An American Werewolf in Hoboken (21 page)

Pulling back her comforter, she climbed into her bed and tucked the neck of the fabric around her fingers, drawing it to her nose, inhaling Max’s scent.

Max.

How was she ever going to make it through the next day without Max the werewolf in it?

Chapter Eighteen

JC woke to the dark cool of her bedroom with a hard knot in her belly. As her eyes focused on the room around her, the horror of what happened last night refreshed itself and sank in. Over and over, she replayed leaving the man she’d fallen in love with because she was afraid of him, because she’d lost her sense of reality—because she was too chicken-shit to believe what he’d done was real.

Her phone beeped an incoming text, and she found herself reaching blindly for it, ridiculously hoping it was Max.

But it was only the dog spa, letting her know her boyfriend, Max Adams, had picked up “Fluffy” and paid the bill in full.

Right. Max had picked up his Fluffy understudy. And now there wasn’t just no Max, but there was no Fluffy, either. Her heart was raw, so chafed she couldn’t move…almost couldn’t breathe.

Her phone beeped again but she chose to ignore it. It wouldn’t be Max, and if it was anyone else, she didn’t give a shit.

She just wanted to lie there in her bed. Maybe she’d lie there forever.

* * *

“Get up, J.”

“Go away, Viv. I already told you, I don’t want to go out.”

Viv dropped down on the bed next to her, dragging the blankets away from her tight cocoon of forgetting everything. “You smell like a garbage truck. Get up. Shower. Now.”

Pulling the pillow over her face, she shook her head. “No.”

“I’ll haul your ass in there myself,” she threatened, pulling the pillow from JC’s face, followed by a gasp of horror. “What the hell happened to you? Have you been crying? Honey, what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on. I told you in my text. I don’t feel well.”

Viv stared at her, her beautiful face blurry, probably because she hadn’t had her eyes open this wide in almost five days. “J, this is me. I’ve been your best friend since Mrs. Rubenstein’s third grade science class. You’ve been crying. I know when you’ve been crying. And not just a little. You’ve been crying your eyeballs raw. So either tell me what’s going on, or I’m going digging. You remember what happened the last time I dug to find out why you were crying?”

She remembered. Ashleigh Griswald. She’d picked on JC every day straight for almost an entire year until the day of the fifth grade Science Fair, when her bullying culminated in knocking over JC’s science fair project and stomping on it. Viv had found JC in the corner of the playground, crushed.

After that day, Ashleigh Griswald never even looked at JC. Not even a glance.

Whatever Viv had done to her, however she’d found out, she’d made Ashleigh cringe in utter fear whenever they walked by.

“I remember. You know, you never would tell me what you did to scare Ashleigh senseless.”

“And I never will. But that should be a lesson to you. When I dig, I dig deep. Now spit it out, J. You won’t answer my phone calls, I’ve texted you like I’m some lovesick, obsessive fool for five days straight and you don’t text me back. I expected you to be all sorts of rainbows and love songs when you came back from the sticks with Max, but instead, he’s moved out and you’re here buried in your bed like some troll under a bridge. What gives?”

Max moved out? It was like a punch to her gut. “Max left?”

Viv’s face changed with realization. “Oh, honey. Did you break up? Is that why he moved? Is that why you’re holed up here crying?”

Her chest tightened. How could she possibly tell Viv what she’d experienced? She’d think she was plum loco. “Yes. We broke up.”

Viv grabbed her hand, tucking it into her own. “But why? Everything was going so well.”

“I can’t talk about it. I…”

“Yes, you can. You will. But not until you shower. Get up. Get in the shower. Cleanse before I gag on your stench. Then we’ll have a nice meal, some wine, and we’ll get over this heartbreak just like we have all the others.” She stood and yanked the warm blankets totally off the bed, her eyes determined. “Get. Up.”

She didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to talk. She couldn’t talk about Max. Viv would think she’d gone mad. She could, however, stand a shower.

