by Selena Scott
Patting herself on the back for her excellent planning, she tossed some of the frozen cookies into the oven. She just knew she was gonna want some in twenty minutes.
The meal looked awfully small on a plate and Kaya frowned. She wondered how Jackson would feel about frozen lasagna, green beans, and a side of ramen? Well, she was about to find out because there weren’t a ton of options and she wanted both of them to have enough food.
He came back down from the attic room, sniffing at the air and stopping still when he saw that she’d set out two plates on the small dining room table.
“I didn’t mean make lunch for me, too.”
Kaya pinched her lips together. What an arse.
She immediately picked up her meal, balancing the plate, the bowl of ramen, and the mug of hot chocolate. She’d eat lunch in the attic room. “Well, flush it down the toilet for all I care.”
To her surprise, Jackson laughed and strode over to her. He took the bowl and the mug out of her hands and set them back down. “I know I can be a dick sometimes, but that was accidental. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. What I meant was that I didn’t expect you to make me lunch. And if I had, I would have asked a hell of a lot more nicely.”
“Oh.” Slightly mollified, Kaya just sort of stared at him.
He rounded the table and plunked down in his seat. Satisfied with that response, Kaya sat down as well.
She felt oddly self-conscious of the meal, as if she’d planned it out carefully and this was the best she’d been able to come up with.
“I know it’s a weird combination of food, but I figured in this case, quantity over quality would actually be better.”
“Huh?” he looked up at her, slurping down ramen. “What’s wrong with the combination? The more kinds of noodle on my plate, the better.”
She looked on in shock to realize that he’d already smashed half his plate of microwaved lasagna and most of his soup. But she wasn’t sure why that surprised her—he was a Durant, after all. Those boys ate fast.
Kaya wondered if growing up around them was part of the reason she ate so slowly. Sort of a reciprocal thing. The faster someone else ate, the slower Kaya ate. She twirled up a single ramen noodle so that it looped all the way around the tines of her fork. She ate it slowly, chewing thoughtfully.
Jackson’s plate was completely clean, almost polished, in fact. He was staring at her almost untouched plate of food.
“I’m not sharing,” she informed him. “You Durants always think that just because I don’t garbage disposal my food down my gullet, that means I don’t want it and thus it’s fair game. This,” she gestured at her food, “is not fair game. This has a single destination. My belly.”
“I would never take food off your plate. Unless, of course, you felt that your eyes had been bigger than your stomach and you found yourself in the unfortunate position of not being able to finish that delicious-looking lasagna—”
“If you’re still hungry, there’s plenty in the freezer. And cookies in the oven.”
She didn’t watch as he strode over to the fridge and started making himself a second frozen meal. He was disconcerting her. She’d wanted him to smile at her, to not be such an uptight jerk, but now that he was being—almost—nice to her, lightening up a little bit, she just wished he’d go back to being hypertension personified. Jerk Jackson she knew exactly how to handle; all she had to do was go on living her life as usual. Playful Jackson? Who the hell knew what to do with that guy? Who the hell even knew he’d existed?
They were silent as he watched the meal spin in the microwave.
“Part of me still gets a thrill out of eating microwavable meals.”
His voice startled her. He was kind of a need-to-know talker. Jackson wasn’t the kind of person who freely volunteered information about himself. She wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it.
“A thrill? From a microwaveable meal? I can’t imagine what a party it must be at your house when you order takeout.”
She was pretty sure he was smiling, but his face was turned away and she couldn’t tell. She frowned down at her food.
He turned back to her, his dark hair flopping down on his forehead as he leaned against the counter. He looked younger right now than he usually did. His face was more open than normal, his brows and eyes, though still very dark, were not brooding. He scraped a hand over his five o’clock shadow and around to the back of his neck. “Ma would never let us eat this kind of crap. Sometimes we’d sneak it in the house after school, while she was still at work, but she’d always find the wrappers in the trash and make hell rain down on us. Don’t you know how much hidden sodium is in packaged food? I’ve never met anyone who cares more about sodium than my mother.”
Kaya smiled slightly at his impression of Elizabeth, which was actually not bad. It wasn’t the irritating kind of impression that men often did of women, high, grating voices and nagging tones. No, this actually sounded like Elizabeth with the remnants of her East Coast accent.
“Even now, as an adult,” Jackson continued as he pulled the meal out of the microwave and hustled it over to his plate, attempting not to burn his fingers on the steaming food, “I still feel like I’m getting away with something when I eat it.”
Kaya, whose childhood had been nowhere near as rosy as the Durants’ had been, did not feel the same way. She and Natalie had basically lived on prepackaged food until Natalie had been old enough to learn her way around a kitchen. Their parents, who were almost never at home anyways, didn’t care at all what their daughters ate. Which meant they were frequently eating frozen food with maybe a salad on the side. Unless they went to the Durants’ house, where Elizabeth would stuff them with good food and send them home with a week’s worth of it.
“Do you cook?” Kaya asked, her eyes on her plate.
