by J. D. Light
He blinked, his eyes finding mine in the dark even though I couldn't really make them out all that well. "Yeah. My mom called. She's Alpha Vance's sister. She said someone needed to come take care of Vance, because he was forgetting to do stuff and was acting erratic."
His own mom called him away from school to go to Crossville to babysit her brother? Was she not capable of it? And what about someone else. "Do you not have any more family? Maybe someone who wasn't in the middle of getting an education?"
He shrugged, sighing. "Why bother finding anyone else, they knew I'd do it, so nobody volunteered."
Excuse me? They knew he'd do it? "Why did they know you'd do it?" I asked, trying desperately to keep the growl out of my voice. I didn't think I was all that successful though, if the surprised blinking was anything to go by.
"Because, I always do what I need to do for them."
"I don't like the sound of that," I told him honestly, my eyes narrowing and my jaw clenching. "What else have you had to give up for them?"
"Uh nothing too crazy," he said, shrugging. "My senior year in high school, I had a chance to study abroad. It was supposed to be paid for and everything. Unfortunately, that was the year my mom met her mate and she wanted to go see the world with him, but my sister didn't want to live here alone, so I decided to stay."
He shrugged slightly, but I could hear the regret in his voice, making my heart race with anger.
"My sister ended up moving away about a month into my senior year, because her biological dad offered to buy her a house in Florida if she moved and went to school down there. So, she did, of course."
I somehow managed to stay silent, knowing nothing that came out of my mouth in that moment would be flattering for his mother or his sister.
I couldn't imagine a family like that. My family was far from perfect and Warren had been right when he said our mother tended to meddle in our lives, but she always had the best intentions for us, and she would have rather cut off her own hand than get between us and our futures. The idea that there was a woman out there, mother to this gorgeous, smart, sweet man, who would strip him of his opportunity to broaden himself, and then ask him to put his education on hold, seemed too insane for me to even comprehend.
"I stuck around for a while," he said, shrugging. "But then my mom came back with her mate for a while, and everything seemed fine here, so I ended up going to college in North Carolina for two and a half semesters, but then my cousin Rolland got in trouble and I came home for a few months, because my mom said the whole family needed to be there for Alpha Vance." He took a deep breath and readjusted his head on the pillow. "I guess she either didn't tell my sister, or my sister didn't listen, because she didn't show. Eventually, I got sick of sitting there, trying to help with everything and being completely ignored, so I went back to school in January. Less than a month back and my mom was calling me again, and here I am."
I hoped to hell I didn't meet that woman before I'd calmed down. Like, she might be safe to be in my presence in about thirty years. Until then, I might have to be busy if she strolled into town.
And, you're thinking about a future with him like it's already been decided.
"When are you going to go back to school?" I asked, once I got my crankiness under control.
"I don't know if I even want to try again." He said sleepily, sliding his leg up onto the pillow between us and brushing my thigh with his knee. "Alpha Vance might be taken care of, and Axel would never ask me to stay if he thought I wanted to go, but I don't even know if it's worth all the hassle."
"So, what do you want to do?"
He smiled. "I actually like what I do now. It might not have been my idea and I might have kind of been pushed into it, but it can actually be really rewarding, especially knowing all the changes that are about to start happening with our streak and the progress we're about to make."
I watched his mouth, groaning when his glistening lips caught the lighting from the hall.
"I really want to kiss you right now," I blurted, realizing I'd been drifting closer, pressing against the pillow between us.
"Oh, God. Me too," he whined, tilting his head and letting his lips barely graze mine. "But we can't."
"Right," I whispered, moving my head from side to side and groaning as I dragged our lips together lightly. "It might ruin our lives."
"Right." He licked my lips, whimpering. "I don't want you to stay unless you want to."
"I know, I know."
I wanted to stay. I really, really wanted to stay, but I needed to be logical. Rational. One of us had to be strong and he'd been strong for so many people already.
