by T. S. Joyce
Okay…that was a little cute. If he thought kids were cute. Which he didn’t, because he was a badass bald eagle shifter who didn’t get affected by dumb crap like that.
The deli was easy enough to find, because the eye-scorching neon orange sign was visible from her office building. It had a submarine on the logo. When he passed by the main window, something inside brought him to a dead stop.
Leanna was sitting in the back booth, across from Hayden, or Trevor, or whatever his name was, and she was chattering to him as he stared down at his food and picked at his potato chips.
Leanna looked pretty. She’d taken her ponytail out, and her brunette hair hung down in waves down to the middle of her back. She wasn’t wearing much make-up, but she didn’t need to. She had high cheekbones and a little upturned nose, and brown eyes that stayed animated and trained on the kid. Her nails were painted red, and she was holding her sandwich, but she hadn’t taken a bite of it yet. She wore a baggy gray sweater and leggings that showed off her curves, and she tapped one of her feet on the ground in quick succession—a nervous habit, maybe.
The kid was staring vacantly at his food.
Amos studied his face and tried to match any of the boy’s features to his own, but couldn’t. But if Blair had seen him Change? Then maybe Amos wasn’t alone. Perhaps he wasn’t the last one of his kind.
The kid looked sad, and something about it tugged on heartstrings Amos didn’t even know he possessed.
He gritted his teeth with frustration and made his way inside.
Leanna looked up the second the bell above the door rang out, and she gave him a cute little wave. Amos ordered three cheesesteak sandwiches and then joined them.
He sat next to the kid. Not because he was bonding, but because the kid was little and it left Amos more room. Yeah.
“I’m late,” he said apologetically to Leanna.
“Figured you would be. How did work go?” she asked.
It was such an ordinary question, it took a second for his brain to start working enough to answer. No one had ever cared about his day before. “I had five estimates today, and then stopped by the lumber yard to put an order in. I have to pick it up at five in the morning, before we start a deck.” The boy was still poking his potato chips. “Are you not hungry?” he asked.
The boy shook his head.
“You signed your name on the note. You like to be called Trevor?”
Again, the boy shook his head.
“Trev?”
A faint nod, and a flash of those dark eyes.
“Okay. I’ll call you Trev.”
“When is my mom coming to pick me up?” he asked suddenly.
Amos tore a piece of bread off the edge of one of his sandwiches. “I’m sorry buddy. I can’t get ahold of her. I even called some people we both used to know, and they couldn’t help me either.”
“Good.”
The boy had said it so softly, Amos had almost missed it.
When he looked over at Leanna, her pretty whiskey-hued eyes were trained on the boy and full of worry and sympathy. “Your mom isn’t very nice?” she asked.
“My grandma was. I lived with my grandma.”
“Great! Do you remember where she lived? Or her number? Did she have you memorize any of her information? Do you know her name?”
“She’s not here anymore. My mom got me and she isn’t as nice as my grandma.”
Fuck. Amos’s guts hurt. The boy had lost his grandma. It didn’t surprise him that Blair had her mother raising him. Blair sucked at life. It’s the biggest reason he cut her loose as fast as he did. That woman was a dead-end. Apparently not much had changed in the years since he’d known her.
“What do you like to do for fun?” Amos asked.
“Fly.”
“Ha!” Amos cleared his throat and shook his head at Leanna’s questioning look. “Probably a big imagination.”
“No. I like learning to fly.”
“I’m full,” Amos said loudly.
“You didn’t eat anything,” Leanna pointed out.
“How was your day at work?” he asked in a rush, desperate to change the subject. Apparently, no one had explained to Trev that he wasn’t supposed to talk about shifter stuff in front of humans.
“Uuuuh,” she murmured, looking at him like he’d lost his mind. “It was good. A couple of clients came to the office and picked up their orders, and I got four more batches of business cards printed—”
“I helped,” Trev said.
Surprised, Amos asked him, “You helped print?”
“He sure did. He learned all about the big printer, and pulled the pages off and laid them out to make sure the ink was all dry and then he even helped hand them to me so I could cut them.”
“Leanna gave me two dollars.”
She grinned. “He earned it.”
“Good. I like a hard worker.”
The boy looked up at him and his eyes were clear of sadness. It was just a quick glance, and then back to his food. He grabbed his sandwich and took a bite.
Okay, there was some life to this kid after all. Good.
Amos pulled his wallet out and took out the cash he’d gotten from the ATM on the way over here, and tried to hand it to Leanna.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said around a bite. “Trev and I had fun today.”
“It doesn’t feel right not paying you.”
“It doesn’t feel right getting paid,” she said low.
Huh. All right then. He put the cash back in his wallet and shoved it into his back pocket. He didn’t like owing anyone. He would figure out a way to pay her back.
Talking to her was easy. Leanna had a funny, cute, outgoing personality and didn’t take things too seriously. Amos spent the rest of the dinner watching her talk to Trev. When it came time to say goodbye, he didn’t want to go.
Out at her car, she handed him the blue suitcase while Trev buckled himself into the back seat of Amos’s truck.
