Fated Desire

by Noah Harris

  Personally, here’s what I feel like. Felix Armistead can see how much Dominic’s already changed, and it makes him feel weird. I don’t know if he’s conscious of that, but it is strange. I keep waiting for him to bully Dominic into doing shots or something, I don’t even know what.

  Poppy loves him, but for all I know that’s just to get under Dominic’s skin. The other kids like him just fine, which surprises me. He’s pretty high-strung and they’re only rambunctious when grownups aren’t around, unless it’s someone even calmer, like Goodboy. They pick up on my moods so quickly it’s become one of the clearest signs of when I need to calm down. Yet this guy needs to calm down all the time, and they zoom right past it.

  Maybe they can sense he’s basically a child, like they are.

  “Felix Armistead,” Rosemary says. “Have you ever seen a tiger?”

  She’s very into tigers right now. Huckleberry is into lions. I’m holding onto ligers as a concept until they really need a pick-me-up.

  “I have seen several tigers,” Felix muses. “I would say the closest I ever saw them was…about from here to the kitchen.”

  Her eyes are as big as plates. He smiles over at me, delighted. I smile back sweetly. We go on pretending to be cool.

  Or actually being cool. I’m still not sure.

  He’s clearly trying to figure out what’s going on with me and Dominic, but until I figure out what’s going on with him, I won’t know what that means. Not that I know what’s going on with me and Dominic, of course.

  This is the kind of drama I was never good at. You can draw a line straight from this sort of thing to my abrupt meltdown at Dom’s birthday.

  Or even that terrible night. If I were better at reading people, or guessing their responses, I would either have already admitted I was in love with Dominic or headed him off at the pass. Either way he’d have stayed.

  Felix is a shifter which is comforting in itself. I may not have a lot of pack friends anymore but it’s wonderful to let your guard down. To just not worry about saying the wrong thing, or the kids getting out of hand or anything like that.

  He may be a little menacing, and I’ll be happy when he’s gone, but it’s been a long time since I didn’t feel outnumbered. Between Dominic and Goodboy and Felix Armistead, it feels almost like a house where grownups are the ruling majority.

  I would like to tell myself that I’m only curious about their history because it’ll tell me what Felix’s designs are now. Then I could tell myself that knowing this is in the best interests of the family and household. That it’s my job as Dominic’s friend to keep an eye on his falling into old habits he’s trying to break. I’m just being vigilant.

  I don’t believe any of those things, though, so I won’t say it. I’m jealous and weird about it. There’s a decade of missing Dominic this person got to have instead. Whether he’s grateful for that or not, it’s an inconvenient time for him to show up. Just as I was about to make up my mind, just as Dominic was letting that world go.

  But Dominic seems happy, and I’m a jerk for being stressed about that for certain. So let’s just take everybody at their word, stop being creepy about it. Show Dominic how much I trust him, by trusting his friend.

  Even if that friend scares the crap out of me. Even if he’s everything I keep telling myself Dominic never was. Even if I know the mask is going to slip, at some point, and I’m going to see parts of Dominic I don’t want to know about.

  Even if it means I see parts of myself I don’t want to see. Jealousy, insecurity. All that money shame that came from trading success for my family. Which is how it feels no matter how much Goodboy declares otherwise. This Felix Armistead walks into the room smelling like something magical and sexy, and I turn into a dirty-handed, sweating Cinderella.

  I’ve found myself, over the past day or so since his arrival, showing off my body in a way I haven’t since I was a teenager. Shirtless more often, working out closer to home. Not because I want him to be attracted to me. Not exactly. More just that I want the power that would entail.

  Ernest always said I had “omega wiles” and I never knew what he meant, but I’ve gotten a hint of it a few times from Dominic. That powerless, devoted thirst in his eyes. Wanting me so badly he can’t even see me anymore. It’s a shame I never learned to use this, I think, and then laugh at myself. I would be a substantially different person if that were the path I took.

  Most of the time they’re out of the house anyway. In some ways it’s a relief to have just the five of us in the house again. Neither Felix nor Dominic requires more time or effort than any one of the kids, of course, but they do have a larger psychic presence. Even up in Dominic’s room, telling their jokes and old stories, the footprint is larger than when they’re out and about.

