“This is between us,” I said. “You leave him out of this.”
Eventually, she left.
“I CAN smell it,” Joe said quietly. We sat on the porch and watched the sun. “You’re sad.”
I said, “Yeah,” because I was.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
He laid his head on my shoulder and said, “Okay.”
Later, after the sun had set and the stars came out in the sky, he said, “I won’t ever leave you.”
CHRIS SAID, “You bastard. Jessie’s heartbroken. Fuck you, Ox.”
Gordo called him an asshole.
Tanner said love was hard.
Rico said I was a heartbreaker.
Chris didn’t talk to me for three days.
On the fourth day, he came up to me, looking nervous.
I couldn’t stand that, so I hugged him.
He hugged me back. He said, “I missed you. I’m an ass. You forgive me?”
I said, “Sure,” and he grinned and bought me a sandwich at the diner.
He didn’t say anything about Jessie. But neither did I.
I TURNED eighteen. Thomas didn’t ask if I wanted the bite. I didn’t ask him to give it to me.
GREEN CREEK was small. Our graduating class only had thirty-four people in it.
But you would have thought the crowd numbered in the thousands by the way we all yelled when Carter walked across the stage.
He grinned and winked as he accepted his diploma.
Later, they said, “Oxnard Matheson,” and the roar that followed knocked the breath from my chest. The Bennetts. My mom. Gordo and the guys. They screamed and howled. You would have thought I’d accomplished the greatest thing known to mankind.
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting that. It hurt, but in a good way.
Sometimes, pain can be good.
CARTER SAID, “I won’t be going far. Eugene’s only a couple hours away.”
“Won’t be too bad,” Kelly said.
“We’ll see each other all the time,” Joe said.
I said, “This fucking sucks.”
“Yeah,” they sighed.
We lay on the grass watching the stars above us. We were all angles and parallels, stretched out and touching in some way. Joe had his head on my chest, his legs stretching away from me. Carter’s heavy legs were draped across mine. Kelly had his head on my shoulder.
I felt warm. And safe. And sad.
“It’ll be okay,” Carter said. “I promise.”
“What if you don’t come back?” Joe asked in a small voice. I rubbed my hands through his hair.
“I will,” Carter said. “You’re going to be my Alpha. Of course I’ll come back for you. And for Kelly and Ox. We’re a pack. One day, you’ll lead us.”
“But I don’t know how,” Joe said. “I don’t think I’m going to be very good at it.”
“You’ll be the best,” I told him. “The best Alpha who ever lived.”
He preened and Carter and Kelly laughed.
They thought I was joking around. Silly old Ox.
But I believed that with all my heart.
THOMAS TOOK Joe into the forest sometimes. They stayed away for hours. I never asked what they talked about or what they did because I figured it was between the two of them. It was none of my business.
Until Thomas said otherwise.
He sent for me in the middle of summer. Carter showed up at the garage, eyes bright with something I couldn’t quite place. He looked like live wires arced underneath his skin. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was losing control.
“Papi,” Rico called out. “Lover boy is here. Take a break. Ten minutes should be enough to get off.”
Chris and Tanner whistled and hollered at me as I rolled my eyes.
Gordo stood in the doorway to his office, arms across his chest, eyes tracking me as I walked through the garage. This was different, and he knew it too. He wasn’t pack, but he could feel it. And the wolves never came here. The wards kept them out. Gordo was a dick, but I didn’t know his story. Not completely. I tried not to blame him.
And there Carter stood, jittery, eyes flashing orange.
I asked, “Is everything okay?”
And he said, “The Alpha wants you tonight,” in a voice filled with gravel, like his wolf was bursting out of his throat.
I wanted to ask why and question everything, but I knew better. This was a message.
I wrapped my arms around Carter instead and he whined at the back of his throat, his nose in the crook of my neck.
Eventually, he stopped trembling.
“Okay?” I whispered in his ear.
He nodded and pulled away. “I’ll hang around,” he said in his normal voice. “Give you a ride home.”
I went back inside the garage. “What was that?” Gordo asked.
I said, “Pack business,” and got back to work.
Carter didn’t say much on the drive back home. Just little things about college and girls, and so I said something I’d been thinking for a long while, “This guy came into work. I thought he was attractive. I check out guys sometimes.” It came out fast because that was the first time I’d said it aloud. It felt like relief. And terror.
Carter didn’t say anything for a minute. And then he said, “Oh. Okay. Did you lick his balls?”
I laughed so hard that I thought I would die. Carter was laughing right along with me.
He said, “You know I don’t give a shit, right? Like, of all the things in the world to freak out about, that’s one of the least?”
I said, “Yeah, Carter. I know.” My heart was pounding.
“Hey. Calm down, Ox.”
Stupid werewolves. “I will.”
“Am I the first you told?”
“Yeah.”
He grinned. “I popped your gay cherry!” He frowned. “Wait.”
“Oh my god.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh my god.”
“I popped your coming-out cherry.” He grimaced as he stopped for a red light. “That didn’t sound any better.”
“Oh my god.”
“Have you kissed a guy yet?”
I blushed. “No.”
Before I could even react, he leaned over and planted a hard kiss on my lips, pulling away with a loud smack. “Now you have.”
“Oh my god.”
“You sound way too much like Joe.”
“That was like kissing my brother,” I said.
“Fuck you, Oxnard,” he said with an easy grin. “You’re lucky I’m straight. I would have hit that a long time ago.” He sniffed the air and had the audacity to look offended. “Seriously? You’re not aroused? At all?”
“My life,” I groaned.
“I must be doing it wrong.”
“That must be it.”
“You still like girls?”
I shrugged. “Think so.”
He punched me in the arm. “Greedy.”
I laughed.