” Cooper murmured, turning to scratch Boogie, who purred briefly and then immediately regretted it, jerking away from him sulkily. She definitely blamed him for her favorite roommate’s unusual absence.
“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Cooper said ostensibly to Boogie, but hell, he needed to hear it himself. Park was coming home tomorrow after a week of successful negotiations that helped secure their future, and Cooper couldn’t even settle on a season to get married in.
He opened his laptop, determined to get something done. Start with who you want to be there, Dean had said. Well, okay, he could do that.
Twenty minutes later, Cooper had listed his family; his old boss, Santiago; his current boss, Cola; his preteen cat sitter, Ava...and had drawn a blank. If that wasn’t the bleakest dance card, he didn’t know what was.
A loner to his core, Cooper had always been bad at maintaining friendships. But starting work for a top-secret agency dedicated to an entire world he couldn’t talk about directly after experiencing a violent attack he wouldn’t talk about had pretty effectively withered any lingering relationships. What he now understood to be PTSD-related drops into depression hadn’t exactly helped either.
Seems like a lot of people spend a lot of time bending over backward to make you happy.
Dean’s words had immediately rubbed Cooper the wrong way, because of how long he’d been on his own, looking after himself. But things were different now. Park was determined to make him happy. Perhaps even too much so. Cooper wanted to get married, so they were getting married. Cooper suggested a compromise on the house décor, so they were compromising on the house decor. It’s not that he was hoping for drama, but in moments like this, he wondered if they were supposed to be this compatible. If perhaps things were a little too easy...
Cooper glanced uneasily at the cupboard across the room where he’d shoved the research he’d stolen from Maudit Falls. Did it count as stealing if the research was performed on him and Park without their knowledge? Or was it just taking back something that they’d never agreed to give?
Regardless, after everything that happened three months ago—their engagement, Park getting shot, Freeman popping up out of the woodwork to groan, “Beware,” like a specter of the night—Cooper had never bothered to get his Alpha Quotient retested and still didn’t know what his actual score was. The last two times he’d taken it he’d completely screwed up, getting “impossible” test results. Not exactly surprising considering the hijinks the bastard administering the test had been getting up to at the time. Cooper’s new therapist, a stone-faced wolf with an almost painfully gentle voice named Dr. Ripodi, had offered to retest him when he felt ready, but so far Cooper had rejected the idea. Frankly, he was fine never knowing. It was only times like this that, well, he worried. His go-to emotion, really.
Park insisted it was fine. He was a big boy who could stand up for himself and say no, even if he did see Cooper as his alpha. He swore he was getting something out of this, too. Cooper just had no idea what.
He wanted to be able to do something for Park. Something tangible. Something to make him as happy as he made Cooper. He wanted Park’s family to murmur amongst themselves, That Cooper sure does bend over backward to make you happy. Because he would for Park. He’d bend his body backward around the entire world if it made Park smile.
He just didn’t know how.
Cooper stared at his laptop screen. Heart beating just a little faster, he opened a search window and typed “good alpha behavior,” face flaming even as he hit enter. The first couple of links were specific to animals, and he skipped over them. Then came pages and pages of links that were geared toward people.
Cooper tried one hesitantly. It listed long, detailed descriptions of what it claimed were the top traits or characteristics of an alpha. It was...rough. Intensely misogynistic, cissexist, heteronormative, for starters. It also didn’t sound like Cooper at all. Not a worrier? Can shoot the shit? Be able to walk away from hot girls? Well, he supposed that wasn’t inaccurate, per se, but it certainly wasn’t relevant to his situation. He couldn’t think of a single person who should be reading this, honestly.
He clicked through a couple more links, growing increasingly dismayed, and was just about to try new search terms when Boogie jumped off the couch top and scrambled onto the arm.
Cooper slammed the laptop shut, startled and guilty. Just the thought of being caught looking at one of these sites by someone—anyone, a passing squirrel, Michael Myers—made him want to curl up and die. But he didn’t hear anything.
Still, Boogie’s head was held alert, ears and tail twitching with concern. Her pupils were enormous and unmoving, staring toward the large picture window that faced the front yard. Cooper followed her gaze, half expecting to see someone standing, watching, but of course there was no one there.
“What is it, killer?” he whispered to Boogie. Worryingly, she didn’t even react to his voice. Cooper turned off the small lamp by the couch, tipping the room into darkness. He made his way over to the window and carefully pulled back the curtain to peek outside.
Nothing. Porch, driveway, yard—empty. The only movement was one of Park’s two pitiful attempts at the “common man’s” holiday decor: a hideous plastic skeleton hanging from the porch eave, shifting slightly in the wind.
Cooper relaxed against the sill with a sigh. Boogie wasn’t the only one having a hard time adjusting to a home outside the city. It was so quiet here, interrupted by sounds louder and more brutal than anything he’d ever heard in DC. At least it seemed that way in their unfamiliarity. Cooper had grown up in the suburbs, but it had been almost twenty years and he had long since forgotten the screaming, screeching sounds of the cycle of life coming to a bloody end—or a bloody beginning—just outside his window, and the way a squirrel suddenly possessed the weight and gait of a full-grown man when it found its way into your attic. They’d only been moved into the house for less than a month and Cooper was still waking up most nights positive they were under siege, only to have Park roll over, still half asleep, and identify the “attackers” for h
im.
Jus’ a fox.
Same owl as last night. Come back to bed.
Frogs. Yes, I’m positive. Yes, that one, too.
Cooper didn’t remember nature being this loud. Partly it must have something to do with being in a new house he hadn’t quite relaxed in yet. The numerous large windows and wood floors seemed to complain noisily whether someone was touching them or not—relatable—and while it was nothing like the temples of greed Park had first taken him touring, the house was still too large for one man and his cat alone at night.
Cooper shouldn’t complain. Overall, they were both happy about some things, unhappy with others. They’d mostly landed on the place for the property. A half hour out of DC, the house was set back from the road and nestled on the edge of an animal preserve, ensuring lots of privacy for Park to run around in fur. Cooper was the one who had championed the house itself.
“A unique labor of love,” the Realtor had called it.
“Some failed architect’s personal testing ground” was what Park said. But the mishmash of classic styles with, ah, daring new takes at modernity that had never taken quite taken off—for undoubtedly good reasons—amused Cooper. Made the house a whole lot less Architectural Digest. More livable and—
This time Cooper heard the noise, too. A thud and creak from the back porch. The living room was still dark, but he could make out Boogie’s silhouette on the arm of the couch. She was arching her back slightly, tail twice its usual size.
Cooper made his way to the kitchen where there was a door to the outside, grabbing a poker from the fireplace as he went. Holding it up like a baseball bat, he peered out of the back door window.
Again, he saw nothing. Empty porch, empty yard. The dark tree line was uninterrupted by looming figures, ax-wielding or otherwise.
Carefully he opened the door. His heart was pounding hard. He tried to remember what Dr. Ripodi had said. Is this a useful emotion? Well, if he was about to be attacked, he would never hear them coming over the sound of his own rushing blood, so no, it wasn’t particularly useful. Now what could he do to calm down? They hadn’t talked about that bit yet.
Cry Wolf Page 3