Camp H.O.W.L.

by Bru Baker

  “Don’t make it sound childish,” he snapped, aware he was being incredibly juvenile even as he said it.

  “It sounds to me like you’re just looking for reasons the two of you aren’t a good match,” she said, and he threw the balled-up sock he had in one hand at her.

  She caught it deftly, unfurled it, and examined it. “I was looking for that one!” she said triumphantly, matching it to one in her basket and folding them together.

  “Remind me again why I agreed to help you fold your laundry?” Tate asked as he sought out more socks from the pile.

  “Because you’re having an existential crisis, and I told you I couldn’t counsel you officially because the existential crisis is about one of my patients?”

  Tate threw the unmatched socks back on the pile and lay back down, spreading out on her carpet. “It’s not an existential crisis.”

  “It isn’t,” she agreed. “It’s not a crisis at all. It’s a good thing, and you don’t know how to deal with that. You, Tate Lewis, actually don’t know a good thing when it bites you in the ass, and that’s partly my fault. I should have made you go out and do more things before you installed yourself here as the camp hermit.”

  He rolled up to his side and glared at her. “I am not the camp hermit.”

  “You never leave the grounds. That makes this your hermitage.” She frowned. “Is that a word? Hermitude? No, that would be your hermit-y attitude. Hermitage, I’m sticking with that. We’ll get you a plaque made to put outside your cabin. Tate’s Hermitage.”

  He groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. “And you can’t make me do anything, anyway. I’m my own man.”

  “Sure you are, sugar,” she said sweetly. He didn’t doubt that if they’d been close enough, she would have patted his hand. “So be your own man on this and man up and make a move!”

  Tate couldn’t help but smile. He’d come to Kenya because he needed someone to talk things out with, not in any sort of professional manner, but just as a friend. Kenya had been that for him for over a decade.

  She’d been his advisor at IU, taking him under her wing as soon as they’d met, and she’d sussed him out as a werewolf. It could be dangerous to be an unaffiliated werewolf in a city, but that was the beauty of a college town. They existed outside of traditional territories. Kids came and went all the time, though few of them were Packless like Tate. Kenya had questioned him on that as soon as she’d realized she had a wolfling in her Intro to Psychology class his freshman year, killing his plan to fly under the radar through college.

  In retrospect, it had been a stupid plan. Not just because any werewolf would be able to smell him—but also because he was fresh off his Turn, only a few months past his first shift. He needed support and help, and he sure as hell hadn’t gotten any from his Pack. He knew the basics about controlling his shift because he’d figured them out on his own. Tate wouldn’t have lasted two moons on a college campus stuck in a room with his clueless roommate and no place to get out and run.

  Kenya had fixed all that. As soon as he’d admitted he didn’t have a Pack—and as soon as she’d absorbed that and drawn her own conclusions, once she figured out who his Pack had been—she’d morphed into his mentor. She was motherly, but also a friend. He didn’t know where he’d be without her. Certainly not here, lying in a pile of socks and bemoaning all his life choices. It was down to Kenya’s meddling that he had a life to bemoan, and she took every opportunity to remind him of that. Surprisingly, it hadn’t come up today. She was probably saving it for the coup de grace later. As killing blows went, it was a good one.

  There wasn’t anyone else in the world he’d feel comfortable having this conversation with—aside from Adrian, and since Adrian was currently the reason Tate was angsting harder than a Taylor Swift song, he wasn’t a good choice for a confidante.

  Tate was past denying that their bond was something special. Between their unnatural closeness and the way they were in sync, there was no point pretending they weren’t bonded. It shouldn’t matter what they called that bond, but it did. A Turn bond he could handle, but a moonmating? That was something different. What he had with Adrian wasn’t the abusive, manipulative relationship Tate had grown up believing a moonmating was, but that didn’t mean it was easy to forget nineteen years of conditioning. This was new territory for him. Scary territory.

  “I’m just saying, can’t the guy have some faults? He’s the neatest houseguest ever. Yesterday he took out the trash. Even I don’t take out the trash! That’s what the maintenance crew is for!”

