by L. C. Davis
“Is that so?” he challenged, taking a step forward to tower over me.
I straightened my spine and released his hand. “Yeah. It is. I didn’t run away from one religious zealot just to come work for a transphobe. By the way, if you’ve got an issue with what I do to blow off steam, fine, but leave that shit between us. Nick is dealing with enough crap from his family, and I don’t want you adding to it.”
“I don’t care about what your boyfriend does, get off your cross, Holden.”
“Then what’s your problem?”
He said nothing and I was about to call him on it when the doorbell rang. Why did the universe always have to take his side?
“I’ll get it!” he sang, gliding down the stairs to pull the door open. “Nick,” he said, clasping his hands in flowery adoration as he greeted my date. “My favorite werewolf. My, don’t you just look like the epitome of manliness and sophistication? Have I ever told you how well this end of the gender binary suits you?”
Nick stared blankly at the demon at the door, then looked up at me. “What did he do and what does he want?”
“He’s just being an asshat to prove a point,” I muttered, walking down the stairs. It was the first time since Carla’s last mixer that I’d seen Nick outside wearing anything other than his uniform or his leather jacket. I glanced at his feet just to make sure he hadn’t tried to sneak on his Chucks, hoping no one would notice, and was relieved to see a perfectly respectable pair of black dress shoes. “But you do look good in that tux.”
I came to stand in front of Nick and his hands settled on my waist as a slow grin spread across his face. His scent was an aphrodisiac the moment it hit my nostrils and even though I knew he wasn’t wearing cologne, if only because wolves’ noses were too sensitive to tolerate artificial fragrances, he could have been a millionaire if he’d found a way to bottle it.
Okay, so technically, he was already a millionaire, but he didn’t like touching his family’s money, so it was easy to forget.
“I’d say the same to you, but good is a serious understatement,” he said, making no attempt to hide the approval in his gaze as it swept over me.
I giggled like an idiot, but the sound of a shutter and blinding flash turned the stars in my eyes literal. “Locke!” I scolded. Nick was still blinking away the flash of the clunky camera Locke had aimed at us.
The demon coughed, waving away the puff of smoke that came up from the flash bulb. “I forget how bright these things are. Move in closer and try to look all googly eyed and stupid again, I didn’t get all of Holden’s giant ass in the frame.”
I frowned, slipping my hands protectively over my back pockets. “You’re the only thing that’s giant, Wormwood.”
“Your ass is kind of round,” Nick said, checking it out.
I glared at him.
“Alright, babies, off you go,” Locke said, shooing us out the door. “Your chariot or whatever the hell that monstrosity on my lawn is awaits.”
“It’s a Thunderbird,” grumbled Nick. “It’s a classic.”
“It’s going to be a pile of tin if it runs over my sage.”
“Wait, aren’t you coming?” I asked, looking back at Locke in the doorway. “And who are you going with, anyway?”
“I’m going stag,” he said matter-of-factly. “You don’t really think I’d be seen with one of the town peasants?”
I had my doubts that he would have been stag if he’d had any other option and felt the tiniest bit bad about it, but I was still pissed at his earlier remarks and Carla would shun us all if we were late.
“So,” Nick said once we were on the way to the Mills Country Club, “Is living with Locke driving you insane yet?”
“Knowing Locke started driving me insane a long time ago,” I admitted. “He’s actually not half as bad now that he has twenty-four-seven access. For the most part, he leaves me alone.”
“That’s good. Hey, at least you’re not stuck living with your boyfriend.” He said it like he was joking, but I knew he was at least halfway serious.
“Nick, you know it’s not like that. If I’d moved in with you, he just would have started hounding us both until I ended up in the Victorian.” I’d taken to calling it that instead of whorehouse, and I was hoping it would stick.
“I know,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, I’m just on edge about you meeting my mom.”
“I promise, I’m not going to say any of the things I think about her when I meet her.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about embarrassing me, it’s her.”
