I did get scolded for doing so but I was confident that Oliver and Clara would pass my secrets on to their siblings and consider me a hero for my vast and important knowledge. Come some day soon I would be like a saint to werewolf puppies everywhere who hate celery.
Julian and I had discovered a mutual love for all things meme, Clara had spent an hour intricately styling my hair with a cup of water and a comb, and Sarah and I had bonded over our love of trashy television. For her, it was a fascination with the seedier side of what humans are capable; we’d decided that for me it was mainly about getting to see the worst in people without having to take any of it in through my empathy.
By nine that evening, I’d fallen asleep in a pile of children (and one puppy Christian) on the floor as we all watched The Lion King. I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep until Julian slipped his arms under my back and knees and picked me up to carry me to my room. I awoke piece by piece, finally realizing what was happening as we crossed the threshold. Meeting his gaze in the light from the hall, I felt myself blush.
“You couldn’t just woken me. I’d’ve walked.”
“Nonsense.”
He laid me on the bed, took a step back. As I shifted to sit up straighter, he leaned over to turn on the desk lamp. Smiling at me, he paused, looking like he had something to say but wasn’t sure it was appropriate. Finally, he sighed, pulled the chair out from under the desk and sat in it, leaning his elbows on his knees.
“Mel’s an idiot.”
I laughed, pulled one knee up to my chest, hugging it.
“Yes,” I said. “I know that.”
“But he’s a good guy, under all the bravado and the objectionable sexual innuendo.” Julian lowered his gaze to the ground and I felt a tiny river of worry run through his psyche. “The succubus wasn’t his true mate, he knows that. Whatever chemical reaction normally happens when a wolf falls in love, it didn’t happen there. But, he still took her death hard. That was partly because of her power and partly because of his deep down—deep, deep down—good guy nature.”
I resisted the urge to ask about the chemical reaction he’d brought up. It wasn’t really the time for questions, I figured.
“I see him with my family and I know he wants this. I’ve met wolves who don’t, who never find a mate and they’re fine. They’re happy and no one thinks twice about the fact that they continue their promiscuity right up until death. But Mel isn’t one of those werewolves.”
“Okay,” I said, hoping he wasn’t going where I thought it was going.
“I’m not saying you’re his mate.”
“Thank god,” I said, making Julian laugh quietly.
“I’m just saying he took the succubus’ death really hard. I’m saying that, even though it’s been two months, there’s still a sadness there. Whatever dance you two are doing, I promise you it’s not your fault he doesn’t know the steps. If you want to sleep with him, give it time, let him get his confidence back.” Julian sat up, gave me a small smile that didn’t quite hide the trepidation burbling through his emotions. I nodded.
“I appreciate the speech, but it wasn’t necessary. As much as I gripe, I know he’s a good guy under all the teasing and the—the—” I paused, unsure how to explain it to someone who didn’t live in my head. Finally, lacking the words, I mimed brutally stabbing myself in the neck, which alarmed Julian enough that he went stiff as a board. Shaking my head, I laughed.
“Sorry. His—he’s a lot to handle, emotionally. My empathy suffers—I suffer when he’s around without the necklace, that’s what I mean.” I laughed again, putting my hand to my face. “But I’m not actually interested in him as anything other than a cupcake-pusher. I had a lapse in sanity, that’s all. We’re friends, that’s all it is.”
Julian watched me, and I could feel that he didn’t believe me. Instead of fighting it, I just smiled, shrugged.
“But I’ll tell him you gave me a pep talk.”
“Oh no,” Julian said, getting to his feet. He towered over me, feigning concern. “Don’t tell him. We never had this conversation. I never said nice things about him and I certainly never encouraged a woman to let him have sex with her. If anything, I discouraged you from doing so. In fact, if he asks, tell him you find me much more attractive.”
When I lifted a cynical brow, Julian nodded, winked like we now shared a secret of the utmost importance, and then started heading toward the door.