  Kenya clucked her tongue. “You know they don’t take out anyone else’s, right?”

  Tate sat up. “They don’t?”

  “No! They do that because they feel sorry for you because you’re the camp hermit. The maintenance crew is here to take care of the grounds and clean up the public spaces. Last I checked, your cabin is not a public space.”

  “It is now,” he muttered, flopping back down. Socks rained down on him, and he cracked one eye open to see her standing over him, emptying her basket of matched socks on his head.

  “So he’s perfect, and you’re enjoying yourself for the first time in possibly ever,” she said, her hand on her cocked hip and the basket at her other side. “And what? You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop? You can’t stand being with someone so perfect for you? You’re….” She paused, her expression turning serious. “You’re waiting for him to leave.”

  “He will!” Tate brushed the socks off and got to his feet. He fully acknowledged it was ridiculous for him to have abandonment issues—after all, he’d been the one to leave everything behind—but the mind often wasn’t logical in the things it clung to. Tate shied away from attachments because he’d spent his childhood neglected and abused, and that wasn’t something a person just got over.

  Tate rubbed his eyes. “He has to leave. He has a life across the country. He has a family.”

  “He does, and you have a life here. But what kind of life is it, for either of you? I’m not breaking any confidences when I tell you Adrian is lonely. I know you know that. He’s talked about it with you. He’s told me as much. He’s trying hard not to rush you, but he wants more than you’re giving him. A few stolen kisses and conversations isn’t enough to build a life on, Tate.”

  It was difficult to have this conversation with Kenya and not try to milk her for information about Adrian, middle-school style. Had Adrian talked about him? Of course he had. He probably talked about little else—that is, if Adrian’s every waking thought was about Tate like Tate’s was about him. Adrian had been open about his feelings for Tate, and Tate had been open about his discomfort with either of them having those feelings. And just like that, Adrian had dropped it.

  That drove Tate crazy too. He didn’t like talking about it, but he didn’t like not talking about it, either. It seemed to build and grow even without his stoking it, and that more than anything scared him. There wasn’t any point in kidding himself—if he had any sort of relationship with Adrian, it would be the serious sort. If what they had was actually a fledgling moonmate bond, that didn’t lend itself to one-night stands or friends with benefits.

  They might not say the words marriage, but the commitment would be just as real. He didn’t feel capable of anything but going all in with Adrian—and that terrified him. Faced with all or nothing, his instinct was to take the nothing.

  “There isn’t any point,” Tate said. He collapsed in the one armchair in the room that didn’t currently have sweaters laid out to dry on it. “I’m not interested in something that has an expiration date.”

  “It doesn’t have to have an expiration date,” Kenya said. “Lots of people do the long-distance thing. And there are plenty of opportunities for both of you to work anywhere in the country. You could get out of here, start somewhere new. It would be good for you. You use this place as a crutch, Tate. You’re never going to grow into who you were meant to be if you’re hiding here.”

  Th
at stung. He wasn’t hiding here. He was comfortable. Settled. Finally at peace with himself. Or at least he had been before Adrian had come. Now he dreamed of a different life, one with Adrian in it. One where he actually used his degree to tangibly help people instead of just babysitting petulant rich teenagers through the Turn.

  There were kids he’d reached over the years, he knew that. The counselors made a real difference for kids who came and needed their help. But those kids were few and far between. For every Ryan, there were two dozen Brittanys, kids who came because they needed to get through their Turn and learn control and otherwise viewed this as a month-long vacation.

  The camp had a SoulCycle studio, for God’s sake. In the middle of nowhere, Indiana. A SoulCycle studio and a Pilates reformer in a multimillion-dollar facility tucked into a forest.

  His life was ridiculous.

  “I can’t be sure he would want that,” Tate said after a long pause.

