A Moment for Tara

by Tamar Sloan

  Chapter Two

  Still Before

  It took Mitch a little longer to discover anything beyond a world of chocolate cake and power tools.

  I’d been trying so hard not to feel more than friendship - desperately trying to put him back in the column that Noah still sat in - and whilst Mitch saw me as his sister-bestie, it was moderately bearable. It wasn’t fun, nor would I recommend it, but I could manage.

  But that changed in a moment.

  It was only a couple of months before their Change. A few weeks before their sixteenth birthday, the day they head to the Glade and go through what I’d recently experienced. The awful pain, the agony, the awesome rush of our first change to a wolf. The first time you run with your pack through the trees with your Alpha parents by your side.

  We were in the Phelan garage. Mitch was finishing off a beautiful bench seat, his first project beyond the countless coffee and end tables his mother was running out of room for. That bench took weeks of sanding, sawing and swearing to get it to its almost-finished state. Noah was out on Alpha training and I should have been at home. But it seems I have some masochistic tendencies, because I couldn’t stay away from the sweet pain of being with Mitch.

  Mitch was talking me through the creative process. Words like maple and birch, quarter-inch chisel and the benefits of a drop saw over a circular saw (you learn a lot about power tools when you are determinedly NOT in love with one of your best friends) flew over my head.

  Most of my responses involved no more than ‘ah ha’ and ‘I see’ as Mitch continued to talk wood, because my attention had been on the biceps bulging under his dusty black shirt, the shoulders bunching beneath his t-shirt, wanting to flick the sawdust from his hair…okay, wanting to just run my fingers through those dark chocolate locks. I jammed my hands into my lonely jeans, knowing I should go home, that this isn’t the right place to be, no matter how much I felt that it was.

  Mitch paused, like he realized I wasn’t really paying attention. As my already overheated body had threatened to blush, I finally looked at the bench seat rather than its creator. My head had tilted to the side. “It’s too tall.”

  Mitch stepped back, standing beside me. The smell of dust and the cinnamon and citrus scent that I’d suddenly developed an addiction to had hit my newly sharpened senses. I opted to breathe through my mouth…on every second breath. He’d looked down at me, dust motes hitching a ride on the streams of light spearing through the window, and he’d paused.

  My breath vaporized, wishing he’d look away, loving spending time in that deepwater gaze. But he’d just turned back to the bench, brows knitting a smidgen.

  That wasn’t the moment.

  His finger had come up to rub his bottom lip. “It does look like it has moose legs.” He’d turned to me, blue eyes making my heart trip. “Help me turn it over.”

  Yep, I should have gone home.

  Instead, I stepped forward and we’d stood side by side as we gripped the base and carefully turned it over. It was heavier than I expected so I was glad for my recent Were strength. The bench had tilted back, back rest slowly coming down to the concrete floor, heading for a gentle, scratchless landing.

  Until it slipped. The back too-long-legs had scraped forward and we had all of a heartbeat to slow it down and land it softly. Mitch grunted as I tightened my arms. We reigned it in like consummate removalists and it had settled on the garage floor with barely a bump, but the effort cost me. I tipped sideways, one leg crossing over the other as my balance took a brief siesta, and discovered in the weeks that I’d been avoiding touching Mitch that he’d filled out. Mitch frowned when I bumped into him, my shoulder connecting with his chest, my hair brushing his cheek. I bounced off that hot, dusty, familiar but oh-so-new body with the speed even a Were would be impressed by.

  I looked away before he saw the stain on my cheeks that matched my hair. “Oops, sorry.”

  “No probs.” He cleared his throat in the dusty silence.

  He paused then stepped away and slipped on his protective glasses. “Stand back while I trim them down.”

  That too, was not the moment.

  I stepped back to where I should have stayed, heat I’m not supposed to be feeling flying through my veins. I wanted to rub my shoulder, knowing that rather than rubbing the heat that still tingled there to make it go away, what I’d actually be doing is trying to preserve the sensation.

  Sweet cheeses, then he bent over, dark hair flopping onto his brow as denim stretched over places I’m not supposed to be looking, and measured. He took forever. I mean, did it have to be THAT precise? He’d measured, marked, then measured again before moving to the next leg.

  Noah took that moment to join us. My brain had been relieved, but my stubborn heart had wanted to keep my eyes on that backside. He’d taken in Mitch leaning over the bench lying on its back and quirked a dark blond brow. “I thought it was done.”

  Mitch grunted but didn’t look up. “Legs were too long.”

  “Didn’t I say that yesterday?”

  I’d given him a smug grin. “Ah yes, but I said it today.”

  Noah slipped his arm around my shoulder and I leaned into the comfort and familiarity of our uncomplicated connection. “Either way, he listened to the wisdom of his elders.”

  Mitch had looked up, mouth open with a retort to the old joke that seven minutes didn’t really count, taken in the arm that took that moment to give me a squeeze around my shoulder and clamped his mouth shut again. He frowned before mumbling something even my Were ears couldn’t pick up and turned back to his bench seat.

  Still not the moment.

  I looked up at Noah and he gave me a wink and a grin before heading back out. In hindsight, Noah had seen through me and figured this out long before Mitch.

  It turns out it was the moment I didn’t do anything special. Mitch wasn’t even looking at me, we weren’t even touching.

  It was a moment just like any moment.

  Normal. Every day. Routine. Regular.

  The whine of a circular saw filled the silence. Mitch squatted to do the bottom legs, focused intently on the black line he’d drawn, and cut the first leg. Then the second square of wood fell to join the first. He stood up and I was able to release the air from my screaming lungs. How much is a girl supposed to endure? First bending then squatting.

  The third landed with a thunk. Mitch never looked up, I was so sure I was safe. He was lost in his world of wood cutting, I was clawing my way back from the place I wasn’t supposed to be. The whirring saw blade had headed down to the last bench leg.

  And THAT was the moment. The moment Mitch felt it too. A teeny-tiny millisecond.

  Do you know how I know? Because Mitch cut that final leg half an inch too short. Like someone, or something, had struck him he jerked, slipped and missed the line.

  And that was the moment I ran. As his gaze headed up I headed out. I didn’t want to see what would be in them, what could happen next. Alright, that’s like saying a kid doesn’t want to catch Santa. I wanted to, so bad.

  Which just propelled me out of there faster.