by Noah Harris
“Whatever you want to do is fine, Papa!” I say in my gravelly, deep Poppy voice, and she chuckles appreciatively, nodding.
I know she understands every word. But the wolf is so strong in her she could go days without ever really speaking at all. The local pack hasn’t seen a female alpha in its entire known history, so I have another reason to stay loose with them. If they’re too interested in Bodhi for my comfort, I can’t imagine what would happen if they got a hint of just how strong Poppy’s going to be.
Ernest always said it was my suspicious nature that kept me on the defensive about this stuff. According to him, Salt Flats is the most giving and generous pack in all of Texas. He’d say we’re the luckiest we could possibly be, and not just because it’s how we found each other. I suppose that’s true and all. But I’ve never experienced anything else. So to me, they’re incredibly smothering.
I always disliked the way some friends treated their parents, like they were a curse. Like every expression of care or worry was some kind of horrible abuse. But in the eight years since I joined the pack, I’ve come to understand why they do it. It’s like eyes out in the night, watching all the time. It doesn’t matter whether they have good intentions, if they never blink.
Or maybe it’s this dark idea I’ve had, ever since Ernest was taken from me, that the kids could vanish too. Unthinkable! But then, so was losing my mate. I noticed myself getting irrationally angry when I felt strangers were looking at my babies too much, or with too much interest, and I realized part of me was just assuming everyone was a kidnapper.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter to me why I need the pack to stay away. Hurt people hurt people, that’s what Ernest would say.
Right now, I am a hurting person, and I’m as embarrassed as if I were sick or injured. I know that’s not great for the kids either. But I tell myself I’ll ask for help when I need help, and not before.
“Let’s go for a run, Papa,” I squeak. “Strap me to your chest and we’ll beat the wind!”
Poppy guffaws at my growling impression of her deep, scratchy voice, and it’s settled. She likes to wear baby sportswear when we go running, even if her feet never touch the ground. The appropriate costume for every occasion. I help her dress, and she “helps” me get my running shoes on, then we’re off.
Just before we hit the streets, my phone rings, Goodboy Miller, my oldest and dearest friend. Ernest’s, before that. The pack’s alpha, and the only one I still talk to between full moons.
But today’s not a good enough day to talk to Goodboy, because he’s far too honest and knows me better than anyone on the planet, and I can’t handle that kind of scrutiny today.
Goodboy and Ernest were the members of the pack who sought me out that first year, when I was sixteen and going crazy in the lead up to my first shift.
Ernest was a couple of years older than me, and Goodboy just a few years older than him. The youngest pack leader Salt Flats would ever have. Gorgeous, sturdy, lean, with eerie ice-blue eyes, a thin white-blond buzz cut, and a quiet stillness. He looks like a sharp-shooter and can act like a drill sergeant sometimes. But he bakes the best cookies and gives my kids the best hugs, and when Ernest died he slept downstairs on the couch every night for a month, just so I’d feel safe enough to sleep.
Goodboy would say grief’s holding me back, and eighteen months is long enough to be depressed. He’d offer money to tide us over or order me to pack up the kids and come live on the ranch for a few months, and who knows what else. He knows shifters in every state and country, it seems like. An army of wolves, ready to appear and carry you wherever you need to go.
He’s always got time to help, time to talk it out, or just hold you while you cry. Exactly the support and sweetness I know I need, which is probably why I can’t take it. I would just fall apart, because I’d know I could. Then I can’t imagine I would ever put myself back together.
So no, Goodboy. Sorry, buddy. You lasted six months longer than anybody else we know. Try again when I can smile without shattering.
Poppy loves jogging more than anything. I don’t really understand it. The twins hated being jostled around like that on my chest, when they could be in their stroller staring at everything and whispering secrets to each other. Bodhi is unhappy unless his feet are on the ground, so he can run and jump and dance under his own steam. He moves relatively slowly, being a four-year-old, so generally we find other ways to spend time together. Running is for Poppy.