“It’ll give him horrible flashbacks to high school,” Julian explained. “Really rock the foundation of his self-confidence. It’ll be great.” As he grabbed the door to pull it shut, he gave me a fatherly smile. “Sleep well, Gwen. Don’t let Mel’s idiocy get you down.”
After he left, I went through my evening routine, thinking on what he’d said.
Mel and I had both been chemically addicted to Norma for a time. For Mel, that time had been nearly a full week, during which he’d not only been over the moon in love with her, but also unable to seek comfort in the arms of any other women. We’d both watched her die and reacted similarly, but I’d been so new to the succubus’ power (not to mention I hadn’t slept with her, as Mel had) that my rage was brief, easily dissipated by little more than a long nap and a few days of downtime.
Mel had needed six weeks to recover, surrounded by family and the distraction of werewolf life.
Maybe I was being too hard on him for the mixed signals and the general bitchiness. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of him rejecting me, it was a matter of him rejecting intimacy. I had very little experience with being rejected so my knowledge about how to react to it was pretty limited.
Toothbrush in my mouth, I met my own eyes in the mirror, paused as I realized something I simply had not considered before. It wasn’t that I had very little experience being rejected; I had absolutely no experience being rejected. Thanks to my empathy, I’d never had the embarrassing moment of asking someone out, or making a move that wasn’t accepted. Because I knew before even speaking to someone if they found me attractive, I had never bothered wasting my time with someone who wasn’t interested in me.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled around the toothbrush. Spitting out foamy saliva, I rinsed my mouth, looked back up at myself in the mirror. Realizing how emotionally coddled I’d been up until the night before made me feel a bit ashamed of my reaction.
Mel was still going through something pretty shitty and I was feeling butthurt because a man—just one man—had stopped me from putting my hand down his pants.
As I dried my hands and flipped off the light, padded back to the bed and climbed in, I considered the last few days. Mel had seemed normal, but I hadn’t had the benefit of his emotions to truly know. I’d become spoiled pretty early on, always knowing more about people than they realized I knew. I could judge liars from those who were honest, creeps from those who were simply just a little socially ignorant. I couldn’t even account for the number of times in my life I’d avoided someone just because I’d known they were unhappy and I hadn’t wanted to be pulled in. Instead of letting them tell me they were sad, I’d feigned busyness or faked a phone call to get away so that I could remain blissful and selfish.
For the last week, Mel had been acting okay, making the same jokes as usual and I had taken it at face value. I had no idea if he was really hurting inside because the necklace made it impossible for me to read him. I was flying blind and Mel was my unfortunate copilot, strapped in next to me while I made jokes at his expense and rebuffed his attempts at closeness.
“I may be the biggest asshole on the entire planet,” I said to the dark room.
Chapter Thirteen
I woke up once again to the smell of delicious food and thought that I could get used to this. Rolling over into an ungainly stretch, I yawned, opened my eyes to look around the room, I heard the sound of snuffling, a snort, and then the clickety-clack of tiny nails on a wooden floor.
Pushing into a sitting position, I looked around the room, trying to figure out if there were
ROUSes afoot or if I was still dreaming.
Nothing showed itself but I heard another round of snuffling, followed by the sound of pawing on heavy linen. My eyes went to the foot of the bed and I leaned forward, crawled along the covers to peer over the footboard. A mostly black puppy was chest deep in my bag, paws working at something I couldn’t see. Lifting a brow, I tried to figure out which kid it was; I hadn’t really spent a lot of time studying the butt fur patterns of Mel’s nieces and nephews, so I was out of luck.
Cocking my head as the pup let out a frustrated whine, I realized what the kid was trying to get.
“No!” I shrieked, launching myself forward. The puppy yelped, pulled back and made a break for the door. Unfortunately, it slipped on the wooden floor, landing chin first, before pushing back to its feet. Lorelai glanced back at me and I recognized the spots of gray on her left front leg, before her eyes went even wider and she tore out of the room. I was left huddled on the floor next to my bag, glad as hell that I’d kept my last stash of chocolate zipped securely in one of the outer pockets. I wasn’t really sure what the deal was with werewolves and chocolate, but I knew dogs couldn’t have it and that was enough for me to be cautious.