Nick found a parking spot well away from the other cars in the club lot since we both knew he’d go full-on Cujo if anyone dinged “Betty.” I reached out to take his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s not like I come from a perfect family. Whatever happens, I’m here for you.”
“I know you are,” he said, cupping my cheek in his palm. He leaned in to kiss me, but before our lips could even brush, I heard a pointed, “AHEM” from outside.
Nick turned toward a stout woman dressed in a long tan gown and from the stiff line his lips formed, I knew it was Tiffany Whitaker. “And that would be my mother,” he mumbled, slipping out of the car.
My hand lingered on the handle for a second before I forced myself to get out of the car and plastered my best fake smile on my face. I hadn’t shown so many teeth since I’d been on stage with my father.
“Shouldn’t you be inside?” Nick asked, stopping a few feet away from her like she was the one who had a better chance of biting. Judging from the side eye she was giving me, maybe he was onto something.
“I haven’t seen you in a week and that’s how you greet me?” she huffed, turning to me. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your…”
I waited for her to finish, but she didn’t. I figured she just couldn’t settle on a word that felt heteronormative enough. “Hi, Mrs. Whitaker,” I said, offering my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” And we were off with the first blatant lie of the evening.
Tiffany looked at my hand like she was going to catch cooties if she shook it and her grip was limp when she finally did. “Hmm. Holden, isn’t it? Your parents must have been Salinger fans.”
From the way she said it, it was pretty clear that she wasn’t. “Yeah. Must have.” Another lie. “The Catcher in the Rye” was one of the only secular books that had been in my father’s basement library, and the name had stuck with me when I’d needed a new alias. Adams was my attempt to be first in every alphabetized queue. It wasn’t the most inventive name I could have come up with, but it sure beat Jedidiah Hurlow.
“We should probably get inside,” Nick said, taking my arm. His mom looked at our interlocking elbows like we had just started frotting on the lawn. Nick ushered me around back to the garden where most of the other guests were sipping cocktails before she could respond.
“She seems nice.”
Nick gave me a look. “You know, this evening will go a lot smoother for both of us if you don’t try to pretend like you like my mother. I don’t.”
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed. “I love you, but that woman makes my soul itch.”
Nick stared at me blankly and at first, I thought he was more protective of his mother than he let on. Then I realized what I’d said. “You love me?”
I stood there frozen for a second. And here I’d thought that meeting Tiffany Whitaker would be the most awkward event of the evening. “I…”
“There you are!” Carla said brightly, barreling through a small group that was gathered on the dance floor that sat on the edge of the club’s sprawling labyrinth. She was carrying a cocktail in her hand and I had yet to see her at an event where she wasn’t at least a bit tipsy. Maybe that was how social butterflies kept their wings fluttering. She gave us both side hugs. “I’m so glad you could come.”
Unlike Tiffany, it was clear that Carla meant the words. “Thanks for the invitation,” I said, smiling.
“It wouldn’t be a party without M
illennials,” she said, leaning into Nick as she scanned the crowd like she was looking for approaching enemy soldiers. “Is she here yet?”
“She ambushed us on the way out of the car, actually.”
Carla’s dark purple lip curled into a snarl and she threw back the rest of her martini. “I’d better go find another drink,” she said, patting Nick’s arm before she ran off to hunt down a waiter with a tray of drinks. “Have fun, you two!”
“At least you’ve got your aunt?” I offered, taking Nick’s hand as he led me toward the dance floor.
“She’s great. Most of my family is, if it’s any consolation.”
“I’m sure, but they still hate me for being a witch, don’t they?”
“More specifically for being Locke’s witch, but there’s not much my uncle can do about it,” he said as he pulled me further out onto the floor. The garden was lit with strings of lights that twinkled like a reflection of the stars overhead the live band was playing an upbeat cover of an old country song.
“Why not?”