“Hey, if the CPS appointment doesn’t happen tomorrow, I can take him. I have a day off and no plans.”
“Are you getting attached?” he teased.
Leanna cast a glance at the tinted back window of his truck and then crossed her arms and leaned against it. “He’s a good kid. I think he’s been through a lot. A kid shouldn’t have to feel so careful when they are this young. It took four hours to get him to say a single word back to me today, but when he did? God, it was awesome watching him open up a little.”
“You’re good with kids. Why did you stop nannying?”
Leanna shrugged up on shoulder. “I don’t like the goodbyes. I don’t like the part where they move on and I’m left behind missing them.”
And he could tell something in that moment. This woman—this human—had a heart as big as the Texas sky. She got attached because she loved deeply. She had a loyalty that was hard to find in people these days.
Leanna was an impressive woman, and he didn’t get impressed easily.
She pulled a business card out of her purse. “Call me if you need anything. You know, with Trev or your business cards.”
Amos took the card from her fingertips. “I’ll let you know how the meeting tomorrow goes.”
She chewed on the side of her lip and nodded. “See ya when I see ya, Amos.”
Why did it sound like she was saying goodbye? He didn’t like it.
He watched her get into her little car and drive off before he texted her.
I’ll see you at the wedding. Wear something slutty. Oh, and this is Amos. Save my number.
Chapter Four
“And that’s why you can’t stay here,” Amos finished as he pulled to a stop in front of his trailer.
The boy was quiet in the back seat, but what else was new? He wasn’t much of a talker, that one.
“Do you understand?” Amos asked.
Trev stared out the window into the dark woods that surrounded the trailer park. “I can’t stay because a dragon lives here.”
“And also, because I’m not your real dad. And I have a new job and it keeps me very busy.” Why did it feel like he was justifying the meeting with CPS? “And also, because I don’t know anything about little kids.”
“I’m not a little kid. I can take care of myself.”
“You’re six.”
He looked at Amos with stark earnestness in his dark eyes. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”
Those words were like a little arrow piercing his heart, and Amos didn’t like it. This kid made him feel too much.
“Look, I don’t know nothin’ about school drop-offs, or cooking vegetables, or potty training and shit.”
“I know how to go to the bathroom. I won’t be bad. I’ll just eat macaroni and cheese and I won’t make the dragon mad. I’ll be really quiet. You don’t even have to take care of me. I can take care of myself.”
“Trev—”
“I can sleep on the front porch. I mean if you don’t have room for me, I can sleep right there. Sometimes when I’m a bird, I like sleeping outside.”
“You slept outside?”
Trev shrugged up one shoulder.
“Answer me, boy. Did you sleep outside when you were a bird?”
“My mom doesn’t like the bird. She said I got feathers in the house and that I probably have mites.”
Amos swallowed hard twice to settle the rage in his veins before he spoke. “Did your grandma know what you are?”
“Yes. She told me to never tell anyone, not even my mom. But when she was gone, I couldn’t help it. I tried not to be a bird for as long as I could, but it just…” The little boy’s lip trembled and he shook his head. “It just happened.”
His momma was a piece of shit.
Amos made a clicking sound behind his teeth and gripped onto the wheel to try and steady his racing heart. “What color are your feathers?”
Why was he dreading the answer?
“I saw myself in the window once. At my mom’s. I was trying to be warm by the window.”
“What color?”
“Black.”
He didn’t know how to feel. He just didn’t know. A little part of him wished the kid was a bald eagle. Part of him wished he had a little miniature. But the feathers matched Trev’s eye color. The town Amos had met his mom in was overrun by a different kind of shifter, and apparently, she’d found one.
“You’re a crow, boy.”
Not mine. Not mine. Not mine to keep. It’s good. This is the way it’s supposed to be.
“There’s crows here,” the boy murmured, casting his somber gaze to his hands, clasped in his lap. “You said there’s crows in your Crew.”
“Yeah, the fucked-up crows. The outsiders. The ones who are under fire from all the other crows. And bears without any control, and the dragon…and me. You aren’t safe here.”
The kid just stared at his hands and didn’t respond.
“Look…” Fuck. “Look, kid. Tonight, let’s just have a good night. You want macaroni and cheese? We’ll make it. Hell, I’ll set you up in a blanket fort to sleep in tonight. Just…don’t make me feel bad.”
“I don’t know where I’ll go,” Trev whispered.
“I’ll make a deal with you, okay?”
He nodded jerkily and clasped his hands tighter on his lap. “Okay.”
“I’ll make sure you go somewhere good and safe.”
Another jerky nod and he pushed the door open and slid out. Trev shut the door firmly and Amos flinched. He scratched the scruff on his jawline as he watched the little boy trudge up the porch stairs.
Amos wasn’t any good. That was the truth of it. He wasn’t good with responsibility. Hell, he couldn’t even keep a goldfish alive, so what right did he have to give a kid hope? None. No right at all.
