by Parker Foye
He rubbed his temples again and sighed inwardly.
There was a cacophony of engines all starting at once, which should have been too loud for a mere mortal to endure, but it barely mattered. Teddy hardly noticed that the other bikes were backing out and rolling toward the road, because Jim was pulling his helmet on over his mop of uncombed hair, and that dark visor of his concealed his beautiful golden-brown eyes.
He flipped up the visor and stared at Teddy.
Teddy couldn’t be sure, with the bottom of Jim’s face obscured, but the creases beside his eyes deepened and his eyes narrowed a bit. A smile.
Jim let the visor down and backed away.
Teddy stared until the big death machine was out of sight, and then finally looked down at the wad of cash in his fist. He unfurled his fingers slowly and held his breath.
Anger mounted and just as quickly abated. In the middle of a collection of fives and tens was a W. Company sticky note that had the business address and contact information listed at the top.
He had that all ready? He furrowed his brow. Why?
Teddy knew what W. Company was. The auto supply retailer was right on Main Street and took up half a city block. It was the largest employer in Chesterton.
W. Company was also the business name on Jim’s credit card. It dawned on him that the W may have stood for the first letter of his last name: West. The after-hours cell phone number circled on the sticky note must have been Jim’s.
“Holy shit.” Teddy tucked the cash into his pocket and opened the restaurant door.
If Jim had a stake in that company, he could certainly afford a hundred-dollar tip...and then some. The scruffy bastard might tip like he was broke, but he was making bank.
“He’s just a jerk, then. Why am I always attracted to the jerks?”
Willa grunted. “You’re young. You’ll learn better.”
Teddy thought he had. He’d managed to not get unbalanced by insensitive men like Jim for five whole years since graduating from college. Apparently, his luck had finally run out.
He headed to the bathroom to splash his face and think about whom he could beg to trade for his next Wednesday night shift.
Chapter Two
Jim slunk farther into the cushions of his sofa and chuckled at his cousin Jamie’s stern expression. “Be nice.”
“You totally dicked that guy around. Why would you do that?”
“Easier than being direct.”
“What are you talking about?”
His phone buzzed atop the coffee table. He hooked up an eyebrow at Jamie and snatched it up. “Hold that thought.” He didn’t recognize the number, or even the area code, but he had a feeling there’d only be one person calling him at four a.m. Into the phone, he said, “Yeah?”
“I want the rest of my tips. By my math—”
Knew it.
“Well, hello,” Jim interrupted. “How are you? I’m fine.”
Silence.
Jim waggled his eyebrows at a confounded Jamie, and crooned into the phone, “Hel-lo?”
“You said to call if I wanted the rest of my tips. I want my money.”
“Who said anything about money?”
“You did. You said... Wait. What kind of setup is this? Are you jerking me around again?”
“I bet you like being jerked.”
“Jim!” Jamie tossed a sofa pillow at him, and hard.
She’d played varsity softball back in the day and had a damn good arm, but he shunted it easily toward the floor and put his booted feet up on the table.
“Excuse me?” Teddy asked.
“As I said. I never said anything about money. I only said tips.”
“I should never have called you.”
“If you were so offended, you would have hung up already. I’m waiting for you to hang up.”
Silence.
Jim chuckled.
Teddy hadn’t hung up. Jim could hear wisps of his erratic breathing.
He was probably a bastard not only for liking that sound, but for how much he enjoyed provoking Teddy so he’d make it. The fact that Teddy was irritated meant he’d noticed Jim, and he hadn’t always noticed. Not until Jim had started asking that battle-ax of a restaurant hostess to move the crew into his section.
“You off for the night?” Jim rubbed at a couple of lingering grease streaks on his middle finger. There were always some that, no matter how much he scrubbed, wouldn’t fade.
“Yes.” Teddy’s slowly drawled response came on a minute-long delay.
“Good. Know where Crown Heights is?”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where I am.”
“So?”
“You claim to be good at figures, but you’re not very good at putting two and two together.”
Silence.
Jamie poked him and, furrowing her brow, mouthed, What are you doing?
Jim covered the phone mic and said, “What’s it look like?”
She gave her head a minute shake—a that can’t be right movement. “Flirting?”
“Bingo.” He uncovered the phone mic and said, “I’m on Dawson Avenue. Probably the only house with a light on this time of morning.”
Silence.
“You still there?” Jim asked.
“Yes, for some reason I can’t discern, I still am,” Teddy said tartly. “I’m not biking across town to Dawson.”
“Yeah you are. Bye.” Jim disconnected. He crossed his legs at the ankles and set the phone on the sofa cushion.
“Jim,” Jamie said dryly.
He kept rubbing at the finger stains, knowing what she was going to ask. They were long overdue for the conversation. “What?”
“Got something you want to tell me?”
“What do you want to hear? Maybe I should have dropped you some hints about my sexuality before now. I could have gotten one of those cakes that ladies have at baby showers for when they’re about to reveal the sex of their kid. But instead of pink or blue, I could have put a rainbow inside.”
