by Anna Martin
Dancing was fun, it was easy, and it definitely counted as a workout. He was given free drinks, and more often than not, he ended the night with a hookup. There were worse jobs out there.
Leo went to Flair just for fun too, so he knew his way around. It was a gay bar that was openly werewolf friendly. The city was small enough that excluding anyone wasn’t good for business, and the gay community and werewolf community often stood shoulder to shoulder. There was enough overlap in the discriminations against them to make an unspoken sort of truce a welcome thing.
The Hawkeye costume was getting Leo plenty of attention. Not quite so much as Batman Brad or supertwink Spider-Man, but maybe more than the ten or so other guys on the podiums. Mitch had a whole array of costumes that were kept in the wardrobe department of Flair, though most of them were short shorts made of leather, latex, or shiny, clingy fabric. Plus a whole bunch of what was basically bondage gear and various accessories.
The purple shorts Leo actually owned. That was what happened when he went shopping with Mitch.
It was almost one in the morning when Leo signaled to Mitch he was going to take a break. Mitch nodded, and Leo slipped down from the podium and to the bathroom. He got groped plenty on the way, but that was fine. He didn’t mind.
Once his bladder was emptied, Leo detoured to the bar for more water. The bottle up on his platform had gone warm over the course of the evening, and dancing was hot work. A cute guy openly ogled him as Leo jumped the line and waved a bartender over. He knew some of the bar staff, they were good guys, and he quickly got served two ice-cold bottles of water.
The cute guy had edged over while Leo waited, and watched with a smirk as Leo drained the first bottle. Leo wasn’t sure, but he guessed the guy was a werewolf.
“Can I buy you a drink?” the cute guy yelled.
Leo nodded. He was drunk. Not ridiculously so; he was pretty sure with a decent night’s sleep he’d be okay in the morning. He promised himself he’d stop drinking alcohol after this.
The guy ordered two shots of clear liquid and pushed one to Leo.
“Cheers.”
It was vodka, with a smoky, orangey aftertaste that Leo decided he liked very much. He nodded his thanks to the guy. The guy was handsome, Latino, with a pouty bottom lip. He very casually raised his hand and brushed his knuckles over Leo’s neck.
“Are you taken?” he said—well, shouted over the music.
“I… no. I’m not.”
Apparently his answer was hesitant enough for the guy to call him on it.
“Sure?”
“He’s straight.”
The guy raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“That sucks.” He smirked slowly. “I’m not, in case you were wondering. I could make you feel better.”
Leo thought about it for a moment. Then another.
“Yeah,” he shouted over the music. “That sounds good.”
He never got the guy’s name. Names weren’t necessary. They exchanged blowjobs in the bathroom; then Leo went back to work on the podium. It was good. The combination of alcohol and sexual release let him be looser, freer, and that was exactly what he needed. The responsibilities of his day job would come flooding back soon enough. For one night, he was going to not think about anything at all.
THE NEXT morning Leo regretted everything, especially when he woke up to a reminder that he had agreed to lunch with his parents.
He often forgot, which was the reason for the reminder in the first place, but he really, really could have done without it this particular weekend.
Mitch was already in the kitchen when Leo dragged himself in there, because Mitch was a supernatural being who survived on about four hours of sleep a night. That wasn’t a werewolf thing; it was a Mitch thing, so Leo felt his hatred of that particular trait was justified.
At least Mitch had made coffee.
“Did you have fun last night?” Mitch asked as Leo grunted a greeting and dragged himself to the coffeepot.
Leo sipped, winced, then went to the fridge to add cream to his mug.
“It was all right.”
“You had sex with Michael Cortez.”
Leo carefully shut the fridge door and picked up his mug of coffee. “He blew me. It wasn’t exactly a romantic interlude. I didn’t even get his name.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mitch drawled. “I never thought you had a thing for werewolves.”
“I don’t,” Leo said quickly. “I mean, I don’t have anything against them, but I don’t seek out werewolves specifically. I’m not a chaser.”
Mitch laughed at that. “I know you’re not, baby. Jackson would be able to smell it on you, by the way.” An edge of cattiness had crept into his voice. “So if you’re going to do that on the regular, make sure you shower well before you see him.”
“You can smell sex?”
Leo had never thought to ask before.
“Not sex specifically. But he left his scent all over you. It’s super possessive and totally gross, especially if you didn’t consent to it.”
Leo frowned. “Do you do that to me?”
“Only when I want to warn someone off you,” Mitch said sweetly. He sipped his coffee again and flicked over a page in his magazine. “I’m just letting you know. For future reference.”
“Thanks,” Leo muttered. He decided to take his coffee into the shower with him.
Feeling self-conscious, Leo scrubbed his body with exfoliating shower gel and shampooed his hair twice. He wasn’t intentionally oblivious about werewolf culture, and living with one had definitely helped combat the general ignorance, but there was no denying Leo had no clue when it came to certain things.
LEO ARRIVED at the restaurant only a few minutes early, which was late in his parents’ eyes. They were waiting for him with a bottle of wine already open, and he quickly made the decision not to share it with them.