“It’s an old agreement my family made,” he said, coming to a stop. When he settled his hands on my waist and pulled me closer to dance, I realized he was willing to go to just about any lengths to avoid the topic I’d tried to raise so many times. “Uncle Lucas is bound to honor it, and no, I’m not telling you any more than that.”
I let out a sigh of agitation but found myself drawn into the sway of the music, letting him lead. “You know, people are staring at us.”
“Are they?”
“This does look pretty gay,” I warned him.
He pursed his lips and pretended to be in deep contemplation. “It does, doesn’t it?”
All of a sudden, Nick took my hand and spun me out before pulling me back to him and dipping me back dramatically. He bent to kiss me hard and I was still reeling when he pulled me upright. I didn’t have the guts to look around, even if I could have torn my dreamy gaze away from Nick’s devilish grin, but I knew for a fact that now everyone was staring. “How was that?” he asked, his eyes dancing with mischief. “Any less gay?”
“On a scale of one to Locke, that was Liberace,” I said breathily. When I finally dared to glance over my shoulder, I saw Tiffany staring at us from across the courtyard with a look of murder in her eyes. She turned and stalked off the moment she saw me looking at her. “That’s not good.”
“She’s just mad because usually she’s the one who makes a scene and I stole her thunder,” he said, rolling his eyes. “She’ll get over it.”
“Ripping the bandage off all at once, huh?”
“That and I’ve wanted to kiss you all night.”
His words made my heart flip over in my chest. “Oh.”
“I love you, too, for the record.”
“Wha--?”
“Kind of thought I’d be the one to say it first,” he said with a laugh. “But damn, I like the way it sounds coming from you.”
The band had started playing a slower song and I found myself dangerously close to Nick, my breath faltering as it came out in puffs against his neck. I laid my head on his shoulder because it felt light all of a sudden. I hadn’t even meant to say those words, they’d just come out, and part of me worried it was too soon, but when I was in Nick’s arms, every moment felt like the right one.
We danced for what felt like minutes even though I knew from the number of times the songs had changed that it had to be more than that. Nick’s decision to put our relationship out there all at once proved to be a wise one. I was sure we’d be the subject of town gossip for a while, but everyone had gone back to their own affairs and the gala was admittedly far more pleasant than Carla’s last mixer had been. A few of Nick’s other family members came over to introduce themselves, and I realized that Brent and Tiffany were far from exemplars of the Whitaker line.
Cam, Allen and Lowell were all werewolves, and they all shared Nick’s golden gaze. I found myself staring at the spot between their eyebrows instead of making just in case the hereditary psychic powers weren’t always limited to a destined mate. Cam was Nick’s cousin while Allen and Lowell were Nick’s older and younger brothers respectively. Allen was a cop, of course, and while he had been wary around me at first, he started to relax as the conversation turned to embarrassing stories from their shared childhood. I tried not to think too much about the fact that I was the reason Brent was dead, because I was already in enough danger of stumbling over my words and making a fool out of myself. How Nick played it so cool, I’d never know, but unlike his mother, it was obvious that he shared a strong bond with these three, which made it all the more important for me to make a good impression on them.
“You’re exaggerating,” Nick muttered in response to Cam’s accusation that he had, at one point or another, dated every woman in Stillwater under the age of forty. Unless the average length of those relationships was six seconds, I knew “dated” was a metaphor for “fucked,” and despite my best efforts to be cool, I found myself just the slightest bit jealous. Microscopic amounts of jealousy, really.
“Nope,” Cam said enthusiastically. “Lauren, Ava, Kendall, Jamie, both the Dodson twins, and that was just tenth grade. Then there was Jess--”
“Okay, we get it,” Nick said through gritted teeth. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d cut Cam off at a convenient time, but there had to be dozens of Jessicas in any small town, didn’t there?
Lowell and Allen were both scowling at Cam. At least I wasn’t the one in the doghouse with all the Whitakers.