“I can cook. But no, I don’t really. If I want a home-cooked meal, I head to my mother’s house. Otherwise I eat out or pick something up. My schedule is too unpredictable to buy groceries. They always end up going bad.” There was silence for a second. “What about you?”
They were both uneasy about this conversation, as mundane as it was. Kaya couldn’t help flashing back to the last time they’d been alone together. It had been over a year ago, standing in the parking lot of the complex where both of them worked. She’d asked him if he’d like to be friends with her. He’d given a firm and resounding no. Her crush had died and she’d moved on.
It was just strange to be chatting with him now like that had never happened. Making small talk like two people who could be friends.
But, unlike Jackson, Kaya was not a rude person. She couldn’t just let his question go unanswered. “I do all right in a kitchen. But yeah, Elizabeth is generally where I go if I want a home-cooked meal.” She cleared her throat. “Natalie and I used to cook a fair amount when we lived together. But cooking and shopping for one is just kind of…”
Kaya trailed off, shrugging her shoulders, figuring she didn’t need to spell out how depressing she found it. She really did see her sister every day, so it wasn’t that Kaya was too lonely. But living alone, the occasionally oppressive solitude found her at the strangest times, threatened to wash her away. Like when she’d slipped in the shower last week and banged the hell out of her elbow. A year ago, the sound would have sent Natalie charging into the bathroom to make sure she was okay. But this time, there was no one to investigate. Or coming home to find all the lights off, just the way she’d left them. She’d never realized how much comfort she used to get from seeing Natalie’s dirty cereal bowl in the sink, or a pile of clean laundry on the couch. They were just little reminders that life was happening all around Kaya. Without Natalie there, Kaya was often her only reminder. And sometimes it just bummed her out.
“Yeah.”
That was Jackson’s only response.
This time they finished their meals at the same time and Jackson cleared their plates. Kaya took the cookies out of the oven to cool.
/> “Wow.”
She looked out at the swirling snow, realizing that it was already piling up around the door handles of Jackson’s Jeep.
“Yeah. It’s really coming down. Are you still cold? We can stoke up the fire bigger if you want.”
Kaya looked down and realized that she was still wearing all of her outdoor gear. Even her hat and scarf. She wasn’t cold, not really, but it had been serving as a mighty fine shield between her and Jackson and she hadn’t seen a reason to take anything off.
“I’m fine.” Conceding that it was weird to be wearing it inside, Kaya started unwinding the scarf. She picked up her cup of hot chocolate and wandered over toward the bookshelf and the fire, stacking her winter clothing on one of the armchairs.
She’d thought she’d go upstairs to read, but she plunked down next to the fire with the paperback mystery she’d selected and didn’t see much incentive to uproot herself from this squishy couch and the warm fire. It wasn’t like Jackson was going to talk to her anymore anyways. And if he wanted space, there were two perfectly good bedrooms with two perfectly good doors.
She started reading and tuned him out, not looking up for another half an hour when she heard him clomping back up the basement stairs, a metal clinking sound accompanying him.
When she looked up, her mouth dropped open. He was walking up the stairs with a length of shiny chain in his arms, three round shackles dangling off from various ends.
She’d known that he chained himself in the basement during full moons, but she’d never actually seen the chains before and they sent a frisson of icy dismay into her gut.
She was still watching him, her knees pulled up to her chin, but he didn’t look up at her, as if he were almost embarrassed. He walked past her, toward the entryway, and toed into his boots. That’s when she realized that he already had his coat and hat on. He pulled gloves out of his jeans.
He was taking the chains outside?
Wait.
Hold the phone.
Kaya jumped over the back of the couch and jogged over to Jackson. He stiffened, but otherwise gave no acknowledgement of her presence as he reached for the handle of the front door.
“Where are you going?”
“Outside.”
“What for? It’s a literal blizzard out there!” She had a sinking feeling that she already knew what for.
“Because it’s getting close to 5:45 and I want to make sure that I have everything set up for moonrise.”
“You’re setting it up outside?”
He finally turned and looked at her. “It’s not safe for you if I’m inside with you, Kaya.”
He moved toward the door again but she snaked under his arm and put her back to the door. Heated irritation flashed in his eyes, but she didn’t care. “It’s not safe for you outside, Jackson,” she said in the same tone that he’d just used.
“I’ll be fine.”
“It’s fifteen degrees outside. A blizzard. You will not ‘be fine.’”
“Once the moon rises, I’ll be more than equipped to be outside in this weather.”
“Well, until the moon rises, you’ll be naked and chained to a tree and what’s that word again?” She tapped a finger to her lips and put a faux-thoughtful expression on her face. “Oh yeah, you’ll be dying.”
“Ten minutes in the cold weather will not kill me.”
“Yeah, but a night outside in this weather might. It actually might. You cannot do this.”
He glanced at his watch and growled low in his throat. “I don’t have a lot of choices here, Kaya. I refuse to put you in danger. So, yeah. Let me pass. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Her heart was pinging around her chest like a pinball and she felt her breath coming faster—she wasn’t exactly a confrontational person, she was more of a not-my-business type of person. But she categorically refused to lose this argument.
“Fine. You can go,” she told him, and then immediately put her own boots on. She ran across the room and jammed on her hat and her six-foot scarf.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going, too.”