"Fuck," I groaned, turning abruptly and staring up at the barely visible ceiling. "Okay, we need to go to sleep."
I glanced down at the situation between my legs and whimpered. "But first I need to take a bathroom break," and then I was scrambling to get out of the bed.
When I came back, he too was climbing into bed, this time with sleep pants on and smelling distinctly of lotion. I was willing to bet if I could see his gorgeous skin in that moment. It would be redder than its usual bronze.
"Good night," I whispered once we'd both settled into bed, the pillow barrier firmly in place and both lying on our backs.
"Good night, Kendrick," he said, reaching over and finding my hand.
I didn't remember much after that, the events of the day, and the explosive release I'd given myself to thoughts of Turner, catching up and making my body feel like a content noodle.
If noodles were content. They're probably actually pretty scared, because if they're soft, they're about to get eaten. Hmm, food for thought…
Chapter Five
I tried not to snicker at the truly disdainful way Warren looked at the name flashing on the screen of his brother's phone, before tossing the thing to Kendrick and plopping down on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at his brother.
Kendrick frowned slightly, but answered the phone, watching his brother and looking confused. "Hello?"
"Hey, man." I heard the perky, friendly voice say on the other end. "I heard you found him."
"Yeah," Kendrick said, smiling while Warren just seemed to get even angrier, sliding further down into the cushions of the couch. "He's just not really ready to come home, yet."
"Is he okay?" Asher asked on the other end, sounding worried and I wondered at the differing opinions the two seemed to have for each other.
"He's doing okay," Kendrick said, cringing slightly when Warren shook his head, pointing at the phone and the mouthing do not talk about me to him.
There was a bit of a pause. Almost awkward.
Finally, Asher must have gotten the hint, because he cleared his throat. "Hey, I was actually calling to tell you I'm headed your way."
"Really?" Kendrick asked, sounding happy. "Why?"
I frowned slightly, not sure I liked the way Kendrick's face lit up while he was talking to Asher. I knew the man was his best friend and partner, but he was also part of the reason Kendrick wasn't ready to commit to a life here in Crossville.
Was that it? Was Asher the real reason Kendrick wasn't ready?
"I have a case there. A twenty-two-year-old girl disappeared around the same time War did." There was a bit of a pause, and then the guy took a deep breath, letting it out on a groan. "I might need to talk to him and find out if there were more people with him." Kendrick cringed and Warren's eyes narrowed on him, probably sensing it was something he didn't want to hear. "The FBI won't talk to me, but her family didn't even get to talk to her. They just got a call from the feds saying she was safe, and then nothing after that."
"You're going to talk to Warren?" Kendrick squeaked, eyes going wide.
"He still hates me, huh?"
Kendrick looked over at Warren and my eyes followed, taking in the mutinous gaze he had aimed at his brother.
"Uh," Kendrick said, shrugging, even though Asher couldn't see it from there. "Turner and I will be the
re as bodyguards."
"I'm not meeting him," Warren growled, shaking his head as I heard Asher sigh and mumble perkily, "It will finally give me a chance to apologize in person."
"Apologize for what?" I asked quietly, looking at Warren who didn't even bother to acknowledge me while he continued to glare at the phone in his brother's hand.
"Who's that?" Asher asked, making me tilt my head and frown while Kendrick blinked in confusion.
"Who?" he asked, finally, drawing the word out.
"The guy who just said apologize for what?"
Kendrick's head snapped around, so he could look at me, surprised and confused. "You heard that?" he asked softly
Warren was still glaring, but I didn't miss the way his eyebrow jumped slightly, letting me know, even though he couldn't hear the entire conversation like I could, he was getting the gist of what was going on.
"Hmm?" Asher asked, trying to play dumb and I snorted, wondering how on earth either of the two were private investigators when they couldn't even seem lie somewhat convincingly.
"Is Asher a shifter?" I asked Kendrick, but realizing as soon as the words left my mouth that he wouldn't know, since he'd face-planted my penis when he'd first learned about me.
