“I thought if I left it out there, you’d walk me out to the bike to get it when I left. I was hoping to steal a good-night kiss while we were out there.”
I spun around, ready to give him a big-worded lecture about unacceptable times for come-on lines. With his lupine speed, though, he grabbed my arms and moved in. “If you’re in trouble, Red, be honest with me,” he said. “I will help you.”
“I’m not in trouble, J-Johnny,” I stammered, wondering what he would categorize under the heading of “In Trouble.” The cedar and sage smell of him was strong. His grip was tight. I wanted to feel his arms around me and hear him tell me everything would be okay, that I hadn’t fucked everything up. But in order to take any comfort, I’d have to tell him everything. That was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.
“If you’re laundering it, and you’ve spent more than your take, that’ll get you in serious trouble.”
I laughed nervously. As I looked up at him—this close—his stern, fearsome eyes peered right through me. “I’m not laundering money.” That would have been so much easier and safer than what I was doing.
“Then what?”
I wanted him to let go of me. And I didn’t. “I can’t tell you.”
He snorted. “I knew you’d say that.” He released me and brusquely turned to leave. He stopped at the door. “If things change, my offer stands.”
Chapter 10
Sitting at my dining room desk, the unused oak dining set behind me, I typed the title of my column—Wære Are You. I wondered how many people got the pun. Probably not as many as I hoped. I should ask the editors how many letters and emails they were getting from furious English teachers thinking I couldn’t spell.
By Circe Muirwood. My pen name. To protect the innocent me.
Profile of a Wære-parent: Part One
It’s a well-known and well-publicized fact that wæres cannot have children. However, there’s a segment of this once-human populace made up of people who were already parents when infected. Yes—normal, everyday people with real jobs and families can be wæres in secret. Maybe that’s why your best friend and her husband didn’t double-date with you and your honey last weekend—your best friend’s husband was furry and kenneled securely.
What I’m getting at is this: They’re people. Furry or fanged, they were once normal human beings like you. If you’re a single mom with an ex-husband who is a deadbeat dad who ran and pays no child support, think what it’d be like if you added the concern of monthly furriness to your list of worries. It’s not just painful in the physical sense of changing bodily, it’s painful because you find out so many things…who your friends are, who you can and can’t trust, who will ridicule and harass you, who will help you hide…
I saved it and shut the laptop down. I began massaging my temples, not sure I could use any of it. Maybe it was stupid to think I could write a lucid column with all this going on.
I heard Celia and Erik come in the front door. Erik started quietly up the steps, but Celia stepped into the living room and followed the light to where I sat, still rubbing my temples.
“Headache?” Celia asked, coming in. “I’ll get your ibuprofen.”
“No. Thanks.” I stretched as she passed me en route to the kitchen. “Just had to get some thoughts out. You get all your stuff?”
“Yeah.” She’d traded her New England-chic outfit for a more relaxed jogging suit. It was sage green and matched her eyes. “Erik’s setting up your air mattress in the spare bedroom now.” She paused. “He wants to take the late watch with her tonight, so if I stay on watch until ten in the morning, and then Johnny is on watch until four—that’ll clear him up for cooking dinner. If you’ll take four until ten at night, Erik will take over after you.”
“Glad someone among us can think up a workable shift plan.” I hadn’t given it any thought and would’ve just winged it.
She smoothed her hair, obviously tired. “I brought a clipboard and made up a medicine schedule so we know when she gets what and how much and who gave it. We have to be organized. We can’t afford a mistake.” Her eyes welled up with tears.
That she was unsure made me unsure. I didn’t like it. In denial of that thought, I said, “She’s gonna make it.”
“I don’t know, Seph,” she said softly, leaning against the door frame. “Twenty-five days is a long time in this little half-assed hospital we’ve had to construct.”
Firming my voice, I said, “She’s a wærewolf and—like you did, Celia—she’ll pull through. We just need to keep her as comfortable as possible for now.”
Celia wiped her eyes.
“So what’s this about Johnny cooking?” I asked.
A laugh burst from her, as I’d hoped it would. “I can’t figure him out. Looks like this Goth prince, sings like a siren”—she came in and sat in a chair so she was across from me—“and there’s nothing he can’t do…except, apparently, woo you.”
“Hold on, there,” I said.
“He asks me about you all the time. Like he’s a teenage boy with a crush. Can’t you go out with him just once and get me out of the middle here?”
“He had dinner here today.”
“Dinner?” She sat straighter.
“Yeah. Before all this started, of course.”
“That’s why you two came together! Oooo, and a clingy motorcycle ride. Well, that’s something.” She paused. “What’d Nana say about him?”
“She actually liked him!”
“No way!”
I giggled. “Listen to us! Now we sound like teenagers.”
Celia teased, “Well, forgive me for thinking you’re lying! Your nana never liked any guy, let alone one with tattoos and piercings who rides a motorcycle.”
“No others walked in with a carton of Marlboros, macnut cookies, and General Tso’s Chicken.”
Celia chuckled. “Wait till I tell Erik that! No wonder Nana let him talk her down when she was set to protest. No offense to your witch abilities, but that man’s got magic, I tell you. Voodoo stuff or something. He just knows the combination to unlock any door barring his way.”
“He told me he’d had a plan to steal a good-night kiss from me.”
“Duh. He’s been nuts about you since he started kenneling here.”
What was I supposed to say? The truth, I guess.
“Look, Celia, I’ve been really…stupid. I let the tattoos intimidate me until I saw only them, not him. It took me this long to realize I was being stupid about that, but still, he’s frontman for a techno-metal-Goth band. That’s awesome, but realistically, as far as relationships go, that lifestyle seems ill-suited to monogamy, y’know?” I studied the floor. “You and Erik are an exception to every rule that’s ever tried to apply to you, but how often can that kind of dream partnership come true?”
“Erik’s known him for three years now, Seph.” Celia had told me about how Johnny left Darkling Dose, a Detroit-based hard-rock band, to start his own. Erik had asked to audition for the drummer position but, she’d said, it was more like an interview. Johnny wanted people of similar ideas and ideals. Erik fit the bill, as did bassist and programmer Philip “Feral” Jones. “In all that time, nobody has interested him—not that the former band lacked groupies who wanted his attention. Nobody caught his eye. Until you.”
For an instant, I wondered if that meant he slept with the groupies and just didn’t get attached. Was that a jealous pang I felt? I counseled myself sternly to stop it. “Celia. Please don’t make me feel obligated.”
“I’m not trying to. You know that. It’s just that everything’s coming together now.” As a trio, called Lycanthropia, they were the hottest band in the tristate area. “You ought to hook him while he’s still available,” Celia said.
“I’m sooo not fishing.” I leaned my chair back on two legs to stretch again. “I don’t have time.”