“No, you’re not.” He pushed toward the door, but she again snaked past him and got there first.
She didn’t bother arguing with words; instead, she just swung the door wide and stepped out into the blustering snow that immediately stung her cheeks and froze her fingers.
“Hey!” Kaya yelped when a steely arm banded around her middle and swung her back into the house.
“You are not going out there.”
“Yes. I. Am.” She grunted out each word as her fingers clung like spiders to the edges of the doorframe.
“Kaya!”
“Jackson!” she shouted back.
He let her go, but palmed her forehead just enough to keep her from rushing out the door. He slammed the front door closed, stopping the wind and leaving them both panting and glaring in the entryway.
“You’re being ridiculous!” He wasn’t shouting, but he might as well have been. Seriously, this guy could stop a speeding train with that glare. The city of Boulder should make him cross the street with school children to ensure that cars stayed a very healthy distance away.
But Kaya refused to be intimidated. She put her hands on her hips. “So are you!”
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kaya, one of us knows what we’re talking about here and the other one doesn’t. I’m telling you that it won’t be safe for you if I’m in the house.”
“Why?” She put her hands on her hips and her hat flopped into her eyes. She yanked it off, knowing that her hair was tumbling everywhere and she probably looked like a crazy bag lady right about then. “I know for a fact that you shift with your mother in the house. So why the heck would this be any different?”
Jackson opened his mouth to retort, but instead snapped it back closed. To Kaya’s ultimate surprise, his cheeks colored just a little bit. When he spoke, his voice was slightly gravelly. “Just trust me. It’s different.”
Looking at him right now was making her stomach flip so she looked at the floor instead, determined to make her point. “Jackson, you’ll be chained in the basement. Behind a locked door. I’ll be up in the attic, behind another locked door. What could possibly happen?”
He was quiet so she looked up, finally caught his eye, and took the opportunity to plunge on.
“Please don’t go out in this weather. I know you don’t like me. I know we will never get along. But my family is your family, sort of. And vice versa. So, that makes us… something. I don’t know what, exactly, but it’s not nothing. And I don’t want you to die. Especially a preventable death. So, please, don’t go out there.”
***
It was the damn please. The way her hauntingly blue eyes looked when she said it. She looked like she meant it. Like she was really asking, begging, for him to treat himself well.
Her not wanting him to die a preventable death shouldn’t have softened his heart. It wasn’t exactly a gold standard amongst acquaintances, but still, it was the closest thing to affection she’d ever outwardly expressed for him.
How could he explain to her that it was hard enough for him to be around her right here, right now, without wanting to curl into her, press his face into her neck, take her warmth against his body? And that he simply couldn’t predict the manner in which he’d want her once the moon rose. He couldn’t explain that to her. Not without explaining everything. Not without telling her that she had the most perfect lips known to man. Or that he had a crush on the baby hairs at her temple. Or that he’d noticed, for years, the way she supported Natalie in every little thing. That she was the most loyal person he’d ever met in his life and it made him want to roll the two of them up in a sleeping bag and shut out the entire world.
These… were not things one person said to another in casual conversation. And they were definitely not things that one person said to another when that first person wa
s trying to keep a goddamn lid on his emotions.
He let out a long breath and checked his watch again. There was only half an hour before he had to be wherever he was going to weather the full moon. And once the moon rose, he wasn’t going to be able to argue with her anymore.
He set his jaw. “You swear you’ll stay upstairs? The entire time? You’ll lock the door?”
“I swear.” She nodded her head, her messy, pretty hair tumbling everywhere.
He couldn’t look at her anymore. It was discombobulating him, throwing him off. And he couldn’t afford to be thrown off right now. He needed to be focused.
“Fine.” He strode back to the basement door, heading down to set up the chains there. “Take everything you’re going to need for the night upstairs. I don’t want you coming back down here.”
She nodded again, watching him with her head tilted to one side. “You promise you won’t go outside?” she asked, surprising him.
“I didn’t know you were this stubborn.”
“You don’t really know me at all.”
Her words were sort of a shock to him, but he didn’t betray his emotions on his face. He turned, without another look back at her, and carefully closed the basement door behind him, shutting her out.
He had half an hour, so he reattached the chain to one of the foundational supports down there and grimaced around at the basement. His mother’s basement at least had heating. This basement was a dirt floor and had more spiders than Jackson cared to think about. But still, he reflected as he listened to the wind howl outside, at least it didn’t have snow.
He cocked an ear, hearing her putter around the kitchen for a minute. Her footsteps were soft, graceful-sounding even through the floor. He imagined she was gathering up everything she was going to want to eat for dinner. Then he heard her cross toward the other end of the room and he heard the scrape of something heavy across the floor. He winced. She was going to carry all that wood up the stairs by herself. He should have done it for her before he came down here.
But just a moment later, he heard her close the door to the attic stairs and then her footsteps all the way up. He couldn’t hear her anymore. He knew that there was a chance he might be able to hear her once the moon rose, as all his senses would intensify and sharpen, but for now, at least, he had peace.