Maybe a hot shower would help her piece together a good enough explanation to hand Viv. And then she could get right back into bed and sleep this deep, gnawing sadness away.

* * *

Viv smiled at her from the kitchen sink, holding out a glass of wine. “There’s my girl.” She sniffed the air when JC crossed the room to drop her cell on the counter and take the wine. “And you smell more like her, too.”

The scent of Viv’s meatloaf wafted to her nose, making her stomach grumble.

“I heard that,” she said, chuckling. “So we’ve got half an hour before dinner is done. You sit. You talk. I won’t take no for an answer.”

Dropping into a kitchen chair, she put her head down on her folded arms. “I can’t, Viv. I swear, I can’t.”

Viv reached under her arms and cupped her chin, forcing JC to look at her. “Did he hurt you? Did someone in his family hurt you? I sense more than just a broken heart here, and it’s scaring me.”

Tears began to splash down her face all over again. As the words left Viv’s mouth, she knew, bone deep, Max would never hurt her. “No. No, it was nothing like that. Promise.”

“Did he break up with you?”

“No. I think I broke up with him.”

“You’re kidding me, right? Didn’t you tell me you thought he was the one? What happened to change that in a weekend, J? Cold feet? What?”

She’d managed to parse together a reasonable enough explanation while she was in the shower. The trick was keeping it vague so Viv would fall for it. Viv always knew when she was lying. “We’re just different people.”
So different, we’re a different species.

Viv bit her lip, frowning. “Well, that was very practiced and ambiguous. Now tell me the real story.”

She shrugged her shoulders, exhausted from sitting upright for what felt like an eternity. “That’s the whole story.”

Viv looked skeptical. “And you can’t possibly overcome those differences? They’re that monumental?”

She swallowed, her throat tight. “Yes.”

Viv’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re telling me the truth?”

As much of it as I can without harming your faculties.
“Yes. Swear it.”

Her friend’s face went sympathetic. “Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry. This one felt right. But let’s get a good meal in you, and maybe some more wine, and we’ll pick up the pieces and glue Humpty Dumpty back together again. Okay?”

Her throat was raw, but she nodded and said, “Okay.”

Viv pushed away from the table with a nod, rising to move toward the counter. She stopped there, bracing her hands against it—and gasping before fiddling with JC’s phone.

JC sat up. “What’s wrong?”

She grabbed the phone and held it up, pointing to the screen. “This.
This
is what’s wrong.”

“Is it my parents?” Alarmed, she jumped up from the table, her legs weak and shaky from lack of nourishment.

Viv held the phone up in the air. “Oh no. It’s not your parents. It’s your boyfriend. The one you’re so different from. Remember him?”

Now she was
really
alarmed. “I don’t get it.”

Viv popped her ruby-red lips. “Then here, let me help you. And I quote, ‘I’ve been worried about you, J. Really worried. I know the whole werewolf thing scared the shit out of you. But if it’s us you’re afraid of, please don’t be. I need to be sure you believed me when I told you you’re safe. I’d never allow anyone to hurt you. Take care, Max.’”

JC’s mouth fell open, but she snapped it shut. How did she explain that? Her mind raced.

Okay, she had it. She’d just tell Viv this was an example of why they were so different. Because Max was crazy and thought he was a werewolf. Good. Got it.

But Viv held up a finger, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t say another word. I can’t believe I didn’t see it or smell it or whatever I’m supposed to do, but it all makes sense now. I’m still feeling my way around. But remember I told you Max wasn’t like all the other leeches you’ve dated? I couldn’t pinpoint it, but now I know why I said it. I’m just surprised
he
didn’t know it, too. Jesus Christ, J. I can’t believe it.”

“Feeling your way around what? Crazy? Can one feel their way around that? Max is just…unbalanced.”
Good word, J.

Viv began to laugh. Laugh so hard, tears streamed down her face. She doubled over, wrapping her arms around her slender waist.