  “You can’t be sure Adrian would want that or you can’t be sure you would want that?” Kenya put the basket down and came over to give him a quick, hard hug. “It’s okay to not know what you want, but it’s not okay to just close doors because you are afraid of what might possibly be on the other side. You two are in this together, and you owe it to Adrian to talk to him about it. Maybe you share the same fears. Maybe the thought of having a moonmate is just as terrifying to him as it is to you. Adrian is meant to be in your life, Tate. It’s up to you two to decide what form that relationship takes, but when I look at the two of you, there’s a lightness and a happiness in both of you that shouldn’t be wasted.”

  Tate hung his head and took a breath. Tears stung his eyes, and he dashed them away with the back of his hand. He’d been emotional lately, more like he’d been when he’d been a lost college freshman hiding from his Pack.

  Maybe Kenya wasn’t the right person to be talking to right now. They shared too much history, and sometimes talking to her brought back memories he’d rather have stay buried.

  “I’d have to tell him,” Tate said suddenly.

  “He knows,” Kenya said gently, like he was some sort of agitated patient. “You had me tell him. He knows who you are, Tate. Not just who you were, but who you are. Adrian sees you more clearly than you see yourself.”

  Tate stalked to the door, his throat tight. “Finding a moonmate is a big deal.”

  “I know. So does Adrian. A chance to bond like that is rare, Tate. It shouldn’t be wasted.”

  “I just—I can’t be sure, you know? There are things about growing up on the compound I haven’t told you about. Things that make it hard to accept that moonmates are real. To you, the bond is a chance at a fairy tale. To me, it’s a reminder of how fucked-up the world can be.” He shook his head and let the words lay without explanation. “I need to tell Adrian everything, even the things you don’t know. I can’t let things get any further with him before he knows exactly who he’d be getting involved with.”

  “Then do that,” she said. “Have this conversation with him, not me.” He looked up, and she gave him the motherly smile that always made him feel like a child who’d gotten something right. Or at least what he assumed it would feel like—affirmation had been sparse when he’d been a kid. The Pack he grew up in had been more of the “spare the rod, spoil the child” mentality.

  Just another thing he needed to explain to Adrian before they could go any further. Tate’s entire adult life was built on lies, and it was going to be difficult to take them apart and lay himself bare for another person.

  “You are more than your past,” Kenya said when he didn’t respond. “And you could have an amazing future if you let yourself. Be happy, Tate. That’s all any of us want for you. If that’s with Adrian, then wonderful. If it’s not, that’s wonderful too, so long as it’s what you want, not this twisted idea of what you think you deserve.”

  Tate’s stomach rolled at her words. No matter what he did in life, what he accomplished, part of him would always be the scared little boy who hid away in the hayloft to read stolen books.

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Go right now, before you lose your nerve.”

  Tate shot her a dirty look, but she shook her head. “Oh no, sir. I know you, Tate Lewis. I know how that beautiful brain of yours works.”

  She had a point. Given enough time, Tate would rationalize why talking to Adrian would be a mistake and change his mind about telling him anything. It was a cycle he’d been locked in since they met.

  The problem was the reasons he came up with were good ones. But so were the reasons on the other side.

  “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” Tate said, looking out the window. Harris was standing outside, waiting for him. “I need a run tonight, and Adrian goes to bed pretty early.”

  Tate was a night owl, and Adrian said he usually was too. He was almost always sacked out by the time Tate returned from his nighttime run, probably because his body was still catching up after the exhaustion of the Turn. Tate hoped Adrian might be able to join them regularly soon—he’d only made it out twice, but Tate had enjoyed both runs immensely.

  Kenya made a disappointed sound but didn’t stop him from leaving. “Don’t think I won’t ask you after breakfast,” she warned as he passed through the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ADRIAN punched at his pillow, knowing it was trite and unhelpful but at a loss for what else to do. He hadn’t felt this uncomfortable in his own body since puberty, which made sense. This was puberty, but he wasn’t a wolfling of nineteen, he was a grownass man of twenty-seven, who needed to get to sleep or he’d be cranky as hell in the morning.

  He’d learned to deal with his hyper senses during the day, but it was nearly impossible for him to tune things out at night. Even light coming in under the crack in his door from the hallway was enough to keep him awake, which meant he woke with the sun every morning. He’d tried to adjust by going to bed hours earlier than he usually would, but all that accomplished was adding a few hours of tossing and turning to his night.

