by TJ Klune
“I smoked?” I asked, incredulous.
He snorted. “You tried once. Then you bitched for a week after that the smell wouldn’t go away.” He scratched the back of his neck. “None of us smoke, not anymore, though I would probably kill half of you for a cigarette, Mark be damned. But it’s the same principle. Smoke break is just a break. Any questions about office stuff, don’t ask me. I don’t understand half this shit.” He paused. “I may need you to look at my computer in the office. It’s beeping. At me. And runs really slow.”
“How did you guys ever survive without me?” I asked.
He was quiet for a moment as I turned the computer on. “I don’t know. Whatever it was, kid, it wasn’t survival. It was a holding pattern. Stasis. And it wasn’t good.”
I turned to look back at him, but he was already pushing his way through the door. He called out over his shoulder, “And there’s a damn Keurig machine that you won’t even remember asking for. You said it would make the place look more professional. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s there anyway.”
Everything was a mess.
I spent ten minutes wiping down the desk and keyboard with an ancient bottle of cleaner I found in one of the drawers. The Keurig sat on a card table next to a water cooler. An assortment of K-cups sat in an old wicker basket on the table. I sighed as I stared down at it. It didn’t look professional at all.
Before I could do anything about it, the front door opened.
Rico walked in, followed by Ox.
“—and it sucks, alfa, and I know that I’m part of it, but I don’t know how to let it go,” Rico was saying. “I don’t know how to fix… this.”
He stopped when he saw me standing next to the desk.
I waved pathetically.
“That’s why you insisted on picking me up,” he said to Ox. It was an accusation.
Ox didn’t look perturbed. “I wanted to spend time with you.”
“You brought me a muffin. You never bring me food. Especially muffins. Seeing as how that’s what Joe did when he was jailbait and trying to get up all on your junk, I see right through you, alfa. I won’t fuck you, and I’m still going to be pissed off.”
“I like one of those things better than the other,” Ox said, patting him on the shoulder.
“It better be the pissed-off thing,” Rico grumbled. “Because I’m fucking sexy. Bambi says so.”
“Sure, Rico,” Ox said. “Whatever you say.” He pushed by him and came to stand before me. I itched to reach out and touch him but kept my hands at my sides. “All right?”
I nodded. Then shrugged.
He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine. “It’ll work out,” he whispered, and I heard the low, deep thump of packpackpack in my head, foreign and quiet. “You’ll see.” He stepped around me and went back into the garage. Tanner and Chris called out in greeting as the door swung shut, leaving Rico and me alone.
I fidgeted next to the desk, unsure of what to do, what to say. If I should say anything at all.
Rico sighed. “So I guess you’re back, huh.”
“I guess.”
“For good.”
“I think so? I’m still trying to—”
“Would you hear me, dear?”
I snapped my head up.
He squinted at me. “Do you feel like going on a murderous rampage?”
“That’s not funny.”
He pointed two fingers at his eyes, then at me. “I’m watching you, Fontaine. If you even step one foot over the line, I will pop a cap in your ass.”
I snorted. “Do you hold your gun sideways like a badass when you aim?” I hadn’t meant to say that. It just came out. I didn’t know where it’d come from.
He was surprised. “You’ve said that to me before.”
“I did?”
He bristled. “It doesn’t matter. I will straight-up end you.”
“Try it, Espinoza.” I sneered at him. “We’ll see who ends who.”
“Huh,” he said thoughtfully. He rubbed his jaw. “Weird.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “It’s still hysterical hearing someone so short trying to make big-boy threats.” He bumped me hard as he passed me by. “Keep working on it. Maybe one day I’ll be intimidated, but don’t hold your breath. Or maybe do and see how long it takes for you to pass out or die.”
It felt like a start.
It was awful when it happened.
It was like I lost control of everything.
I was surviving the day by the skin of my teeth. The phone rang incessantly, and by the fifth call from someone I didn’t know excitedly telling me how happy they were I was back instead of actually needing to make an appointment, I thought about throwing it across the room and hoofing it back to the basement.
I stayed.
I was in the garage, frowning at an invoice that didn’t make any sense, as it seemed as if Gordo was charging next to nothing for a considerable amount of repair work. Gordo was telling me that he only charged people what they could afford, especially when they were hurting financially.
Both of the main garage doors were open, and the air was warm. People walked by on the street. A few of them even poked their heads in to wave at me happily. I waved back, but Gordo told them to come back another time when they looked like they were about to walk in and talk. I was grateful for it, as I was already overwhelmed.
“I’m not in this for money, kid,” Gordo said. He was tapping on a tablet he said was used as a diagnostic tool. I wondered if I’d made him get it, as it was more high-tech than anything I’d seen so far. “I like cars. I sometimes like people. I don’t give a shit about becoming rich.”
“Then how the hell is this place even open?” I demanded. “You can’t expect to turn a profit if you don’t—”
“Pack finances.” He looked up at me. “We don’t have to worry about money.”
I was horrified. “You do pay me, though, right? I don’t work for free?”