She pressed a hand to the back of her neck and squeezed, eyeing him in that bewildered way she always did whenever he’d managed to surprise her. There was little that could surprise her. She was the granddaughter of an alpha coyote shifter. Like Jim, she’d witnessed things that defied the imagination. In fact, she was one of those things.
He rubbed the scruff on his chin and let out a breath. “Say something to me, Jamie.”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I can say.”
“You can say what you want. That hasn’t changed. I’m still the same Jimmy. Are you disappointed in me, or are you upset you hadn’t guessed?”
“Honestly, the second one. I had no idea that—”
“You wouldn’t have. You’re rarely home.”
The line in her brow deepened. “Do the guys in the pack know you’re...” Her cheek twitched—her face’s usual response to her trying to still her tongue.
He smiled sweetly and blinked several times. “Know I’m what, princess?”
“You tell me. I wouldn’t presume to label you, and you know I don’t care one way or another who you’re with. I’m surprised, yeah, because you’re my best friend and you never said anything. What else haven’t you told me?”
He shrugged. He trusted Jamie more than anyone in the pack, besides his mother and his absent lieutenants, but he did try to shelter her from some things. Their grandfather would have done the same, had he been alive.
“Jimmy, I worry about you. That’s why I ask.”
“I know, but I’ll be fine. I’ve been fine. This isn’t a new discovery of mine, I assure you. The only reason you hadn’t figured out my proclivities is because I don’t talk about
my relationships with pack members.”
“I’m more than a pack member to you.”
He turned his hands over in concession.
She leaned her rear end against the edge of the entertainment system and rolled her gaze to the ceiling. “Wow. I’ve never heard of a gay pack alpha in any of the groups I’ve encountered, and trust me, I’ve seen a lot of everything.”
“Yeah, you would have.” Jamie had encountered plenty of packs of all sorts. She helped facilitate adoptions of shifter children. “But I thought you said you wouldn’t presume to label me,” Jim continued. “I’m not gay. I’m an equal-opportunity dirtbag. I don’t care who I’m cuddling as long as their feet aren’t cold.”
She sighed. “Jim.”
He grinned at the note of maternal frustration in her tone. “What? You worried about me getting my ass kicked?”
“Given the current pack optics, yes. They’re going to give you a hard time because you haven’t approved a single mate petition in nine months.”
“And I’ll continue to keep rejecting them if they keep bringing me petitions for women who’ll weaken or endanger the pack. And you don’t need to worry about me. You know that. I don’t lose challenges. That’s why people rarely make them anymore.”
“I know that, but I love you, so I’m going to worry. Does Aunt Elle know?”
He scoffed. “Of course she does. I can’t keep shit from her. She sees through me like I’m a wet white T-shirt. If you ever made your way home for Thanksgiving, you would have known, too. Past five years, I’ve showed up for dinner with three women and two men, and they were obviously more than friends. You know I don’t share my cranberry sauce with anyone unless I’m sleeping with them.”
Closing her eyes, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Gods, Jim. Do you know what kind of mess this could end up being?”
“What? Do you make a habit of telling all your dates you periodically turn into a furry four-legged beast?” He padded to the door and turned on the porch light.
Teddy would show up. Jim was pretty sure he’d pegged him right. The man would be annoyed enough to be curious, and he wasn’t the kind of person to back down from a challenge. That wasn’t necessarily a bad trait in Jim’s world. The pack was going to challenge any mate Jim presented to them. His mate would enter the pack with power and status, and there’d be no voting. No vetting. Many had strong opinions about who Jim should hook up with, and those opinion statements generally started with “My daughter...” or “My niece...”
He wasn’t interested. His mate didn’t need to have shifter magic or any magic at all, really. They needed to be able to make him laugh, and to slow down sometimes. He wanted what his parents had had, and he didn’t want to settle. He didn’t think he’d be settling with Teddy. Teddy could make him grin just by blinking at him. Jim had never met anyone with a more hostile blink. It was hilarious.
“Most of the guys I date are from other shifter groups,” Jamie said sourly, “not that I date much nowadays. Too busy.”
“You should take some time off.”
“And do what? Survive on my trust fund?”
“Grandpa James left it to you for that very reason, so yeah.”
“You’re not living off yours.”
“Sure I am.” Jim parted the blinds and looked both ways down the dark street. Teddy had said he was coming from across town, so Jim shouldn’t have expected him to get there so fast. Still, anticipation had his gut in knots. He wanted to see Teddy on his turf for a change—wanted to see if he’d be less strident, less antagonistic. Wanted to see how long Jim would need to make him be sweet. And Teddy would be sweet. He’d stopped breathing when Jim had leaned in close in front of the restaurant. Men didn’t stop breathing around him unless they wanted to fight him or fuck him. Teddy might have been pissed, but Jim would have bet his motorcycle that fighting wouldn’t have been Teddy’s choice.
He fixed the blinds and turned to Jamie.
“You expanded your dad’s business with your money,” she said. “I hardly count that as living the trust fund baby life.”
“The business runs itself. Believe me when I say I’m not working for my money.”
“You don’t have time to, anyway. You can’t be a good pack alpha if you’re not working full-time at it.”