By the time I’d gotten out to the living area, dressed and cleaned up, Julian was setting out plates for everyone. He gestured to one heaping plate and then moved to the fridge.
“Did you want something to drink? We can make coffee.”
“No, I’m good.” Glancing over, I saw Lorelai two chairs down, head tilted downward so the curtain of her hair hid her face from me. I gave her a little glare, and Oliver looked between us as he stuffed a chunk of scrambled egg into his mouth. Sarah caught my look too and reached across two of her kids to put her hand on Lorelai’s hand.
“What did you do?” Sarah asked softly, no accusation in her tone. Lorelai mumbled, refusing to look up at her mother. I moved to sit down at the seat Julian had set for me and watched all eyes land on Lorelai. Immediately, there was a fizzing to her emotions; it started as embarrassment, but as her brothers and sister started to wonder what she had done, it turned to anger.
“Lorelai?” Julian asked, his voice calm. Sarah glanced at him as he brought his own plate to the table, sat down. Lorelai let out a tiny, human growl and Sarah looked over at me.
“What did she do?”
I felt my own cheeks go red; if it turned out chocolate as deadly to werewolf puppies and I’d smuggled some in, I was probably going to be in trouble.
“It’s nothing.”
“What happened?” Julian asked conversationally, stuffing a hunk of sausage into his mouth. It smelled divine and I wondered if I could get away with just stuffing food in my mouth and making the situation go away. I was sure Lorelai would have appreciated that, too.
“It’s fine,” I said. “She was just in my bag, poking around.”
“Oh, she found your candy?” Sarah asked. I gave a brief nod, feeling myself prepare for the worst. Sarah turned back to Lorelai, gave her the patented Mom Glare. “Lorelai, what have we told you about other people’s stuff?”
“That it’s not mine,” Lorelai mumbled. Sarah made a small sound of encouragement and Lorelai took a deep breath, let it out in a pouty sigh. “And I don’t touch without asking.”
“Very good. Now, what do you say to Gwen?”
“Sorry,” Lorelai said, still staring at her plate.
“Very good,” Julian echoed his wife’s words, glee burbling out of him. The rest of the kids kept eating, wiggling and jiggling as they did. About halfway through the meal, the front door slammed and Mel came around the corner, gave us all a little salute and moved into his room without a word. I caught the looks I got from Julian and Sarah, fought the urge to roll my eyes. I was already setting enough of a poor example for the pups; I didn’t need to be making it worse with attitude.
After breakfast, I helped clear the table and did my best not to stare holes into Mel’s bedroom door. My emotions weren’t great; I was still feeling guilty about my personal revelation the night before, as well as shitty that I’d been turned down for sex. I wanted to just convince myself to walk it off, but I couldn’t. I was irrationally bothered by it.
Mel finally came out of the room, dressed casually, mostly hairless once again, from the looks of his arms. He padded on bare feet to the kitchen, yanked open the fridge and pulled out a plate Julian had made up for him.
He hunkered down over it at the bar without warming the food, noticed I was staring at him and jerked his chin at me.
“Curious how my night went?”
“Um,” I retorted cleverly. Julian glanced between us as he finished loading the dishwasher, closed it. Emotions sitting between amusement and embarrassment, he twisted and wandered out of the kitchen. Mel kept shoveling food into his mouth, watching me.
“I just wanted to know about what happened yesterday. With the dead guy,” I clarified, before he could launch into some crude description of his night. Mel took a few more bites before he shrugged his shoulders.
