by Dakota West
Craig could find an outfit to wear to work on a moment’s notice. Everything else was a little sketchy.
“I’ve seen your workbench out in the garage,” Jasper said. “I know you can organize things when you want to.”
“That’s different.”
“Not really.”
Jasper took a couple steps over, his tie undone and hanging around his neck, and started violently shoving through Craig’s closet, crammed with plaid and flannel.
“You’ve got a sleeping bag in here,” Jasper said.
“And?”
Jasper didn’t answer. He stuck his entire arm into the closet, made a face, and then, with an effort, pulled something out.
It was a dress shirt with very light gray and white stripes.
“There it is,” said Craig.
“You’re welcome,” said Jasper.
He handed his mate a tie.
“Just wear this, I think finding your own might actually be hopeless,” he said.
“You complete me,” Craig said, teasingly. Jasper rolled his eyes, but then Craig grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in for a quick kiss.
“I might have to,” Jasper said quietly when they separated.
Craig frowned.
“Why? We found her,” he said.
“She might not want us,” Jasper said. He turned away and started doing his own tie in the full-length mirror. “Being feral fucks people up, Craig, and you can’t just charm them out of it.”
“That’s not what I was doing,” Craig said. “I know it does.”
“Most people who were feral never mate,” Jasper went on, quietly. “Most of them wind up moving to the middle of nowhere after a few years, and they sort of gradually go back to how they were. It changes your brain, Craig. Forever.”
Craig stepped between Jasper and the mirror, forcing his mate to look at him, wearing a dress shirt and boxers.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Just for once, don’t do the research and run the numbers. Let’s just feel it out, okay?”
He grabbed Jasper’s hand in his own and looked into his mate’s light brown, nearly-golden eyes.
“I’ve got a great feeling about this,” he said. “Yeah, she’s damaged, but who the fuck isn’t damaged? Your parents pretended that there were only two of them until you were a teenager, and you can’t tell me that your papa didn’t resent being kept in the background. Hell, my older brother went to Stanford, and I didn’t even go to college, and I don’t know if my dad is over it yet.”
Jasper looked down, nodding.
“All we can do is stand by her, and if our best isn’t enough, maybe it will be in six months, or two years, or five years, or whatever, right? Didn’t we wait three years already?”
Jasper nodded.
“The worst has already happened,” Craig said. “Everything else is gravy.”
Jasper nodded, then half-smiled.
“Do you want me to put on your tie?” he asked Craig.
Craig looked down at the knot that he’d started and then abandoned.
“Yeah.”
When they pulled into Olivia’s driveway — technically, it was her parents’ driveway — Craig got nervous. He hadn’t really been up until then, but suddenly he felt like he was going to prom, waiting for his date’s parents to give him the ‘home by midnight’ talk.
He’d gotten around some in high school. Being the quarterback tended to have that effect, so there had been plenty of those talks and more than one given with a firearm in plain sight.
Craig paused at the sidewalk that left from the driveway into the house, and Jasper looked at him.
“What, cold feet?”
Craig shook his head.
I guess there are advantages to being a dork in high school, he thought. They’d gone to different high schools, of course, in totally different parts of Cascadia, but he’d seen Jasper’s yearbooks, and his mate had not been cool.
But that also meant he’d never gotten that ‘midnight’ talk with a shotgun. As far as Jasper was concerned, dating was strictly between two or three adults, and there was no one else to please.
An older woman who looked quite a bit like Olivia answered the door, a huge smile on her face.
“You must be Craig and Jasper!” she said, stepping back. “Please, please come in, make yourselves comfortable and Olivia will be right down.”
I’m in high school, Craig thought, adrenaline shooting through his veins, sweat soaking his palms. Oh no.
Jasper walked first into the living room, where two men sat on couches.
“Sit down!” the woman admonished. “I’m Lydia, and this is Norman and Gary.”
“Hi,” one man said.
“Pleasure,” the other said.
Neither said anything about Olivia being home by midnight.
“Tell me about yourselves!” Lydia said, sitting in between the men. “What do you do for a living?”
Jasper started. “I actually work for—”
“Mom!” said a voice from the stairs.
Lydia glanced over, then got off the couch.
“One minute,” she said, and disappeared.
The two men on the couch looked at each other, and either Gary or Norman shrugged.
“It’s a big day,” one of them said. “You wouldn’t believe the pandemonium that went into Olivia getting ready.”
“Hoo boy,” said the other, shaking his head.
“It did distract from the newspaper, at least,” said the first.
“The newspaper?” asked Jasper.
The two older men on the couch looked at each other again, but then they heard Olivia’s voice on the steps.
“Mom, it’s fine. I’m fine, I promise.”
Craig and Jasper saw her feet begin to descend the steps, and they both stood up. Craig fixed his tie, feeling strangely nervous.
When she stepped into the living room, he was bowled over. She wore a sleeveless black dress that came to her knees, but it hugged her curves in a way that made him feel a little bit funny inside. His bear woke up and growled a little, but he had plenty of experience fighting it in front of parents, so he managed to control himself.