Kendrick's eyes widened and he shrugged, blinking first at me, and then at his brother, who seemed just as shocked as Kendrick. "I don't know. We've only been friends for a couple of years."
"We've only known each other for two days," I reminded him, smirking when he blinked in confusion, and then nodded.
"You know about shifters?" Asher asked, sounding skeptical.
Kendrick frowned, pulling the phone away to look at it, and then hitting speaker phone, glancing at Warren. I knew he didn't want his brother to feel like he was being left out of the conversation.
"You know about shifters?" he finally asked Asher, once he had the thing set up like he wanted on the arm of the couch he was sitting on.
"Does War's disappearance have anything to do with shifters, Ken?" Asher growled.
"It was shifters that kidnapped him, Ash," Kendrick whispered, sending Warren an apologetic look. He looked torn when he finally glanced at me. "They took him because of his mark," he finally said, his eyes never leaving mine, even when his brother growled and threw a pillow at him, nailing him in the side of the head.
"Shit!" Asher growled, his beast definitely making an appearance in his voice. "No wonder the FBI wouldn't tell me anything. I bet the normal feds don't even fucking know what's going on." There was a loud noise, sounding an awful lot like glass breaking in the background and then Asher took an audible deep breath. "I guess I'm going to have to call some of my contacts on the other side of things."
"So, you really are a shifter?" Kendrick asked, a small smile curling up one side of his mouth.
"I am. I'm a gorilla shifter."
"A gorilla?" Kendrick said, his eyes going wide before he met Warren's gaze, and then he laughed. "Wasn't that your favorite animal at the zoo, War?"
"Yep," War said, sounding bored. "I was twelve and found it amusing that they sat around and stuck their fingers in their asses."
"See," Kendrick said perkily, pointing at Warren. "You guys can totally get along. Asher sticks his finger in his ass all the time."
"That's fair," Asher said, chuckling, though by the look on Warren's face, he was not amused. "Okay, I'll be there tomorrow sometime. I'll text you as soon as I make flight arrangements."
As soon as Kendrick hung up the phone, I spun to Warren giving him my full attention. "Okay, I have to know," I said, raising my eyebrows at the still scowling Warren. "What on earth did that guy do to you, because you absolutely hate him."
Warren licked his teeth, still not looking to be in a much better mood given that Asher was no longer on the phone. "He bullied me in high school," he said finally, glancing at his brother before looking back at me. "Bad enough I ended up switching schools."
"Wait," Kendrick said, shifting to the edge of the couch so he could look at Warren more closely. "You switched schools because of Asher? I thought it was because the other school had that half day tech school program."
Warren shrugged, looking down at his lap and fidgeting with the seam of his pants. "That was the excuse I gave you and mom. I was really just trying to escape."
Kendrick shook his head and it dawned on me that while he was an open book, Warren had apparently never been as open with his thoughts.
"Because, he called you a nerd and stuff?" Kendrick asked, sounding disbelieving, and Warren shook his head, sighing.
"You think that's what he did?" When all Kendrick did was sit there and stare, looking confused as hell, Warren snorted, rolling his eyes. "Is that what he told you?"
"No," Kendrick said slowly, glancing at me like I was going to help him in this situation, "We didn't really talk about it much." He scrunched his face, closing his eyes briefly. "When we first met, he told me he knew you from when you guys were younger and that he was really sorry about how he treated you in school. I assumed that meant he'd called you some names and stuff. I'd never even heard of the guy before that, Warren. How was I supposed to know that he'd made you miserable enough in school to make you want to move? That's why I was so surprised when you adamantly refused to meet him and got so pissed off every time his name was brought up."
Warren nodded. "I never wanted you and mom to know how bad it got there, so I hid it all from you." He finally looked up, meeting his brother's eyes. "I can handle being called names, Ken." Warren chuckled, shaking his head. "And nobody has ever called me a nerd, by the way, although I'm sure they would have if they didn't have so much other ammunition."
