“Cooper.” Park’s voice was flat, empty, emotionless. Devoid of the tenderness, amusement or—most commonly heard—exasperation that usually accompanied Cooper’s name. Empty of anything at all, as it had been since receiving the phone call that brought them here.
“I’m fine,” Park repeated quietly, gentler this time, but still distant and hollow. Carefully he navigated the long curve of the road and started back down a treacherous hill.
“Okay,” Cooper said, all ease and acquiescence. But the deep, pulsating worry buried at the bottom of his gut flared up again. Not fine! Mayday! Mayday!
He shoved it down again. What else could he do? For once, this had nothing to do with him. He and Park were good. Great, even. Park knew Cooper was here for him. That he loved him. A fact that still made Cooper feel desperately vulnerable. Christ, he was practically squirming in his seat just thinking the words now. But Cooper knew Park loved him, too, and that helped.
After the catastrophe of last fall in Jagger Valley, a lot had changed. Cooper had been laid up with a broken tibia, recovering from surgery and unable to put weight on his leg while Park had been on suspension and spent most every day and night at Cooper’s apartment. Park had helped him adjust, wrangled the knee scooter into submission, cooked and cleaned when he couldn’t stand for long periods of time, and generally distracted him when the frustration that came from relearning what he could and couldn’t do for the second time in less than two years threatened to tip him over the edge from restlessness into depression. For just over three months Park had moved in with him, leaving only to shift, check in on his own apartment across town and occasionally meet up with friends. It had been...nice.
Then, almost a month ago, Park’s suspension had ended. He’d been back at the BSI on desk duty, Cooper’s cast had come off—replaced with a brace while he regained stability and muscle mass—the knee scooter and crutches had been donated, and Park had left.
Well, not left. That was overdramatic. They still saw each other several days a week. Nights, too, of course. But the clothes that had found their way into Cooper’s laundry basket, dresser and closet were missing, the phone charger by Park’s side of the bed was gone, and the absurd amounts of food that had been packed into the fridge had withered back to his own boring, pre-Park essentials.
Listed together like that, it seemed silly to be upset by such little things. Not that he was even upset. He was just... Well, anyway. He’d needed time to relearn his new reality. Again. For the third time now. Almost as if Park’s absence was as disruptive as a broken bone or a shredded gut.
It didn’t help that Cooper himself wasn’t back at work yet, or that when he did go back, he wouldn’t be partnered with Park again. News of their relationship had gotten out after Jagger Valley; how could it not? Every official communication was carefully uninterested about the private lives of their agents but reaffirmed their stance that BSI agents engaged in a personal relationship could not be partnered together in the field.
As for the unofficial response... Cooper was sheltered from most of that. But he hadn’t exactly been Mr. Popularity before...
“You’re overthinking it,” Park had said when Cooper had grilled him on the minutiae of his first day back in the office, looking for any clues that the hostility and suspicion Cooper had acquired from the nightmare of their first case together in Florence had been transferred to Park. “Why would she care? Why would anyone there care that we’re dating?”
“I don’t know. Maybe...”
“Maybe nothing.” Park had kissed his nose. “We’re not that important.”
He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t explain why Park was still on desk duty and without a permanent partner a month off suspension.
Cooper’s gaze snuck back toward Park in the driver’s seat. He had his old classic, neutral mask in place. But after months of living together Cooper could peek under the cracks and decipher hints of exhaustion, tension and something like worry. Worry about what? Work? Seeing his family again? Or something else entirely? Whatever it was, Park wasn’t talking.
It had been just over twenty-four hours since the phone call had come in while they were sitting in a café drinking hot, spiced coffees. Park had been laughing, loose and relaxed while Cooper filled him in on his own fascinating day of taking apart Boogie’s water fountain and subsequent inability to put it back together, when his cell vibrated. There, in the after-work bustle of the coffee shop, his face had gone from pleasantly surprised to the carefully blank mask Cooper hadn’t seen for months.