“What?” Cam asked defensively. “Come on, it’s not like it’s a secret. If anything, Holden should be proud he tamed the ultimate manwhore.”
Nick rolled his eyes as Cam draped an arm around his neck. He grabbed Cam’s wrist and had his arm twisted around his back. “You’re still as big of a pain in the ass as you were when we were kids, you know that?”
“Owowow,” Cam whined, straining to free his arm which wasn’t helping.
“Sorry, Holden,” Lowell said, taking a sip of his drink. “We only let Cam out of his cage on special occasions, so he doesn’t really know how to talk to people.”
Nick finally let his cousin go and Cam rubbed his arm, sulking. “You guys suck. Holden’s not offended, are you?” Before I could answer, he continued, “I mean, Lowell’s bi, it’s no big deal.”
Lowell shot him an even dirtier look than the last. “Keep digging yourself into that hole, Cam. When it’s big enough, we’ll drop you in it.”
“It’s fine, really,” I said with an awkward laugh. “I’m sure this is weird for you guys for a lot of reasons.”
“Not as weird as getting the pronouns right,” said Cam.
Allen elbowed him hard enough that I thought I heard something crack.
“What the omega means to say is that we loved you when we thought you were our gay sister and that’s not going to change if you’re our gay brother or...whatever,” said Lowell.
“What Lowell said,” Allen sighed.
“Thanks,” Nick said stiffly, and I could tell he was ready to put the toothpick in Lowell’s glass through his eye if this conversation continued for much longer.
“I’m not the omega, am I?” Cam whined.
Lowell shoved his head down. “Dude, you’re definitely the omega.”
Cam and Lowell tousled for a bit before Carla yelled at them from across the yard. She pointed to the ground beside her feet and the command was clear even if she had no idea her nephews were literal canines.
“Shit, she’s mad,” Cam muttered, grabbing Nick by the collar of his suit to drag him along. “You’re the favorite, be our shield.”
“Hey,” Nick protested, scrambling behind his brother. “Don’t threaten him!” he yelled to Allen when Cam started dragging him, too.
And so I found myself alone with Nick’s older brother. The one whose death I wasn’t responsible for. The one who was a cop and read people for a living.
“Don’t worry, he’s being dramati
c,” Allen said, casually sipping his drink. “I’m not going to threaten you.”
I gave a nervous laugh that sounded a bit too serial killer-y so I cut it off fast. “Oh. Whew,” I said, doing my best to feign sarcastic relief when what I was feeling was legitimate, unironic relief.
At least, until he said, “I was, but not now that we’ve actually met.”
I gulped. “N-no?” Lucky me.
“You’re not exactly what I expected when Nick told us he’d imprinted on a pet witch.”
“I’m sorry, pet?” It was news to me that Nick had told them he’d imprinted at all and I didn’t want to either confirm or deny it.
“You’re owned by the demon Locke.” He frowned. “I didn’t mean anything by it, but that is usually the nicest term for a witch who’s bound by contract to a demon.”
“Oh. Right, yeah,” I said, smiling awkwardly. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“You don’t have anything to fear from me, Holden,” he said thoughtfully. “I can’t say you’re the mate I expected Nick to take, but I’m glad he has someone. Especially after what happened to Brent.”
“Yeah,” I said as the guilt settled on my chest like rocks. I wondered how many it would take to crush the breath right out of me. “I’m really sorry about your brother. I lost mine years ago, so I know what it’s like.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he murmured. “Truth be told, Brent and I weren’t very close. Nick is the one who’s taking it hardest, I imagine.”
Another rock to add to the pile. “They were close?”
“Extremely. Brent was your typical overprotective big brother,” he said with a nostalgic smile. “Nick was his shadow. When he transitioned, Brent took it pretty hard even though the rest of us saw it coming from a mile away. He had this macho complex about being Nick’s protector and he thought that would change, so he made an ass of himself, but they’d smoothed things out shortly before...well, you know.”