“You look beautiful,” said Jasper. “I wish we’d thought to bring you flowers.”
Olivia blushed, looked around at the five people staring at her.
“It’s okay, they just die anyway and then I forget to change the water and they start smelling bad,” she said, twisting her hands nervously in front of her.
“So, should we go? What time is our reservation?” she asked.
“Seven fifteen,” said Jasper.
“So you’ll be home by ten?” called one of the men from the couch, grinning.
Olivia turned bright red.
“Papa,” she said.
“Sorry, honey,” he said, fighting to get the smile off his face.
“She’s twenty-seven, Gary,” said Lydia. “Ten-thirty at least.”
Olivia rolled her eyes.
“They think this is funny,” she said to Craig and Jasper. “Come on, I don’t want to be late.”
Without saying anything, Lydia waved a camera in the air. Olivia just closed her eyes and looked like she was counting to ten.
“The light’s better outside,” said Lydia. “You three stand on the front steps.”
Taking photos really, really made Craig feel like he was back in high school, taking a girl to prom. Somehow, Jasper seemed to be taking it all in stride, but Olivia herself barely managed to hide her annoyance.
“Stop fidgeting,” admonished Lydia. “I didn’t get to take your prom pictures, or your graduation pictures, so hold still and let me do embarrassing mom stuff.”
Olivia stopped fidgeting. Lydia snapped a final photo, then put the camera down and turned it off.
“Okay, you can go,” she said. “Have fun. Be safe.”
Olivia sat in the front seat with Craig driving and Jasper in the middle of the back.
�
�When I was in high school, I used to drive my parents’ Buick around,” said Craig. “That thing was as wide as a four-lane highway, but you could fit three people in the front, no problem.”
“Do they make those anymore?” asked Olivia. She’d spent three months catching up to the world, and whether they still made a specific model of car hadn’t really been on her radar.
“Oh, god no,” said Craig. “That thing was twenty years old at least way back then. Had a stick shift on the steering column. Almost impossible to drive, but that front seat was nice.”
Very nice.
“Craig was a big stud in his glory days before we met,” Jasper teased.
“I didn’t say that,” Craig said. “And besides, my glory days are yet to come.”
“Sure,” said Jasper, grinning.
Craig mock-frowned, then looked over at Olivia.
She looked mostly amused, though also a little curious.
Hey, she’s not horrified, thought Craig. I’ll take it.
“I’m just saying, they should make shifter date cars,” Craig said. “They can be short and squat. Three seats across the front and a trunk. Like a very wide sports cars.”
“That sounds like the world’s ugliest car,” said Jasper.
Olivia nodded.
“Sure, take his side,” grumbled Craig.
He was rewarded when her mouth twitched upward into a smile.
At the restaurant, they showed up and were seated right away, even though they were a few minutes early for their reservation.
As he looked around, Craig felt relieved. It had crossed his mind that, even though they weren’t near the wolf parts of Cascadia, wolves could still show up and freak Olivia out.
Hell, Buck himself could show up, though Craig didn’t consider himself above ripping out the other man’s throat, breaking his neck, and then stomping on his —
“Welcome to L’Aubergine,” the waiter said. He was an older man — human, by the smell of him — and he looked like he’d worked long and hard to perfect the proper snooty face for a waiter in a French restaurant.
“Would you like to hear our specials?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” Jasper said.
As his mate listened attentively, Craig let his mind wander. Specifically, he let it wander to Olivia, who was watching the waiter with a slightly baffled look on her face.
His eyes caressed her shoulders, the way they curved down into her slightly plump arms, supple and muscular at the same time, and then her bosom, which filled out her dress so lusciously every time she took a breath—
“And you, monsieur?”
Craig blinked, and then looked up to find the waiter looking at him.
“Sorry?”
“What will monsieur be having to drink?”
Craig looked down briefly at the menu.
“Red wine, please.”
The waiter just stood there, his eyebrows slightly raised, his lips slowly drawing into a look of disapproval.
“He’ll have the 2013 Cabernet,” said Jasper, coming to his rescue.
“Two cabernets, a sparkling water for the Mademoiselle, and our charcuterie plate,” the waiter said. “It will be out shortly.”
Shit, thought Craig. What the hell is a charcuterie?
For at least the fourth time that day, he was glad that he had Jasper as his mate so he wouldn’t embarrass himself too much.
Across the table, Olivia stared down at her place setting, face carefully expressionless.
Then she looked up and leaned toward them a little, casting a glance around at the other patrons.
“I don’t know which fork to use,” she whispered.
Craig leaned forward toward her, a smile sliding onto his face.
“I don’t know either,” he whispered back.
“It’s outside in,” whispered Jasper, pointing at his silverware. “This one, then this one, then this one. Dead easy.”
“Why’s there one on top?” whispered Olivia.