He paused, licking his lips. "What I couldn't handle was being tormented because I refused to be in the closet. I don't remember Asher ever even talking to me, though his friends definitely called me names. What he did do was so much worse. They preyed on a vulnerability. They humiliated me.
"They must have realized what a giant crush I had on him. On Asher." Chuckling, he rolled his eyes, but it wasn't difficult to see that the humor wasn't really there. "Not that it would be hard since I got caught staring at him all the time. So, intelligent bullies that they were, they wrote me a note from him asking me out. It said to meet him in the parking lot after school with my answer." His eyebrows quivered as his face tried to scrunch in pain. "Like an idiot, I walked right up to him and said yes, thinking it was going to be like a movie or something. He looked at me like I was crazy, and then shoved me to the ground while his friends dumped dog shit all over me. Best part, someone made it into a really cool video and sent it to everyone."
I swallowed hard, trying to fight down the rage inside me.
"I'm going to kill him," Kendrick said quietly, dangerously.
"Let me do it," I said, feeling the cat slip into my expression.
"Whoa," Kendrick blinked at my face, before a giant smile spread across his, slowly. "That's kinda cool."
***
I smiled slightly with my eyes closed as Kendrick crept into the room. Though, he was trying to be stealthy, he tripped over nothing in the middle of the room and stumbled his way to the side of my bed.
I'd known he'd probably end up in there, so I'd put underwear on and left the lamp beside the bed lit.
He paused for a minute and I could feel his eyes on me before he grunted and plopped down next to me. "I'm torn," he whined, and I opened my eyes slightly, glancing over at him when he threw himself against the mattress and crossed his arms crankily as he glared up at the ceiling.
"I know," I said calmly, smirking slightly. "He was an asshole, who with the help of his friends, tormented your brother, which honestly, pissed me off too, but he's also your best friend now. And, you know, the person who I hope would never do those things anymore."
"Yeah." The tension left his body completely, his arms falling to the bed beside him, the one closest to me coming to rest against mine and I didn't even think as I laced our fingers together.
<
br /> He didn't seem to be bothered by the move either, since he didn't jerk his hand away and instead, squeezed it. " I want to beat the hell out of him for what he did to Warren, but the first thing he did when he met me at the very beginning of our acquaintance, was start apologizing. He was willing to own up to what he did and even try to make amends. Hell, he tried several times to meet with Warren after we became friends, but Warren always refused. I would never have sprung it on him, but I'm only just finding out about this for the first time. It feels really, really fresh."
"You know the best part about being an adult?" I said, smiling sadly as he turned to face me on the bed, his gaze moving over my face as I spoke. "We have the ability to communicate." I paused, frowning, letting my head roll toward him. "The rest is all pretty much shit, but at least we can talk to each other. Tell him. Tell Asher you didn't know and that you still love him as a friend, but you're mad. If he really is as remorseful as you say, he'll understand."
I didn't know how I was going to survive another night of him in my bed. I'd woken up that morning humping a damn pillow that was in between our bodies. Thankfully, I didn't think he'd been awake, but I'd still been pretty embarrassed and scampered off to the bathroom to take care of things.
"Yeah," he mumbled, reaching out to drag his thumb across my bottom lip, his eyes dark and hungry.
"Wha…" I moaned when his thumb dipped inside my mouth before retreating. "What are you doing?"
"Sorry," he said quietly as he traced the wet tip along my tingling lip. "I just wanted to know."
"Wanted to know what?"
"If your lips were as plush as I remembered from last night, or if I dreamed everything." He licked his own lips and I whimpered, reaching down to adjust my erection where it was sitting oddly in my underwear.
Kendrick's gaze followed my action and I could swear his eyes somehow turned an even darker shade of brown. His eyes were intent on my dick and a groan escaped his lips as the thing jumped under all the attention it was getting.