  Not to mention they can afford it, which makes me happy. Dominic is naturally very social, he likes to go out and enjoy things. Lately, that’s been something he’s chosen us over. He doesn’t mind, but I do. He’d pay for everything if I let him.

  But that would mean I disappear altogether. I don’t know why I feel that way, but I know it’s true.

  Felix considers Jonesy Kirkendall over a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes. Goodboy considers Felix in turn. The kids are watching me watch Dominic. Dominic is chowing down, refusing to look up. So, all in all, things are going great.

  “It was called Tooth & Claw, not that we’d refer to it by name,” Felix is saying.

  Just like my pack came to find me, the shifters at Dominic’s academy had an organized tradition. Going back maybe hundreds of years, he claims.

  “I’m glad to hear Dominic had a community,” I say, probably repeating myself. But it’s true, regardless of how criminal or decadent they sound.

  “When I was learning about myself, after you left, it made me think about you a lot. It was scary for me, but I was at least among friends. More than anything I wished we could talk about it.”

  Dom nods, and we’re both thinking the same thing. How close we’d have been if we knew why we were splitting apart that night.

  The intense flush, that first surge of our wolves, scared us both so much it was hard to remember anything past that. The before-time, when we were best friends and never apart, is blurry. We’re slowly remembering those moments now but it’s slow going.

  I feel like that was stolen from me, from us. It feels as vicious as a theft. What a wonderful time that would have been, learning the world alongside him.

  Warm and considerate as my initiation was, it did get a little lonely. Dominic’s was…less warm. He doesn’t talk about it a whole lot, not even with Felix right here trying to relive every moment of the good old days. You have to read between the lines. I tend to tune out. I’m doing it now.

  I don’t like it, but it’s less difficult to understand how he went from being so sweet, so earnest and guileless, to the way he is now. Suspicious. Manipulative, sometimes. Remote and cautious.

  What Felix describes in jovial, boys-being-boys terms sounds like torture to me. But I was never very rough and tumble like Dominic, so I’m not a good judge.

  You hear stories about hazing, secret societies, all that stuff. Maybe that’s all this is, ramped up by the shifter stuff into some new intensity. It sounds cruel, mostly.

  It trickles down, which I don’t like at all. Dominic started as an outcast and he was saved by his transformation. Shifters stick together, it was an instant community just like mine. Maybe that was such a relief he didn’t mind the bullying as much.

  But by the time he was one of those upperclassmen, kidnapping and hazing the youngest shifters, he won’t admit it aloud, but it seems clear he was a participant. Probably not as enthusiastic as Felix, who seems incapable of considering any cost in pain. But a leader, an alpha. It’s hard, and it hurts, to imagine.

  And then college together, L.A., some kind of financial sector work that nobody seems interested in being too specific about. Dominic looks up whenever the conversation starts to stray
in that direction and both Felix and Jonesy jump to change the subject. So there’s probably an ugly story there too.

  I’d rather not know. He’s not that guy now, that’s all that matters. It can’t touch me, so why should I reach out to try and let it?

  I called Goodboy the second Dominic mentioned inviting Jonesy to dinner. Having three other shifter adults in the house is soothing on a level I didn’t even comprehend. The idea of having to keep it buttoned down for just one human seemed like a waste.

  “Are you saying you wouldn’t enjoy watching Felix and Jonesy try to figure each other out? Watching Dominic when awkward stuff like that’s going down seems to be your favorite hobby,” Goodboy said in a joking but gentle manner.

  He’s right, of course.

  Like that night. How Jonesy describes it, the town just thought we’d had a “lovers’ quarrel”. Jonesy always thought we were together, but I know some of his worst friends thought it went the other way. That I was desperately in love with the very masculine, the unfortunately very straight, Dominic and took it too far.

  I always guessed it was because I was the one to stick around. If I’d been the one to leave I’m sure they would have found some story to use against him instead.

  If the trickier parts of that are lost in translation with a human around, I don’t mind. I have no desire to compete with Felix on that level, I’d rather just avoid it altogether.