“Something wrong?” Cooper had asked when he abruptly hung up.
“No. I—Yes. That was Cami. My sister Camille,” he’d stumbled, sounding dazed. “Our grandfather is dead.” Then he’d shaken himself and refused to discuss it.
There are many ways to grieve—no one way less valid than the others—but this shutting down and shutting out... Cooper didn’t know how to help him. And he wanted so desperately to help Park. To be there for him the way Park had been there unerringly for him the last four months; teasing him out of dark moods, arguing calmly with him when the inertia set his blood on fire, holding him like he was the one sure thing in a life full of uncertainties.
And now Park’s grandfather was dead. The man who had raised him and his five siblings when their parents had abandoned them to join the rebel wolf group WIP. The man who had lied for decades, telling them their parents were dead to prevent them from ever having a relationship. The wolf who was alpha of the family pack Park had left to join the Trust, hoping to find his mother.
Frankly, it was enough complicated history to fill its own Ken Burns miniseries. Or one soap opera episode, at least. Park had to have complicated emotions around the man’s death, or any kind of emotion at all, really, but he didn’t say a word. Just insisted they carry on as if nothing was different.
He’d asked Cooper to continue telling him about Boogie’s broken water fountain there in the café, and when they’d finally finished their coffees, he’d followed Cooper home and fixed the damn thing himself, despite Cooper’s insistence that it wasn’t necessary.
“I’m sorry that—”
“It’s fine. Thank you. I’m fine.”
Then he’d twitched around the apartment as if pacing a cage and shut down any additional attempts at talking or comfort.
Eventually Cooper had given up and left him to his pacing. He’d retreated to the kitchen to make them dinner only to have Park follow him, all jumpy and wild-eyed, and bend him over the kitchen counter to fuck him.
“Is this okay?” Park had said, tugging clothing out of the way and dragging his fingers up and down the crack of Cooper’s ass.
“Yes. Anything,” Cooper had bit back, surprised by the sudden turn of events but not unhappy about it. Especially not when Park dropped to his knees and retraced his touch with his tongue. He’d worked him open with his mouth and hands until Cooper was a gibbering mess, humping against the kitchen cabinets.
“Can I have you?” Park had gasped, as breathless as if he was the one being thoroughly taken apart, nerve by nerve.
“Yes. Do it, please.” Cooper had arched his back, searching for Park’s body. “You already have me,” he’d whispered into the countertop, and Park had groaned. Hopefully from the pleasure of pushing into Cooper’s body and not at the cheesy line, but he couldn’t help himself. It was true. Park had him like a fever did. Thought-altering, blood-boiling and all-consuming. Cooper had thrown himself back onto the burn.
It wasn’t the roughest sex they’d ever had by any means, but there had been a panicked, almost clumsy edge to it that had frankly amped Cooper’s arousal up a notch or two. For a short but glorious time he felt as needed as oxygen.
Maybe this was a turning point, he’d thought. A dam breaking. A way for Park to reaffirm life and love before responsibly confronting his loss.
They’d finished on
the kitchen floor, Cooper spilling over the tile, on his knees watching the dark shadow that was Park gasp and pump into him via the oven’s reflection.
“It doesn’t change anything,” Park had muttered afterward, pressing kisses across Cooper’s shoulder blades. “I won’t let it.”
“What?”
Park had stiffened and pulled away, avoiding his eye. “Nothing important.”
Then he’d asked him to come to Canada with him for the memorial ceremony, and when Cooper had agreed—grateful to finally be of some help—he’d promptly excused himself for the night.
“You’re not staying?”
“No, I need to shift,” Park had said despite having gone for one of his “runs” that morning. “I’ll take care of the tickets and pick you up before the flight.” He’d kissed him distractedly, and that was it. Not a word since about why they were traveling to the northernmost tip of Cape Breton in the middle of a brutal freeze.
It was decidedly not the emotional release Cooper had been hoping for. And still, every mile they got closer, the dangerous stillness radiating from Park intensified.