“Let me finish eating and then we’ll go. I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Class is back in session?” I asked, leaning a hip against the counter. Mel nodded, took a bite of toast, chewed with his mouth open. I frowned at him, wishing for once that I could feel what he was feeling. He could be crude and inappropriate, but this seemed different, like he was trying too hard. After a second, I gave a small nod and stepped out from behind the counter, moving past him to my room.
##
Mel started talking the second I shut the car door. I looked over, unsure if the speed of his speech was a way to get all the information out in a timely fashion, or to keep me quiet.
“The deceased was one Bart Heath, half of a couple who came to the center about seven, eight months ago. Officer Amazon was very grateful to get my tip—”
“Mel,” I warned, figuring he was going somewhere untoward. He let the statment hang for a moment before continuing without any indication of whether or not he’d intended it as a pun.
“—about how Bart and his wife Liesel had been guests of the center at the beginning of the year. I didn’t tell her Betty came across the information illegally, but I figure she’s not going to use me as an official source either way, so why burden her pretty little brain with such unpleasant facts?”
“Betty your assistant?” I asked, picturing the older women I’d only seen in passing and from far away. “She’s, like, a hundred. What illicit methods is she using to gather intel?”
“She has her ways,” Mel sniffed, and I realized he probably wouldn’t tell me just because I wanted to know. “Anyway, the Heaths were in the program, they were with a doctor who’s since left the center, Dr. Driscoll, and they had their papers signed and stamped ‘PAID’ so I don’t know what Bart was doing sprawled bloodless on the lawn yesterday morning.”
“You sure they’re paid? You don’t think maybe they murdered him and left him there as a warning to anyone else who’s behind on their monthly installments?”
“I’m having Betty check into what’s been going on with them since they left,” Mel said, in lieu of addressing my joke. “I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he didn’t drive out here just for the scenery and happen to fall on a knife outside one of the cabins.”
I was quiet, thinking about the scene, about poor Bart’s lonely fate. Mel left me alone, not prodding me or expanding on what he’d learned. After a bit, I spoke, partly just to fill the long silence.
“He wasn’t bleeding, either.”
“Nope, not a drop on him. And I don’t think the clothes were his. They smelled—well, not new, but new on him. They hadn’t really soaked up his scent.”
“You sniffed his clothes?”
“I did it secretly, don’t worry. No one’s gonna know.”
“So, what’re you thinking? If it’s about Officer Amazon’s nice ass, keep it to yourself.”
“I certainly did keep it to myself, all up against—”
“Mel!”
“What?” he demanded, a vicious smirk on his face. “Are you bothered? Does it annoy you that I found someone else who wanted to sleep with me?”
“Of course not,” I snapped, getting caught up in his snit even while trying to remind myself of everything Julian and I had said about him the night before. He wasn’t even acknowledging that I had actually wanted to sleep with him. It wasn’t my fault he hadn’t let me. It wasn’t my fault some…thing had shown up and made me violently ill. “You do whatever you want with whomever you want. I just don’t want to hear the details because I ate a big breakfast and I don’t want to throw up all over your stupid car.”
“We haven’t been making out, I’m sure you don’t have to worry about vomiting.”
“Don’t be an infant.”
“Would that be intruding on your turf? After all we can’t both be childish and—”
“Oh? We can’t both be childish? So does that mean I should stop? Because you’re the one acting like—”
“Like we were having a nice time and you ran off to hurl in disgust?”
“Would you let that go? I wasn’t sick because you stuck your tongue down my throat, I explained what—”
“You lied!”
“Screw you, Mel!”
We were so busy screaming at each other in the confined space of the car that I hadn’t even noticed until Mel slammed on the breaks that we’d made it all the way to Tough Love. I grunted as the seat belt dug into my chest, but before I could pick up the fight where we’d left it, Mel darted out of the car with some crazy burst of werewolf speed. I was so enraged at his immaturity and my own frustration that I nearly forgot how to open a car door for a few seconds. By the time I caught up with him, I was fuming and probably red as a tomato.
Cold Feet (Empathy in the PPNW Book 3) Page 15