  “I’ve been racking my brain for a plan in case he stays through the next full moon, but it’s one of those fox and hen puzzles. Felix Armistead can’t be alone with Dominic, I can’t be alone with Felix, but the three of us can’t run the moon.”

  Round and round, building whole castles in the air about something that probably won’t happen, along with the consequences, which are even more vague and unlikely. Goodboy just laughed and said he’d come to dinner.

  “I’m not touching the puzzle, but I’ll be there. Jonesy would be heartbroken if I wasn’t.”

  He’s right, but we’re pretending it’s a joke. I hope. Jonesy’s always been fairly fascinated by me and he’s a good-natured sort. Boorish, trying very hard to understand our family. But now, I think if he didn’t know us already by luck, he’d have somehow found a way into Goodboy’s life and we’d be friends anyway. It’s just like planets, orbiting.

  I was very interested to see how Felix and Jonesy would react to each other, and it’s fairly fabulous. As I predicted, Felix finds something very sexy about Jonesy’s gruff, post-football dadbod and stubble vibe. Which goes over Jonesy’s head by such a margin that you can see Felix pull back and try not to flirt.

  Which reflects well on Felix, but also works out. Because Jonesy definitely thinks he and Goodboy are two peas in a pod, but Felix sets off every alarm in him as far as his inferiority complex is concerned. I’d forgotten what he was like when we first met, treating Dominic like he was ineffably high-class and unreachable, treating me like a queen because he doesn’t know what else to do. And Felix, well…

  For starters he’s the kind of well-dressed that’s always made me nervous. Clothes perfectly tailored, flattering, in blacks and dark greys. He looks like an advertising executive on a TV show, not a single detail out of place. Black hair in a dramatic swoop, perfectly styled even after a day’s travel when he arrived. Haircut that probably costs more than my entire wardrobe. Skin so babied and moisturized he looks unblemished, as perfect as the kids’. Secretive green eyes that catch the light and watch your every move.

  I’ve never felt so small, or poor. Those first couple of days I found myself actually checking mirrors to remind myself that I’m pretty hot lately, too. Which makes me feel like a terrible person.

  And then there’s the shifter thing Jonesy doesn’t know about. You can smell the testosterone and oxytocin jolts whenever he’s around Felix, like his body’s still trying to figure out what Felix is and whether he can have it. It’s a very wary, tentative dance they’re doing, and I’m on the same page as Felix seems to be. This would be hilarious if Jonesy were just ten percent more aware of what was happening.

  With Goodboy, he’s doing it to release tension and I think they both know that, on some level. Flirting outrageously with him is a way of not flirting with him at all, by turning it into an affectionate joke.

  If I didn’t know better I’d say it makes Goodboy jealous, but it’s hard to imagine such a vulgar emotion surviving inside him for too long. You should never think of anybody as a saint because they’ll break your heart, and I know that. But it’s nice to idealize somebody without having to pay any kind of price for it.

  It all makes Jonesy a little bit of an underdog, which paradoxically makes me like him a bit more than I did before Armistead’s arrival. There were a lot of scars that needed healing for us both and especially Jonesy. Only Dominic’s promises that Jonesy was in desperate need of friends convinced me to let him around at all.

  Now, I can’t imagine a week without him. I have no idea what he eats if I’m not the one cooking it. Gas station chips and hot dogs maybe. The nights he doesn’t end up on our couch, or the guestroom floor, I worry. Just a little bit, not enough to mention. But he’s become part of things, in some small way. Understanding him makes me more sympathetic to things like accidentally crushing on Dominic’s gay werewolf BFF. “Classic Jonesy,” as Dominic likes to say.

  Watching him at dinner, trying not to focus entirely on Felix until he starts up another one of his stories, I think it’s that he’s becoming more like Dominic used to be. Maybe that’s what we’re all responding to. Dominic’s simple sweetness, back then, was a magnet for everyone. I’ve wondered if it wasn’t maybe the reason Jonesy approached him that first day, remembering what a nice kid he was. So maybe that’s Felix Armistead’s attraction too. The kind country boy Dominic used to be, before their crew messed him up and sent him out into the world.

