Xavier stepped into his grandson. “Listen to me, you little shit. You might be ten feet taller than me and wider than this apartment, but talk to me like that again and I will put you down.”
“You know what would be nice right now?” the girl suddenly said, quickly stepping between Xavier and his grandson. “Chili. Chili would be soooo nice right about now. You see, my sister’s mother—we’re half-sisters so I’m not being weird by calling her ‘my sister’s mother’—she used to say that so many problems could be easily rectified if people just sat down over a big meal and talked to each other. She used to say that World War Two would have never happened if”—she took a moment to swallow at this bit—“Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, and all the rest actually sat around a big table and talked over a delightful meal of beer and chili. I’m not sure I agree with her,” she added. “Hitler seemed pretty determined, but, ya know . . . the general spirit of what she was saying is true. Especially when dealing with family. So why don’t I see what you have in your refrigerator and maybe I can whip up something we can eat while calmly and rationally discussing all this, like the loving family you are. How does that sound?”
Xavier looked up at his towering grandson and his grandson glowered down at him.
Yeah, Xavier didn’t think that would really work.
* * *
Max wasn’t exactly surprised when the two men exploded into a Spanish-language argument that left her in the dark. She had taken Spanish when she was in high school but to be honest, even if she’d lived in Spain for the last twenty years, she wasn’t sure she’d understand a word these two were saying. Not with the yelling and the speed at which they were yelling those words.
She’d known this might happen. After seeing that information they’d gotten from the cat database. After one look at that thing, she knew that Zé’s grandfather had known long before Zé was out of his mother’s womb that the kid would be a shifter. How did she know? Because one of the pages was a document that entrusted Zé’s care to the Katzenhaus Trust if anything was to happen to his mother, grandmother, or his grandmother’s mate, Xavier.
Not only that, but Xavier had signed it. His signature was there on the copy of the document that had been printed out. Right after the signatures of his wife and daughter.
So, of course, he’d known. The question now, of course, was why he’d kept it all secret from his grandson. Why hadn’t Xavier helped him as he’d developed into an adult? Especially during puberty when Zé was probably confused and scared, wondering what the fuck was going on with his body. Instead, he’d forced his grandson to bury that part of himself, to completely ignore his shifter side. Why?
Those were the questions that probably needed to be answered the most, but screaming at each other wouldn’t get them there.
Still, her plaintive, “Hey, come on. Can’t we discuss this rationally?” was just not doing the trick. So she did what she had to do and it wasn’t pretty.
* * *
Max unleashed a nasty, vicious hiss, opening her mouth to reveal all those horrifying fangs as a copious amount of spit flew from the back of her throat and sprayed both men.
Then, with those fangs still hanging out for the world to see, she said, “Both of you stop or I will unleash my anal glands. And I can promise you that the funk alone will kill both of you. The only species not bothered by that smell are the canines. Neither of you are canines. So let’s stop the fucking bullshit!” she roared before immediately calming down and softly adding, “Okay?”
Wiping spit off the side of his face, his grandfather accused, “You’re dating honey badgers now?”
That’s when all the fight left Zé. It just left.
Not only did his grandfather know what Zé was—and had known for Zé’s entire life—but he knew that world. If he knew honey badgers, the man knew the shifter world. Shen had told him when they were hanging out in that tree at the MacKilligan house that the honey badgers didn’t usually associate with other shifters. They stuck with full-humans, blending in so they could manipulate and use them for their own profit and entertainment. Like Rasputin. Like the Borgias. But one fang-filled outburst from Max and his grandfather had known what she was and that he didn’t want his only grandchild hanging around her. Meaning Xavier Vargas could have easily raised his grandson in the shifter world without any assistance from anyone.
But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d lied by omission. When Zé had come to him confused and a little scared because he could run faster than anyone in his class, or could fall from trees and the second floor of buildings and not get a scratch much less a broken arm or leg like his friends, or when he’d hissed at his high school football coach because he’d grabbed Zé’s shoulder, pissed about a missed play, Xavier Vargas could have sat Zé down and explained it all to him so that he didn’t feel like a weirdo freak among his full-human friends.
But, again, he hadn’t done that. Any of that. He’d just let his grandson go around feeling like an outsider, when the world he truly belonged to was right next door. A world that Xavier understood and seemed to be more a part of than any full-human who had fallen hopelessly in love with a cat or dog or bear.
Knowing that, understanding that, was too much for Zé. Just too much after everything else he’d experienced the last few days.
He carefully placed the untouched beer onto one of the end tables by the couch and walked out the door of the apartment he’d been trying to get his grandfather to leave for the last decade.
Zé walked out, and into what he hoped would be his new life.
* * *
Max put her beer on the coffee table and started after Zé. But she stopped just as she reached the end of the couch.
It was true, she didn’t have much family. With her mom in prison, her father an asshole, and both sides of her family wanting nothing to do with her. But Carlie, Charlie’s mom, had told her from the day she’d arrived at their little Connecticut home, “Max Yang-MacKilligan, you will always have a place with us. Do you know why? Because you’re family, baby. And family is family. Now please stop choking Mrs. Merchant’s cat and put it back out on the fire escape. I know it scratched you, but it’s just a cat, Max.”
“Family is family.”
That’s what Carlie had taught Max.
But it was Charlie who’d taught Max that family only mattered “if they are in it with you. To the end. Do or die.”
Carlie had been Max’s family because she’d been in it until the end and she had died trying to protect three little girls, only one of whom was actually her responsibility. She could have grabbed Charlie and run, leaving Max and Stevie behind, but she hadn’t. She’d fought to protect them all.
Could that have been the wrong choice? Maybe for others, but not for Carlie. Because she had lived to do what was best for her girls. It had always been about “her girls.”
Max looked over her shoulder at Zé’s grandfather, and she didn’t see a man with an irrational hatred of shifters or a selfish bastard who didn’t want a freak for a grandson. She saw devastation on that face because of the past choices Xavier had made. But until grandfather and grandson talked this out, Zé would never know if those choices had been made with his best interests in mind or not.