Her blissful smile, eyes shut tight to the breeze. In a good headwind she’ll turn her head from side to side, to feel it everywhere and let it run through her copper curls. Ernest would have been so offended if I’d ever compared her to a puppy, hanging its head out of a car window, but that’s exactly what she reminds me of.
He was raised shifter, so he was a good deal more sensitive to things like that. I was always grateful for it. Sometimes it seemed like I couldn’t have gone five minutes without saying something unforgivable or uncouth, if he weren’t there to help me out. He always did it so smoothly and sweetly that it never made me feel bad or called out, which is probably why we only had to say most things once.
There’s a local coffee shop on the edge of town where the shifters like to congregate, so I cut through the town square to a nice, anonymous chain instead. It’s more expensive, but I need coffee right now, not friendship.
About a block from the place, I smell something delicious and a little familiar. Like home cooking, but also sexy, like a man.
A strong alpha scent, one I don’t recognize. My whole body is on alert, eighteen months of loneliness bursting forth before I can even get a word in edgewise. It’s enough to send me spinning the other way, in search of coffee elsewhere. Anywhere. But for some reason, I just can’t. I need a closer look.
I have this fantasy I’ll turn a corner one day, and there he’ll be. My perfect mate. Somebody to love me, love my kids. Tell me everything is going to be okay. Say he’s lucky to have me and smile like the sun coming out on a cloudy morning.
When I realize I’m daydreaming about this mythical man, I always try to change the pattern of my thoughts. It’s not realistic. Fantasies like that aren’t comforting, not really. They make being alone hurt more. Better to just say, that part of my life is over, and learn to get along. Then, if he does somehow magically turn up, it’ll be the cherry on the sundae of a complete life I’d already be living.
What would I do if he did appear? I haven’t really ever dated. Ernest was the second person I ever loved. I married him at nineteen and starting turning out cubs with our first heat. Dating as an adult seems like a strange dance where everybody else knows the steps. This imaginary guy would need to understand that too. But maybe he’s out there.
If he is…damn. He’d smell just like this coffee shop stranger. I’d better get a closer look. Like smelling a permanent marker, or gasoline, it burns, and it’s probably not healthy. But I just want one more sniff. Just one more.
Even if it’s never going to happen for me, it’s worth a few seconds of…
Oh no. No. Damn it, no.
That’s no stranger. It’s not my future mate.
It’s the man I destroyed when we were fourteen.
I never forgave myself. If I learned he’d forgiven me, I’d be so bewildered it would feel like some kind of trap. Like some elaborate movie revenge plot to ruin me, my family, my life, as efficiently as I did his, when we were kids.
But if he’s on the hunt, he’s got a funny way of showing it. Right out in public, giving me the big eye. That cocky grin I would recognize anywhere. Not just inviting me over but inviting me to a whole lot more than that.
Could it really be so simple?
Would it even be okay if I ended up with my childhood love after all this time, doesn’t that sort of scribble over Ernest altogether? It feels like cheating, somehow.
Regardless, it’s far-fetched. More likely he just wants to confirm I’m a shifter and tell me off.
Poppy looks up at me from the sling, catching some whiff of anxiety in my scent, and reaches backward to pat my chest with one chubby hand.
“Okay, Human,” she growls quietly. “Okay, Human,” there, there.
I guess she’s right. I want her to see me being brave.
I walk straight toward him, trying not to shake. Holding out my hand, calling his name. Dominic Tarrant.
My first love and my greatest shame. Now tall and scruffy and strawberry blond. Not quite as filled out as I have become in these ten years but muscled enough to be noticeable. He’s got a haunted look that wasn’t there when we were teenagers, but I’m sure that’s my fault too. I try my best to put on a good face.
I’m halfway to shaking his hand, out of my mind with shining gratitude for it all, that he’s come back, that he’s not looking to hurt me, that he didn’t flee the second he saw me, before I realize he’s so sweet because he thinks he’s meeting a stranger.
Dominic…doesn’t recognize me at all.