“Leo,” his mom said, standing to hug him.
“Hi. Sorry I’m late.”
“No, it’s fine.”
He clapped his father on the shoulder and took a seat at the table. The restaurant was an old family favorite, an Irish pub that served great comfort food. The interior was warm and inviting, with wood-paneled walls and deep green leather booths.
Leo ordered a sparkling water and leaned back in his seat, happy to let his parents catch him up on what was happening in their world.
Since he’d moved back home after college, Leo appreciated the time he got to spend with his mom and dad more. It was easy to talk with them about local politics, their favorite TV shows, and the new car his dad wanted to buy. But an insistent tugging in his stomach kept bringing him back to a secret he never thought he’d have to keep from them.
“Did you hear?”
He was drawn back into the conversation by his mom’s gossipy exclamation.
“Hmm?”
“You remember Mr. Beckett? He was your high school geography teacher, but he became the principal a few years back.”
“I remember,” Leo said. How could he forget? Mr. Beckett was one of the young, cool teachers in school.
“This isn’t dinner table conversation,” Leo’s dad interrupted, looking stern. Well, he always looked stern; it was one of his few expressions.
“What’s not?”
“He’s only gone and eloped with some werewolf girl half his age,” his mom half whispered, paying his dad no mind.
“Lindsey. She’s in her twenties.”
“And he’s in his forties! She hasn’t been neutered either, and there’s all sorts of rumors flying around that he’s going to have her bite him.” She snapped her teeth a few times for effect.
“Mom, you shouldn’t call it neutered.” Leo squirmed. “It’s offensive. They’re not dogs.”
“They might as well be. Can you imagine, though? A werewolf principal at one of the city’s best schools. Apparently parents have started transferring their children to other districts already.”
&
nbsp; She raised her wineglass again, seemingly happy to have passed on this juicy tidbit of information.
“I think they should be neutralized as a matter of course,” Leo’s dad said. He’d finished his steak pie and pushed the plate away. Leo silently begged that the waitress wouldn’t notice before Leo had a chance to change the topic of conversation.
“Dad….”
“I know you’re part of the generation that thinks we can all just sing ‘Kumbaya’ and get along, Leo. But werewolves are inherently dangerous, and we should take responsibility, as a society, to make sure they’re unable to hurt people. The operation is relatively painless, and it makes things so much simpler.”
Mitch had had the operation to be “neutralized” a few years before Leo met him, removing the two venomous sacs from his jawbone. The werewolf had to be in their wolf form for the operation, so it was often done by vets who didn’t know nearly enough about werewolf physiology. Some ended up scarred for life. But post-operation, werewolves couldn’t hurt or turn a human with a bite. Leo hadn’t ever asked Mitch about it personally; it had been written on the contract he’d signed when he started renting the room in Mitch’s apartment.
Leo didn’t hold strong opinions about neutralization either way. He’d always thought it was a wolf’s decision whether or not they had the operation. It had a murky history, though, in eugenics, with humans experimenting on werewolves they considered subhuman.
“Did you hear the Spokane Symphony is putting on a whole series of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies next year?” Leo asked, desperate to change the conversation. His dad rolled his eyes at Leo’s lack of subtlety but took the bait anyway. Music was neutral ground in their family.
“Do you want tickets?”
“We should all go,” Leo said.
“Could I help y’all with some dessert?”
Leo looked up at the pretty server with curly hair.
“I’ll take a peach cobbler,” he said, smiling at her.
From her expression, Leo was pretty sure she’d overheard their conversation and wasn’t happy.
He felt like shit.
Chapter Five
WHAT ARE you up to this morning?
Jackson smiled at his phone. Texting with Leo was a new thing they were trying out. He was pretty sure Leo had picked up on how uncomfortable Jackson was with everything going on, and used this method of communication to make things easier on them both.
He hesitated for a moment, then tapped out a reply.
Working. I don’t go out much.
He set his phone down on a bench and went to check his wine. Making wine was a fairly new hobby, and he’d started with the sparkling stuff after drinking some at a friend’s wedding over the summer. The champagne at the party had been ridiculously expensive and not that nice, and while drunk, Jackson decided he could definitely do better himself.
He’d discovered fairly quickly that he could make almost any wine fizzy. The next lesson was that just because he could, it definitely did not mean that he should.
The phone buzzed again, and he headed back to check it.
Could I come see your setup some time?
Sure.
After a moment he sent another quick message.
Come over now if you like. I’m about an hour outside the city, though.
The reply was instantaneous.
Yeah? I could do that. Text me your address. I don’t mind driving out.
It was around lunchtime, just about when Jackson was getting ready to quit for the day anyway. Owning a business meant working Sundays had become part of his life. It had been ages since he’d taken a vacation. But working Sunday meant he could keep track of all his brewing, so he could spend Monday in the office, updating his spreadsheets and records and answering emails from his suppliers.
The sparkling wine experiment would come to a head nearer to Christmas, when he’d set up to sell bespoke bottles with handwritten labels as unique gifts. He’d done well with that concept last year, using beer instead of wine, and he thought there was a market for this type of unique product.