Again, Jim turned his hands over in concession.
The New York State coyotes had always had a reputation for toughness. No shifters entered the area without permission, and the pack knew better than to bring in the unsanctioned shit. There was no drug trafficking, no illegal schemes, no crime at all within the pack as far as he knew.
The pack also had very few women. The coyote gene pool was fouled up. Baby girls were rare, and that was obviously a local problem. Packs in other areas had perfectly normal female birthrates.
Although men in the pack were vocally discontented about being unable to find suitable mates, Jim was slow to approve outside mates for them. The guys didn’t always make good choices. He’d sent his lieutenants south to look for their mates, but he would have trusted those two men with his life. They’d pick well. He had to be more careful about the rest of the coyotes. The choices Jim made for them could make or break the next generation’s success.
“How long have you been considering this guy?” Jamie asked.
Jim looked out the window again. “Dunno. Since either the second or the third time he spilled coffee onto my lap.”
“On purpose?”
He gritted his teeth. “Probably.”
“Yet you’re still messing with him?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
Jim stepped away from the window and paced in front of it. “Maybe I have a type.”
She crossed her eyes. “Your type is men who pour coffee onto your lap?”
“No. My type is men who pour coffee onto my lap and smile while they do it. Did you see his lips, Jamie? Maybe you’d understand if you’d seen his lips.”
At the sound of bike tires against the gravel and eloquent swearing, Jim turned off the porch light so any night owl neighbors couldn’t see more than he wanted them to, and opened the door in time to hear Teddy utter, “Bastard.”
Teddy had stumbled and caught himself on the stair railing.
“Sorry,” Jim muttered. “I forget sometimes that most people can’t see in the dark.”
Teddy curled his lip. “Can you?”
Jim grimaced and got out the way of the door. He needed to be careful what he said around Teddy. Little throwaway comments wouldn’t have meant much to the typical coyote, but Teddy wasn’t a coyote.
He eyed Jim warily as he crossed the threshold, and Jim watched him walk.
He liked Teddy’s walk. Given the company Jim kept, he was used to that cowboy gait adapted by men who spent too much time with their legs over the saddles of bikes. Theirs was cocky and stiff. Hypermasculine. Teddy walked as though he were made of liquid: smooth, quiet, gracefully upright. He moved like he could fit into any space he was pressed into, whether it be behind the table of a tight booth, in a corner or on someone’s lap.
My lap.
Jim closed the door.
Teddy turned and stared at him through blue eyes the color of the hydrangeas Jim’s mother kept planting and killing every year. “I think I’d rather you keep that open.”
“Hurrying off so soon?”
“Maybe I’d trust you more if people could hear me scream.”
“You plan on doing much screaming? We haven’t even gotten to ‘hello’ yet.” Jim grinned and tried to keep his fangs tucked behind his lips. There was a reason coyotes didn’t generally show teeth when they smiled. Unlike some other shifters, their canine teeth didn’t completely retract when they were in their two-legged forms.
Jamie sighed again.
/>
Teddy whipped around and looked at her as if he hadn’t noticed before that she was there.
“That’s my cousin,” Jim said. “Jamie West.”
Jamie waved. “Hi there.”
Teddy waved back and turned to Jim. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt, which was printed with the silhouette of a woman in a dress with a voluminous skirt, and an enthusiastic reference to a woman named Peggy.
If there was a joke, Jim didn’t get it, but he missed a lot of pop culture references. He didn’t even know how to work Twitter.
Red-cheeked, Teddy cleared his throat. “So...”
“Yeah.” Jim figured he should say something. After all, he’d issued the invitation, but usually when he invited people over he didn’t have witnesses there to critique his every move. Further, he’d lured Teddy over under false pretenses—something he never would have seen himself doing.
He didn’t talk, though. He locked the door.
Teddy held up a hand. “Um—”
“You working tomorrow, Jamie?” Jim asked.
“I’ve got to make a bunch of phone calls in the morning, but I plan on sleeping until at least ten.”
“Cool. Lock the kitchen door on the way out, will you?”
“Sure.” She skedaddled, but not before tossing a smile over her shoulder at Teddy.
Teddy’s return smile seemed genuine enough, but twitched a bit at the corners.
His lips looked soft. They were elegantly curved and almost too pretty to be a man’s, but they’d been the very first thing Jim had noticed about him. His lips, and then his scent.
Gods.
Watching Teddy fidget with the bottom of his sweatshirt, Jim filled his lungs and quietly moaned. There was no cologne more arousing than that faint mix of sweat, adrenaline, and pheromones Teddy wore. He smelled like he wanted to be noticed, and Jim planned to prove to Teddy that he was impossible to ignore.
Jim pressed his hands to Teddy’s shoulders, and Teddy’s muscles stiffened. He was ready to bolt if necessary. His hormonal cocktail spiked, however, and his breath was ragged. Jim’s animal instinct was to corral him upstairs and mate with him. Fuck talking—they could do that later. Jim needed to show him how hard that smart mouth made his cock, and offer Teddy the opportunity to do something about it.