  “Did your group have anything like that?” Felix asks, and Goodboy clears his throat, like he was the one Felix addressed. I must have looked deep in thought.

  “Oh, not quite. We knew Christian needed guidance and we didn’t want him wandering around out there, so we brought him in. I guess we’ve been doing that for at least a couple hundred years, yeah. But nothing so structured. Or elaborate.”

  Handshakes and door-knocks and secret entrances and everything. All we do is sit around a bonfire and bang a drum. It feels primitive, which is normally the best feeling, but with Felix sitting right here it seems silly and brutish. Then I feel bad for feeling that way, too.

  Jonesy nods, taking it all in. God knows what will happen if he ever tries to explain gay culture to any of his other buddies. He’s got to have the strangest ideas of what we get up to.

  Or maybe not.

  “I think I’d definitely be grateful for something like that. Growing up when you don’t know anybody like yourself…I mean, it was tough enough only knowing guys just like me. I never had to feel like I didn’t belong. Even if I did, there’s a lot of ways they can take advantage of you out there,” Jonesy says, his gaze darkening, and we all lean back a little bit, just to give him some room. “When I think about how often they warned us about stuff like this. Like your group here in town, Goodboy. Or this Tooth & Claw. It makes me sick. They didn’t want us to find people like that because they might tell you you’re okay. We all thought they’d try to recruit us, or…you know, whatever. But if they’re just out there trying to save you…then they’re saving you from people like me.”

  He looks sick, which is no good. Even worse is the fact that we can’t disagree. Even if he knew we were talking about shifters, he’d still be right about all of it. Felix reaches across the table in a sudden movement, snatching Jonesy’s hand with shifter speed. When Jonesy looks him in the eye, shocked, he just nods. Holding Jonesy’s gaze, he nods and smiles. We’re okay. You’re okay. Everything is okay. It calms him down immediately.

  Dominic catches my eye with a tiny shrug. We all move on like it didn’t happen.
r />   “And then it seems like you moved up in their ranks from what we’ve heard.”

  He nods at me, grateful for the opening. We leave Jonesy and Felix to whatever they’re working out so quietly at the far end of the table.

  “Yeah, I was a real piece of shit for a minute there. I’m not proud. I guess I owe some folks an apology.”

  Felix cuts his eyes to Dominic, almost looking shocked, but he shrugs.

  “I guess I owe a lot of people an apology,” Dominic admits glumly. He looks down the table at me again, with a weak version of his classic cocky grin.

  I’m not really interested in the answer, but it’s the first question that comes to mind.

  “How do you think I would have done? In the Tooth & Claw?”

  Felix and Dominic both burst into laughter, and Felix nods. “You would have run that table. Oh, God. They never would have seen you coming.”

  Jonesy looks from them to me with a wry smile, and nods.

  “I’d like to see what you could accomplish with a small army of prep school bullies at your disposal,” Jonesy says, with something approaching awe.

  It sets the others off again, but Goodboy clears his throat before speaking. “He did have us jumping, for a couple of years there. Before he and Ernest locked it down, it seemed like he had nothing better to do than boss the rest of us around.”

  It stings, for some reason. Goodboy sees that on my face and looks concerned.

  “We all just loved the kid. Very few of us make it to sixteen without any idea of what we are. He was young and old at the same time. Excited by everything. It was like all his sadness was in this one room where he couldn’t find it, and that was the key. It was like watching someone come back to life, like…the spring, thawing everything. That’s all I meant.”

  Dominic whistles low, his usual response to one of Goodboy’s rare speeches.

  “Hear, hear,” Felix says, letting go of Jonesy’s hand as though he’d never had it.

  “To Christian, for bringing us all back to life at some point or another. Goodboy for raising a good boy like Christian in the first place. To Jonesy, for consistently surprising us all,” Dominic laughs, delighted, and holds up his own glass. “And to Felix for brightening up the corners of every place he goes. Christian, for putting meaning in my life after I thought it was all over and for letting me be a part of his family, even though I don’t really deserve one.”