He left the lights on in the barn-conversion brewery and headed back to the house so he’d hear when Leo arrived. There was plenty of cleaning to do, since that was Jackson’s worst chore and he often “forgot” to do it. That meant when people were coming over, he had to rush to clean up. Maybe one day he’d learn to be better.
A light knock at the front door almost startled him, and he hurried to answer it.
Leo looked nervous but smiled at Jackson anyway.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Jackson said, opening the door wider. “Come in.”
“Thanks. This place is amazing.”
Jackson grinned. “It’s not bad. Leave your shoes on. I thought I could show you around the brewery, then make some lunch.”
“You’re cooking?”
“Uh….” Jackson gave him a sheepish look and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well. Reheating. Soup. It’s tomato and red pepper. And grilled cheese?”
“That sounds great.”
“Okay.” He let out a whooshing sigh, the nerves in his stomach quietly settling. “Good. Come on out.”
He led Leo through the house to the kitchen, which attached to the old barn that was now the brewery. One of the first jobs he’d done when setting up the brewery was to make the transition from the house to the barn building all undercover. This was Washington, after all; he needed protecting from the elements.
“How long have you lived here?” Leo asked.
“About five years. My dad helped me buy the place when I got the loan to start the business. It has space, which is the most important thing.”
It was actually almost in the middle of nowhere, right on the outskirts of a small town. The drive on winding roads into Nine Mile Falls took fifteen minutes. Jackson was okay with that.
“Welcome to where the magic happens,” Jackson said, grinning as he threw the big door to the brewery open.
The smell of earthy hops and fermenting beer was almost part of the framework of this building. It had started life as a brick-built stable, expanded constantly by the family who had lived here. It hadn’t taken much converting to make the site a brewery, just a few walls put up to segment the space and replacing the roof. Valerie always joked that she could still smell the horses, but Jackson was pretty sure the beer overpowered any lingering scent of beast.
“Wow.” Leo stepped farther into the building and turned in a slow circle. “This place is incredible. I have no idea what I’m looking at, though.”
“Let me show you.”
When it came to beer, Jackson was a traditionalist, so when it came to spending his startup loan he’d invested in big copper urns. Not only did they look beautiful, which was definitely a bonus when he was showing potential investors around, they produced better quality beer. The urns were set up against the aging red brick of the old stables, farthest away from the house. Everything else filled the space between: the huge round mash tun, where the grain steeped into hot liquid that would eventually become beer, then the urns that took care of each stage of the process, from fermentation to conditioning. Postproduction was farther back—the bottling section, the printing section where he made his own labels and stuck them on by hand, the storeroom.
“I just started experimenting with wine too,” Jackson said, gesturing to the closed-off dark room where his wine was protected from sunlight. “None of that is ready yet, though.”
“Do you have anything I could try?”
“Sure.” He led Leo round to where his bottling and labeling section was set up. “Any preference?”
“I don’t drink much beer,” Leo confessed.
“I’ve got a Pilsner, APAs and IPAs, a really nice Amber Ale, a Porter that I’m still experimenting with—it’s good, it’s just not perfect… or Stout?”
“You pick.”
Jackson grabbed two bottles of his personal favorite—an APA that had become one of his mo
st popular brews. “We can have these with lunch.”
“Okay.”
Leo wasn’t looking at him, not really. His eyes flicked from one thing to another, bright and searching as he looked at the maze of equipment. He didn’t ask many questions, just stood and absorbed it all.
“You work out here a lot?”
“Mmm.”
“It’s very… isolated.”
“I like it,” Jackson said with a shrug. “I know what I’m doing, and I don’t really need anyone else to run the business.”
Leo turned that bright focus onto Jackson, and for only the second time in his life, he felt a powerful thrum of something deep in his chest. Leo smiled, like he felt it too.
Jackson couldn’t say for sure who moved first; all he knew was a moment later Leo had a hand on his jaw and their lips were pressed together. He fumbled blindly for the counter and dumped the two bottles of beer on it, barely caring if they made it safely. When nothing crashed behind him, he planted his hands on Leo’s hips and hauled him in closer.
Leo was firm, unyielding, and didn’t hold anything back as he grabbed Jackson’s shoulders and licked into his mouth and demanded. That was new. Jackson didn’t… he didn’t dislike it.
When they moved closer together—was closer even possible?—Jackson felt something deep inside himself settle, contented.
Soul mate.
Leo pulled away first. “You’re thinking very loudly.”
Jackson grimaced. “Sorry.”
Leo touched his knuckles to Jackson’s cheek. “I’m more than okay with going at your pace. Don’t let me rush you.”
“You’re not rushing me,” Jackson said, because he felt like that was the right thing to say. He tightened his grip on Leo’s hips, then let go. If he was honest with himself, this was actually a little fast for him.
The need to mark his mate was overwhelming, and Jackson gave in to the instinct, running his hand over Leo’s hair. He wasn’t sure if Leo knew he was being scent-marked, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“You said something about lunch?”