He laughed, sounding lighter than I’d ever heard him. “Yes, Robbie. I pay you. We’ll get you hooked back up into the pack accounts. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
I leaned against the SUV he was working on. “So….”
“So?” he asked, looking back down at the tablet.
“How rich are we?”
He snorted. “Get back to work.”
And I was going to do just that, except that Kelly Bennett decided to appear right at that moment.
Wearing a deputy’s uniform. Tight green pants with a tan button-up shirt that pulled against his torso. He had a mic clipped near his shoulder and a black utility belt around his waist. He wasn’t carrying a gun, but I barely noticed because at that exact moment, I discovered my legs decided to quit working and I tripped and fell into the side of the SUV.
Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at me.
“Sorry,” I said quickly, using the SUV to pull myself back up. And immediately hit the top of my head on the open hood. “Son of a bitch.”
“What are you doing?” Gordo asked slowly.
I laughed wildly. “Nothing! It’s nothing. Just… don’t even worry about it.”
He turned toward the front of the garage.
“Oh no,” he said when he saw who was standing there. “Not this again.” He pointed the tablet at Kelly. “I swear to god, if I find an animal carcass brought here at any point, I will make both your lives a living hell. Do you understand me? I’m getting too old for this shit.”
“I can’t believe we have to watch this all over again,” Chris said to Tanner. “It was bad enough the first time. Remember when Robbie figured out that he wanted to put himself all over Kelly?”
“Yeah,” Tanner said. “How could I forget? We had to tell Ms. Martin that her side mirror was broken by accident instead of telling her the truth, that Robbie got a weird wolf boner and forgot his own strength.”
“Maybe it’ll be like it was with Ox and Joe,”
Rico said, tapping a socket wrench against his hand. “Mini muffins, you know? I ate, like, ten of them.”
Chris looked scandalized. “You did what? That was one of their mystical moon magic presents! You don’t touch another man’s mystical moon magic present, Rico. They could have killed you, or worse, gotten confused and made you their mate.” He frowned. “Are there werewolf threesomes? That sounds complicated. Too many limbs. I don’t know anything about being a wolf.”
Ox said, “Maybe consider stop talking. And get back to work.”
“Sure, Ox,” Tanner said. “We’ll do just that.”
They didn’t move.
They stood there staring at me.
Even Gordo.
And Ox.
I ignored them as I rubbed the top of my head. “Hey,” I said quickly to Kelly, completely forgetting about the invoice lying on the floor. “What’s up? What’s going on? What’s the haps?”
He bit his bottom lip like he was trying to keep from laughing at me. He blushed slightly as he said, “I just… thought maybe we could have lunch? Together? If you’re not busy.”
I shook my head furiously. “I’m not busy at all. I have absolutely nothing to do.”
“That’s not true,” Gordo grumbled behind me.
I ignored him. “I like your pants,” I told Kelly seriously and immediately wished I had lost my voice as well as my memories. It was a weirdly dark thought to have.
“That sounded creepy,” Tanner called. “Try again.”
I glared at them over my shoulder. “Would you fuck off?”
Chris pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “Spoken like he works at Gordo’s. I’m so proud. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.”
“I dunno,” Tanner said. “He was weirdly prudish when he worked here before. Robbie 2.0 is like the bizarro version of Original Flavor Robbie.”
I hated them all so much. I was never going to forgive them. I turned back to Kelly. “Lunch,” I said. “I can do that. Like, you have no idea how much.”
“Good,” Kelly said softly. “Maybe we can go to the diner?”
I nodded. “Just… can you give me a minute? I’ll meet you out front. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“I won’t.” He nodded at the others and turned back toward the sidewalk.
I whirled around, eyes wide. “What do I do?”
“He’s literally standing five feet away,” Gordo said dryly.
I lowered my voice. “What do I do?”
Gordo sighed and turned his eyes toward the ceiling. “I deserve this. For everything I’ve ever done, I deserve this.”
Tanner and Chris shoved him out of the way, standing before me with their arms across their chests. They looked me up and down. “He looks like a roughneck,” Tanner said. “He’s dressed for the part.”
“Eh,” Chris said critically. “Not quite.” He rubbed one of his grimy hands over my face, smudging oil against my skin. “There. That’s better. No one trusts a person who works at a garage and doesn’t get dirty.”
“He looks like one of those cover models on the books he used to read,” Tanner whispered. “The Mechanic’s Heart or whatever.” He squinted. “Maybe a little too short, though. Sucks you couldn’t figure out how to make yourself taller while you were gone after you tried to kill us.”
Gordo choked.
“That might be too soon,” Chris said.
“Not helping,” I growled at them.
Chris shrugged. “I can smell your arousal. I don’t know that I want to help.”
“I’m not aroused!”
“Uh-huh,” Tanner said. “You hit your head on a stationary object at the first sight of Kelly. Ox once walked into that wall over there, and then he banged Jessie.”
“That’s my sister,” Chris hissed at him, turning to glare over his shoulder at Ox, who seemed to be resolutely ignoring everything that was happening.