Worry. It was definitely worry. Maybe even fear.
Cooper put the guidebook down and cleared his throat. This was getting ridiculous. “Did you tell them I was coming?”
Park blinked slowly, like he’d been dragged from deep in thought. “Yes, of course,” he said after a long moment. Then, “Don’t be nervous.”
“I’m not,” Cooper said. Well, I wasn’t until you said that. Truthfully he’d been too busy worrying about Park to consider his own approaching milestone: meeting the family. Fuck. “Will...everyone be there?”
Park inclined his head. “Mmm, most of us. My two older sisters, Camille and Jackie, should already be there. The two younger siblings won’t make it in at all, though. Addy is doing research for her PhD in Turkey and Simon’s wife, Peggy, is due any moment. It’s been a difficult pregnancy, so they don’t want to travel. My older brother, Griffin, will be here for the service, but I doubt he’ll stay after. He has property in Halifax and it gets—” he shook his head as if deciding on the right word “—crowded with all of us together.”
Multiple alphas, Cooper thought, filling in what Park avoided. “So who is going to be there?”
“Look, no one expects you to get everyone’s names right immediately. I know it’s overwhelming. I’m sorry to throw you into the pit like this before you’re ready.”
“Nonsense. Put me in, coach. I was born ready.”
Park huffed at the painfully false bravado. “Okay. My grandmother Helena, obviously.” He stopped, looking lost, already struck by some uncomfortable thought or memory.
“What was your grandfather’s name?” Cooper said softly.
“Joe.” Park smiled, more of a grimace, and quickly moved on, giving Cooper a rundown of his family.
He had two uncles, Marcus and Stuart, and an aunt, Lorelei. Neither of the uncles lived with Helena, though they were never too far away, either. Cooper vaguely remembered the names. Marcus, married and childless, was the one who had disobeyed the pack and told Park the truth about his parents, and Park spoke of him fondly.
Stuart was a widower, and his daughter, Delia, also lived in DC. Park would occasionally go out to dinner with her. He often invited Cooper along, but Cooper always declined. He claimed it was because couples needed time apart and to maintain separate friends, but truthfully he’d just felt pathetic tagging along like the kid your mother makes you invite. That and he’d been too nervous to meet Park’s cousin. Eventually Park just stopped asking.
Park’s aunt, Lorelei, did live with Helena, and that was interesting.
“What do you mean she and her ex-husband still live there?”
“Exactly that. Lorelei and Tim have been divorced for, oh, nineteen years, I think? But he never moved out. They raised my cousin Raymond together.”
“Okay,” Cooper said slowly. “That’s nice.” Maybe. “But Raymond must be an adult now. What’s stopping them from, you know, separating?”
Park hesitated. “Tim is... Well, Tim isn’t exactly family anymore, but he’s still part of, you know—” he gestured vaguely “—part of the pack.”
“So he has to stay?” Cooper tried to imagine living with Park for decades after they broke up, and his body recoiled. “That must have been brutal for both of them.”
Park scrunched up his nose. “I guess. I’ve never actually thought about it. My grandparents aren’t romantically together, either, haven’t been for years, but they always seem fine. Seemed fine,” he corrected under his breath.
“You know, you say it’s hard for your family to all be under one roof as one super pack, but all these divorces and separations sound like the perfect opportunity to break away and start their own packs to me.”
“It’s complicated,” Park hedged. “They don’t like when people leave.”
“You left.”
Park glanced sharply at Cooper but didn’t respond.
“You’re one of six. And your dad was one of four, right? That’s some crowded family tree.”
“There’s a lot of pressure on older packs to reproduce. For the good of the species and all that shit,” Park mumbled. He sounded annoyed, like this was an old argument he’d heard too often.
“I didn’t realize the, uh, species needed maintaining,” Cooper said.
“It’s...difficult. We need more room than you, access to land for shifting, et cetera. Many wolves just don’t have the space to raise kids.”