I’m still not forgiven.
I Want to Believe
All I can hear is the Joni Mitchell song, playing on the coffee shop’s speakers, unbearably loud as my senses go into overdrive.
We are stardust, we are golden…
I stand awkwardly, aware of the baby girl strapped to the man’s chest and not wanting to startle her. She stares up at me with gap-toothed suspicion, half squint-smiling in the sunlight and half wary as a hawk.
“Blueberry,” she growls with disdain, and refuses to meet my eyes again.
For a person dangling in midair from the body of another person, she seems to have a lot of business to catch up on that involves ignoring me entirely.
I take her dad’s hand in mine, searching his face for some sign of who he needs me to be.
Am I the bisexual drifter, just passing through town? The lumberjack park ranger of his midnight fantasies? Am I the mysterious, aloof, dangerous alpha he’s been looking for? Or am I sweet, soft, quietly strong and adoring.
The last one is the most like me, or at least who I want to be, but few guys seem to be into that one. You have to start from a stronger negotiating point.
“And who’s this?”
I offer a hand to the little girl and she takes it gingerly, like a soggy piece of something unsavory. Nodding like a queen for a moment without ever quite meeting my eye.
“This is Poppy,” the man says proudly, as if he didn’t notice her cutting me off like a Jane Austen mean girl.
“Nice to meet you, Poppy. Charmed, I’m sure.”
She seems distracted, but when I follow her gaze I can’t blame her, there’s a puppy in the vicinity. All is forgiven.
“Do you come here a lot?”
The man seems a little taken aback by my question. It could seem like a line. Up close, he smells even better. It’s not just the muscles. His teeth are movie-star perfect and his skin is flawless.
It’s a little intimidating. High-maintenance? That’s a red flag.
But vanity isn’t, not necessarily. You know where you stand with a vain guy, in his shadow and that’s a safe place to hide.
I haven’t had to think like this in a long time.
He wants me to ask how he knows me, I think. But there’s mystery in just accepting it.
In a moment, I’ll remember where I know him from anyway, and I don’t want to show my cards. I’ll just play along. I’m flattered by it. I’m a celebrity. Everybody knows my name.
“Usually I make coffee at home,” the hunk stutters, sweat beading in his dark curls. When he twists his upper lip in a wry half-smile something familiar is there, and it strikes me to the bone. Straight through to the shattered center of me, like lightning.
My body is always miles ahead of me, reacting to the answers before I’ve even formulated the questions.
Something’s not right here. Something dangerous? Or sad?
But then, that could be anybody. There are no safe memories in Salt Flats.
I’m here to make some, I guess.
“Same here,” I say. Which is true, in a way. If I had a home, I’d be there for sure. Much better than being out in public, with the clock ticking.
“I only stopped in for the Weekly Sun.”
He smiles down at it, coffee-stained and translucent, and back up at me.
“God. Dominic,” he says again, with a wistful pain in it that drives up through me like a freight train coming down the tracks, barreling toward you, and you’re too scared to move. What the hell is this guy’s deal? Maybe if this muscleman was a…
Oh. Oh no.
I take it all in, the baby, the omega scent, like honeysuckle and musk on the breeze. The sadness and affection in his eyes.
Imagine him when he was this young, as young as his little girl. The whip-crack intelligence behind her eyes, that guilty smile he has. Yeah, it’s him.
It’s him, and I’ve been flirting as if he were some stranger.
I thought it was a meet-cute, but it’s actually been a nightmare all along. God.
Christian sees recognition cross my face like a shadow, and his back goes straight as he realizes I’m only just recognizing him. He must feel stupid, walking up so friendly and sweet. As if we don’t have ten years of apologies to make. As if he didn’t utterly destroy my life back then. As if he didn’t ruin me for every man since then.
What’s worse than a ghost? Demons? Demons, crouching in your cellar. Knocking around in your attic. Hissing and scratching and boiling over. That’s what’s worse.
A ghost that can hurt you. Christian Keller.