  He’d tried running with Tate and Harris to exhaust himself, since a good workout before bed usually guaranteed solid sleep for him, but running in wolf form keyed him up even more and made it impossible to drift off.

  It was getting better, though. A week ago he’d have killed for the kind of sleep he was getting now, so it was probably just a matter of time before his normal sleep pattern returned. The thought of eight hours of uninterrupted sleep made him want to cry.

  He definitely slept better when Tate was in the cabin, even if he was a room away. That’s why he didn’t mind that Tate returning from his nightly run woke him up more often than not. It was easier to get back to sleep knowing Tate was just a few dozen feet removed, and the white noise from the shower Tate took every evening helped lull Adrian back to sleep.

  That hadn’t worked tonight, though. Tate had been as quiet as a church mouse when he’d come in, but it had still roused Adrian from his fitful sleep. He’d lain awake listening to the shower, but instead of relaxing him like it normally did, tonight all he could think of was Tate’s naked, soapy body. Water running in rivulets over the defined muscles of his arms and down the hard planes of his chest, sluicing lower and touching parts of Tate that Adrian desperately wanted to.

  He and Tate had been dancing around their attraction for weeks now. And while Tate wasn’t as skittish as he had in the beginning, he wasn’t starting impromptu make-out sessions, either. They had great conversations, and Adrian loved being near him, but there had been exactly zero progress on the physical front since the kisses they’d shared, and it was killing him.

  Adrian stared at the ceiling until the shower in the bathroom they shared shut off, the comforting noise of water morphing into the quiet sounds of Tate getting ready for bed. Adrian had almost managed to lull himself into a sleepy state when a noise startled him. He held his breath, listening for more.

  “Oh shit,” Tate muttered, his voice so low
it was almost a growl.

  Adrian hadn’t keyed into Tate’s heartbeat since the Turn bond had ended, but tonight it was so loud it could have been thrumming in Adrian’s own chest. And once he started listening in, he couldn’t escape the quiet moans and breathy exultations.

  “So close. Jesus,” Tate whispered.

  The discomfort that had made Adrian toss and turn minutes ago eased, replaced by a different kind of bodily awareness. The cotton sheets that had felt like sandpaper now whispered over his skin like a caress. He arched off the overheated pillow, straining to hear more.

  Adrian couldn’t make out any sound other than Tate’s small gasps and whispered words. Was he hearing what he thought he was hearing? Surely there would be the sound of skin slicking against skin, wouldn’t there?

  He bit his lip and held his own breath, trying his hardest to concentrate on the sounds coming from across the cabin. Try as he might, he couldn’t isolate any other sounds. He’d spent the last few days trying desperately to block his extra senses, but now he was cursing himself for not exploring how to push those boundaries.

  Tate was quiet for a moment but then a fresh groan broke the silence. “Stroke it! Stroke it faster. Don’t slow down, goddammit!” He hissed out a breath. “Almost there!”

  Adrian gave up all sense of propriety and swept his blanket aside, rising to his feet before he’d even thought the movement through. He padded on careful feet to the bathroom door, avoiding the floorboard that always squeaked.

  Tate had gone quiet again, and Adrian shamelessly pressed his ear against the door. He picked up the muted shirr of fabric rubbing against fabric. But it sounded more like a restless shifting, not any sort of purposeful movement.

  Tate whisper-growled again, and Adrian’s skin heated. It felt almost like the prickle of the change coming over him, but while that always left the sensation of pins and needles along his flesh, this new sensation left only a lingering buzz of excitement. The sounds from Tate’s room quieted again, and Adrian swallowed. He could—he should—go back to bed and forget this happened. Tate was used to living alone here in this cabin, and he’d been sweet enough to invite Adrian into his private space to save Adrian from the indignity of sleeping in a bunk room full of teenagers. He shouldn’t be repaying that kindness by listening in on Tate’s alone time like a lecher.