“But your family does.”
Park laughed darkly. “Yeah, we have space. And I’ve got eleven nieces and nephews to prove it, with more coming. At this rate we will be the species. Though at least my older sister Jackie and her wife, Mai, adopted. Mai’s a cardiac surgeon,” he added proudly.
Cooper stopped playing with his brace. “Your sister’s gay?”
“She’s bi,” Park corrected, then caught Cooper’s eye. “What?”
“Nothing,” Cooper said quickly. He could feel Park examining him, so he looked up to meet his eyes. “Just...do they know about...me?”
Park’s curious gaze froze and he looked almost uncomfortable before understanding relaxed his face again. “You mean do they know you and I are dating? Yes. I told you that’s not a problem.”
Cooper frowned. “What did you think I meant?”
Park looked distracted as he put the car into a lower gear to climb the next brutal hill. “Hmm? Oh, nothing, I was just confused. We’re about fifteen minutes out from Port Drove, the last town before the estate. Do you still want to stop beforehand for the cat?”
Cooper smiled at Park’s “I only tolerate that animal for you” tone. While their relationship had gotten closer with all the time they spent together, Park and Boogie’s relationship was as one-sided as ever, with Boogie constantly trying to knead Park’s lap or sneak a nap in the small of his back in bed while Park grumbled and avoided and gently relocated her to Cooper’s side whenever he caught her.
Cooper twisted in his seat, ignoring the spike of discomfort in his shin, to examine the cat carrier on the floor of the back seat. Boogie had been even quieter than usual during the ride, completely shut down by her unfair captivity. She squinted at him now through the bars before looking away, as if the very sight of him disgusted her. In other words, the traveling hadn’t seemed to affect her usual personality.
With his young cat-sitter-extraordinaire neighbor Ava away at journalism camp, less than ten hours to make other arrangements and—okay, let’s be honest—a pretty empty contact list of friends, he’d been forced to bring Boogie along on the trip.
“Yeah. Anywhere I can pick up some tins and litter would be great, thanks.” He felt bad asking Park to stop now that they were so close, but it hadn’t made sense to pack supplies he could pick up anywhere. Especially when neithe
r of them was sure how long they’d even be here. “Unless you think your family—”
“No,” Park said. “They’re not big cat people.”
Cooper made a face at Boogie, who was still ignoring him. “Are you sure they won’t mind that I brought her?”
Silence. Apparently Park was ignoring him as well now, too. Well, seven hours into this venture and Cooper had successfully alienated both traveling companions. Right on schedule.
He turned back around to face forward and tried to readjust his own leg, heavy with the brace, as subtly as possible. He needn’t have bothered. Park was busy frowning down at the wheel. “Oliver? What’s wrong?”
“The car’s started pulling to the left,” he said as they crested the hill, took another steep curve with a cute little lookout point over the sea and started down again. “I think the—”
The car gave a sudden jolt to the right, and Park’s expression changed to pure alarm.
“What? Is it the tire?” Cooper asked, even as he knew that a flat tire wouldn’t explain what was happening or the smooth, near-silent descent of the car down the mountain road.
“No,” Park said gruffly, his whole leg twitching as he aggressively pumped the brakes. They were slowly but steadily gaining speed now. Going faster on the sloping, icy road than they had all day. Cooper’s right foot was pressing hard against the car floor, subconsciously trying to brake himself, and his freshly healed shinbone protested at the tension. He checked the speedometer. Forty crawled past forty-five and approached fifty.
“Is your seat belt on?” Park said tightly.
“Of course,” Cooper said. The words slurred a bit and his lips felt weird, tingly. “Wait!” He twisted in his seat again to grab Boogie’s carrier—why the fuck had he left it loose on the floor?—tugged it up front into his lap, and tucked it between his body and the chest belt while a loud hissing and thumping sounded from inside. If his leg hurt at the twist, this time he didn’t notice.
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Big Bad Wolf) Page 29