“Christian?” I say, as if I’m still not quite sure, scrambling to figure out who to be for this one. Aloof? Angry? Resentful? Accepting? Forgiving? Adoring?
Amnesiac? I could do that one.
His hooded eyes flare up with something beyond worry now.
Desire. After all this time, he finally wants me. Finally.
I could laugh, if it didn’t make me want to cry. For the boy I was so long ago that pined away for him night after night. Even after they sent me away and I had every reason in the world to hate him, I still cried out for him. For the boy who sank every relationship I ever tried to be in, because nobody could ever measure up.
Well, he’s still beautiful. And now he’s a dad. The perfect scent of him, omega and desire and notes of joy. He must be so happy, so comfortable. Having a family. The only thing I ever wanted, and I’m sure he just wandered into it. He was always so lucky.
“It’s me. And you.”
There’s something unreadable in his voice. Guilt? I hope it’s guilt.
But there’s age, too. Gravitas. A manliness I don’t remember. He’s been through something. Not just maturity, puberty. Something hard. Something broken, that needs putting back together.
I see it every day in the mirror.
For a moment, all I want to do is touch him. Put my face to his, wrap his arms around me. Touch every part of him with every part of myself. Not even sexually, exactly. It’s the wolf. Wanting to scent him, mark him with myself. Remind me that I am real, and he is real, and this is really happening. I could almost swear that’s what he wants, too.
But before we can decide, or even move, the left side of my head goes numb.
And then bursts into what feels like flame.
By the time I get my bearings, the attacker’s reared back with a bottle for a second blow, that madman from across the street with the nice suit and the wild hair. Screaming obscenities at me. Highpoint bitch! Highpoint fucker! He comes at me, shouting, and to make him shut up more than anything else, I lash out with one fist.
If he’s a Highpoint victim, I should probably let him have at it. Beat me unconscious.
But I can’t bear the thought of him blowing my cover this early in my stay and certainly not in front of Christian Keller. The very thought of Christian has made me feel so ashamed for so long that being exposed in front of him now would just about kill me.
The du
de comes around for another blow and I duck the bottle, grabbing his arm as it flies past. Christian pops into my peripheral vision, having put the child down somewhere, and he squares up beside me, ready to take the madman down.
The guy’s unshaven, with a silvery jaw. Wild eyes, heavy bags beneath them. His hair is wavy. Too long. A yellowed salt-and-pepper. His teeth are straight but going brown and stained.
Up close, the vacant look in his eyes is chilling. He’s gone past sadness, past even anger, into an empty darkness that almost has a sound.
It’s way too familiar. It’s what I was running from. Again, I think, there’s something poetic about this random man finding me on my first day here. Maybe even beating me to death.
But when he turns his attention to Christian, that’s when I lose it. The last thing I want is one more person hurting him because of me, no matter what he did.
A low growl in my throat, echoed in Christian’s as he swiftly comes around behind the wild-haired man. He whirls, catching Christian on the ear, and I can hear the little girl screaming. Poppy. But I realize she’s not scared, she’s pissed.
Christian lays the guy out and he groans, shoving himself up to one knee, holding out his hands for mercy. His lip is bleeding, and his eyes are hazy with more pain than anger. I can tell he’s broken, for now, and we can stop. I hold up my own hands in truce, stepping back so he can stand. The little girl behind me in the crowd grunts in disappointed anger as the shaking man slumps away without a single look back.
Christian grabs his daughter immediately, returning with eyes wide, more than a little confused.
“What the hell was that?” he asks, half incredulous and half giddy. A tone I recognize more clearly than anything else so far, the sound that says this is going to make for such a story later.
I shrug, because it’s slightly better than lying, but I know exactly what the hell that was. Karma.
His body’s even more incredible up close, and contrasted with how I’ve pictured him over the years, almost cartoonishly strong.
“You’re huge,” I blurt out, at a loss for words, and he grins with pride, nodding. I guess that’s a better reason not to recognize him than anything else. Plus it has the added bonus of being true.