“Dessert fork,” whispered Jasper. “Also, why are we whispering?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said, at normal volume this time.
The waiter came and sat glasses of wine in front of Craig and Jasper, then a glass of sparkling water in front of Olivia.
“So you don’t drink?” Craig asked, taking a sip himself.
Jasper also took a sip, and nodded in approval.
Tastes like wine, thought Craig.
“Alcohol isn’t really recommended for the formerly feral,” she said. Her tone was casual, but there was a steel behind it, like every time she mentioned that she’d been feral, she had to brace herself for something.
“Makes sense,” said Jasper.
He swirled his wine glass between his fingers, looking thoughtful. Then he looked up at Olivia.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Sure.”
“You can tell me to fuck off if you don’t want to answer,” he said, leaning forward.
At the next table over, a lady with pearls and gray hair pursed her lips and glared. Craig ignored her, fighting down the urge to flip her off.
“Sure,” Olivia said, sounding less certain.
“Why did you go feral?” he asked.
Strangely, Olivia looked relieved, and even a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t have a good reason,” she said. “I mean, my best friend got hit by a car and died, but that happens to plenty of people and they don’t go feral.”
“That’s a good reason,” said Craig.
“It was really just the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Olivia said. She took the stem of her sparkling water glass between the fingers of both hands and turned it back and forth, making the bubbles rise to the surface in a zig zag.
“It was probably going to happen anyway. Matilda dying just made it happen earlier, you know? But I was pretty miserable in high school. And before that, honestly.”
“Why?”
“The usual stuff. I got teased, there were mean girls, I felt like I was weird for being a grizzly. Really normal stuff. Most people deal with it by going to college and finding new friends, I dealt with it by turning into a bear for ten years.”
She smiled an odd half-smile and looked up at them.
“Sorry if we’re prying,” said Jasper.
Olivia laughed.
“God, no,” she said. “I don’t mind talking about it. I hate it when people dance around it and try to pretend like I’m normal, and then cover up when I space out and start scratching myself on trees.”
Craig grinned.
“I do that all the time,” he said. “You can’t reach back there, what are you supposed to do?”
“Right?” said Olivia.
The waiter showed up again, carrying a large board filled with prosciutto, sliced salami, three different cheeses, and tiny pickles. He put it on the table along with a basket of bread.
“Thank you,” said Craig, and the snooty man nodded, then walked away.
“Is this a charcuterie?” he whispered to Jasper.
“Yes,” Jasper whispered back.
“Next question,” said Olivia, her voice low. “Do I use a fork for this?”
Fifty feet behind Olivia, a group of men walked in. There were at least eight of them, and to Craig’s irritation, they were all wearing denim and flannel.
Craig frowned, then elbowed Jasper.
“They’re all wearing—”
Then he stopped short.
The man standing right in the middle of the group was Buck Reynolds.
Chapter Nine
Olivia
Very carefully, Olivia cut a sliver of brie cheese, then spread it onto a tiny slice of baguette. She cast a quick glance over to the side, where another table had also gotten the meat-and-cheese plate, whatever the word for it was.
The guy there was also putting cheese and then meat on his bread, so she took it as permission to do the same, forking a piece of prosciutto onto her
creation.
She put it into her mouth, fighting the urge to cram the whole morsel in, and took a tiny, dainty bite.
Delicious, she thought.
As she was chewing, thinking that she should probably add brie and cured meat to her list of good things about being human, and then worrying that the list was starting to really skew toward food, she caught the look on Craig’s face.
It was half shock, half fury, and he was staring at someone behind her.
Mouth still full, baguette slice in her hand, she turned to see what Craig was staring at.
“Don’t—” she heard him say, but it was too late.
Buck was standing there, along with seven other wolves.
Olivia’s heart dropped through the floor. Her pulse skyrocketed. Her vision started to close in, and she dropped the rest of her appetizer, not even noticing where it went.
Another wolf was arguing with the maître d’, but Buck just stood there.
Watching her.
He’s waiting to see what I’m going to do, she thought, and she turned her head back toward the table, staring down at her plate, taking deep breaths.
“Olivia,” Craig said, reaching out and taking her arm.
“I’m okay,” she said.
She could already feel the heat rising, that warm-and-sweating all over feeling that preceded a shift, but she fought it. Her bear starting growing, filling her skin.
Olivia hung onto Craig’s hand, and then Jasper’s, like she was dangling from the edge of a building. Around her, the other patrons were starting to stare, but Olivia barely noticed.
All that mattered was that she not shift in the middle of the restaurant. She held her breath and braced herself, harder than she’d ever braced herself before.
Marshmallows, she thought. Showers, hot water, brie and salami.
Mom and Dad and Papa.
Jasper and Craig.
She gave their hands a hard squeeze, trying to let them know that she counted them among her good things.
Slowly, her bear receded.
Her hands were sweaty and shaking when she opened her eyes again, and she could feel the wetness running in a rivulet down the back of her neck, but she’d done it.