But…
CPS wasn’t going to work if Trev truly was a shifter. He would go to some human family who had no idea what they’d gotten themselves into. And the vision of his little crow huddled against a window for warmth, probably watching his good-for-nothing mom inside, feeling alone in the world…well it made him do something he would probably regret.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and messaged the CPS agent he was supposed to meet with tomorrow.
I want to try. I’m sorry for the last-minute text, but we can call the meeting off tomorrow. Trevor belongs with his people. Send.
It wasn’t a lie. He did belong with his people. Amos wasn’t his people, but he couldn’t throw him to the humans, and not know what happened to the boy. He was going to have to figure something else out.
Black feathers.
Fuck.
His phone vibrated with the response.
That’s perfectly fine. Remaining with a biological parent is always what we hope for, if it is a good situation for the child. I would like to come and check out your home when you have a chance, just to make sure I can put this case to rest.
Annoying.
Thank you but that won’t be necessary. Send. And he wouldn’t be giving her his address for a surprise visit either. Good Lord, the last thing he needed was some nosey CPS agent making her way into Nuke’s territory.
She messaged back that she would require a home visit, but he ignored it. He got out and shoved his phone into his pocket as he sauntered up to the door, where Trev stood waiting.
“Door’s unlocked, kid.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Okay, judgmental. No one is going to steal my stuff here.”
“Why not?”
He shoved the door open and gestured grandly. “I don’t have much to steal.”
Trev looked around with wide eyes.
Amos tried to imagine what the boy was thinking as he took in the old dilapidated couch and small television set up on a rickety table that was held together with duct tape. He walked into the kitchen and looked at the cheap coffee maker on the scuffed wood-block counters, and at the mini-fridge in the opening made for a full-sized one. Amos followed him into the first empty bedroom, and then down the hallway to Amos’s own bedroom.
He leaned on the doorframe as he watched the boy step to the edge of what he’d built.
“What is it?” Trev whispered, brushing his fingers against the tip of a stick that stuck out of the mess.
Amos bit his lip. Truth be told, he’d never showed anyone this habit. “It’s a nest.”
Trev twisted and gripped his hands around the straps of his backpack as he looked up at Amos. “You sleep in it?”
How much did he admit to the boy? How much would he, or could he, understand?
“You ever felt different? Because of the bird?” he asked Trev.
The boy nodded. “None of my friends have ever had a bird.”
“Does it make you sad sometimes?”
Trev hesitated, and then nodded once, his eyes as wide as saucers.
“I’m different, too.”
Trev dragged his attention back to the huge twig nest and got quiet.
Amos felt awkward. The kid probably thought he was a nutcase, which was accurate. “The couch is kind of like a bed though,” he explained. “It folds out into a queen mattress. And I’m going to get new furniture as soon as I get settled. I just moved here.” Amos shrugged, and rolled his eyes, searching for something that would make the boy more comfortable here for the night. “I sold all the nice things I had when I moved here. I just wanted less stuff. A simpler life, do you understand?”
Trev nodded, but he probably didn’t really understand. How could he? He was just a kid.
“I left an old life behind that wasn’t very good for me. I couldn’t be happy, so I wanted to come here and see if it was any different. I’ve made friends here, and one of those friends wanted to start a business with me, so we put our money together to start it up. And I bought a computer, and a reliable truck to get to work with, and now there isn’t a whole lot left over.”
Trev stooped and picked up a small stick that had fallen out of the fray
. “Can I have this?” he asked.
Amos frowned, confused. “You want a stick?”
“I like this one.”
“Okay.”
Trev clutched it tightly in his fist, then leaned forward and snatched an eagle feather from the edge of the huge nest. It was the size of his arm. He dropped his gaze and speed-walked out of the room, leaving Amos baffled.
Okay, the kid liked feathers and sticks. Amos had probably liked dumb shit when he was six years old, too.
He followed the boy into the living room and silently began dragging mismatched chairs from the dining table into the empty bedroom. When he had all of them in the room, he pulled a stack of blankets out of the hall closet and dropped them on the floor. “Your turn. Get to work, kid. Don’t make a crappy nest.”
The stick and feather had disappeared, probably into Trev’s backpack. Weird kid.
But it was pretty damn cute that he stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on rearranging chairs to hold up the blankets of his fort.
Amos needed to go make the kid some food. Shifters had to eat more than humans, and steadily. Right before bed if they could. Trev hadn’t eaten all of his food at dinner, and he didn’t want the little monster waking him up in the middle of the night wanting food. Yeah. That’s why he felt the urge to make food for him.
He watched him for a few seconds more, and then patted the open doorframe and left the boy to his work.
Usually about this time of day, when the rest of the trailer park was asleep, the loneliness crept in…but not tonight.
Chapter Five
Save my number.
Leanna’s fingers hovered over the text message to respond to Amos’s earlier one.
She’d already saved the number under Hotty McHottyson.
It was so tempting to message him right now, but she couldn’t figure out why. She barely knew him.
Leanna set the phone beside her and crossed her arms over her chest, lest she be tempted to pick up the phone again and make questionable decisions.
Trev was so freaking cute. Damaged, and maybe that’s why her little heartstrings had tethered to him so securely today. That boy had seen some shit.