“I know,” Tanner said. “But it’s true. And then he walked into the side of the house at underage Joe in tiny shorts. And he eventually banged him too.”
I looked pleadingly at Gordo.
He shook his head furiously. “Leave me out of this. I don’t know the first thing about—”
Rico coughed roughly. It sounded strangely like bullshit.
“You made heart eyes at Mark,” Tanner accused. “For years.”
“I was trying to murder him with the power of my mind,” Gordo retorted. “I don’t do heart eyes. I don’t even know what that is.”
“He’s right,” Chris said. “Don’t take advice from Gordo. You’ll end up surly all the time until you’re transformed by the power of love.”
“I’m not transformed—”
“Mark has a magic tattoo on his neck that you put there while he fucked you in the butt,” Tanner said. “And wow, I never thought I’d have to say something like that out loud. We really do need to work on boundaries in this pack. New rule. We all mind our own business and never talk about any of this stuff ever again.”
“Agreed,” Chris said.
And with that, they turned around and left me standing there.
“But—”
“Nope,” Tanner said without looking back at me.
“But—”
“Sorry, kid,” Chris said. “You did it once already with Kelly. Pretty sure you’ll figure it out.”
“You guys suck,” I muttered. “And don’t make that into an innuendo.”
Tanner snapped his mouth closed, looking disappointed.
“Anyone?” I asked. “Hello?”
They all ignored me.
“I quit,” I announced savagely.
“You get an hour for lunch,” Gordo said in a bored voice. “If you’re late coming back, I’ll dock your pay.”
I threw my hands up and stalked out of the garage.
“So,” I said for the fourth time as I sat across from Kelly in the booth. I almost felt bad about the pile of shredded napkins in front of me. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. Sure, I had no real idea who this man was, aside from superficial things, but Chris was right; we’d done this all before. I could do it again.
“So,” Kelly said, hands folded on the table.
I racked my brain for anything to say. “Do you like….”
He nodded at me to continue.
“Things?” I finished lamely.
He bit his bottom lip as he looked out the window. “Things.”
I groaned, putting my face in my hands. “Ugh. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“All of this.”
“That’s vague.”
I dropped my hands and immediately started shredding another napkin. “I don’t know what to do.”
“About what?”
“This. The pack. Everything.” I sighed. “You.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Who says you have to do anything?”
I was confused. “I have to prove myself.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that anyone is saying that.”
“Maybe not in so many words. But it’s—you can’t think that everything is going to be easy. It’s not.”
“I didn’t say it would be. Or that it is.”
“Rico said—”
His expression hardened. “I have a good idea what Rico said.” He sighed. “Look, Robbie. I know it’s tough. And you’ve got all this shit swirling through your head. But Rico is….”
“Justified in his absolute hatred of me?”
He traced a finger along the tabletop. “He doesn’t hate you.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I kind of think he does. I mean, I don’t blame him. I can’t. I don’t remember what happened, but it was bad.”
“It was,” he said bluntly. “But that wasn’t your fault.”
“You all thought it was.” And that caused my heart to seize in my chest. This void in my head, this blank space where apparently years of memories should have been, was va
st. I didn’t know how I’d never noticed it before. It was like I’d been drugged. I didn’t know how to reconcile what my head told me versus what I was hearing from the man across from me and the others.
He winced. “We made mistakes. All of us. It doesn’t make it right. It caught us off guard, and given all that we’d been through, it… I don’t know. We trusted people we shouldn’t have before.”
“And you thought I was the same as them,” I said dully.
He was frustrated. I could see it on his face, could smell it in his scent. His hands curled into fists. “I….”
I shook my head and forced a smile. “It’s okay. I don’t know that I would have thought any different had it been someone else.” I frowned. “And I mean that. I really don’t know what I would have thought.”
He sat back against the booth. “It’s not okay, Robbie. And we should have known better.”
“But….”
“But we were hurting,” he admitted. “And we put blame on people who didn’t deserve it. I know you don’t remember, but my father knew Osmond for a long time. He wasn’t great, but we thought we could trust him. And then Pappas after you. It turned out he knew far more than he was telling us. In the end, before he turned, he tried to make amends. But by then it was already too late. He was the one who bit Mark and spread the infection to him.”
“And Carter?”
Kelly’s mouth thinned into a white line. “When we were kids, Carter hated the idea of someone being hurt. He’s very protective that way. It was worse when he was shifted, because he would always try to lick everyone’s wounds to clean them.”
“Instinct.”
Kelly shrugged. “Maybe. And it’s something he never grew out of. He was there when Mark was bitten. He tried to clean the wound. It spread to him.”
“How do they fight it?” I asked. “How are they not completely insane by now?”
“Ox,” Kelly said.
“Because he’s different. That’s what you said.”
“He is. I think my father knew that. Saw something in him the rest of us didn’t. Oh, we loved him right away. He was this shy, awkward kid. Big, but awkward. And Joe…. Joe didn’t talk for a long time before he found Ox.”
“Because someone took him,” I said without thinking. “Someone hurt him.”