Okay. It was a little funny if you looked at it from Viv’s perspective, believing Max was one bat shy of a belfry. But it wasn’t
that
funny.

Viv grabbed her arm, snorting and cackling. “Wait. Just listen. Oh, Jesus, J. I have something to tell you.”

* * *

For the second time in a matter of days, JC sat stunned. Only this time it wasn’t nearly as traumatic. Which should strike her as completely whacked but was, instead, oddly comforting. She was adjusting to the insane. There was a certain amount of pride to be had in that.

Viv sat across from her at her kitchen table—her clothes rumpled from what she called her
shift
.

She winced, biting her lower lip. “You okay?”

JC thought about that for a moment. “You mean after you, right before my very eyes, turned into a
cat
? Hid something like this from me for almost all our lives? I feel like I’m living in an episode of
Grimm
.”

“I know it’s a lot, J. But I just wanted to show you that I understand Max—who he is. And if he shifted in front of you, like I suspect he did, I had to prove he’s not some kind of weird science project or government conspiracy. Which is exactly what I know you must’ve been thinking. But this is all very real.”

That’s when the events of the weekend tumbled from her lips. Because she needed so desperately to unload, she relayed everything that happened at Max’s mother’s that night. Shared her terror, her disbelief, her fear.

“All my life, since we met back in grade school, I’ve wanted to tell you, J. But I couldn’t. I didn’t really understand it myself until the last several years. I began to do some research on the Internet. I stalked online forums, most of which are complete bullshit and full of posers, but some people had some decent information. I found a few others in hiding like me.”

This time, words didn’t take as long to form on JC’s tongue. Watching Viv morph into a cat had been amazing and awe-inspiring, and not nearly as frightening as Max’s change had been. Viv was a petite, very white, very furry cat. “So when I call you the Crazy Cat Lady, you really
are
the crazy cat lady.”

Viv barked a laugh. “I kinda am.”

“So you don’t eat people when you’re in Crazy Cat Lady form? Cast spells, lure people into your cult?”

“Have I eaten you yet? Don’t be silly. I’m just like you, honey. The difference being, I can shift into a cat.”

“Right. No big deal.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to minimize. You know I’m adopted, right?”

JC nodded, still feeling as if she’d stepped into an episode of
Fringe
. “Yes. When you were just a baby.”

“Right. I’m assuming my parents were shifters. That’s what we call ourselves. Anyway, I didn’t know I could do this until I was seven or so, and it just happened. Out of the blue. I was petrified, and I sure as hell didn’t have anyone to ask what was happening to me. So, I told no one. Back in the day, we didn’t have the Internet to surf, looking for answers. Maude and Ben would’ve locked me up and thrown away the key. So somehow, I learned to control it—enough so it wouldn’t freak the parents out. I love them. They’ve been amazing parents. I didn’t want to lose them and live my life out in some loon lockup.”

Viv’s parents. It always cracked JC up that Viv called her parents by their first names. But sadness swirled in her heart for seven-year-old Viv. To be afraid the people you loved and trusted the most would shun you… it had to keep you in a constant state of anxiety.

“So you hid it all this time? It must have been so hard on you, Viv. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you. I don’t know if I could’ve helped, but I would’ve tried.” Regret slithered in. She hadn’t been there for Max, either—when all he’d asked for was acceptance.

“What else can you do with something like this, J, but hide? I could have done what Max did. Look where that got him—dumped. I didn’t want to lose my best friend. So I hid it. I found a couple of people here in Jersey like me—
really
like me—and we see each other every once in a while at our secret kitty meets. I’d love to know more shifters, even if they’re not cats like me. It’s nice to know you’re not such a freak, because for a long time, I thought that was the case.”

JC grabbed her hand, pulling it to her cheek. “As long as you promise not to eat me, you can still be my best friend. And I’m sorry. So sorry. After the way I reacted over Max, I can’t say showing me would have garnered a different reaction. Now that this has become more real, I feel like the shittiest friend ever. I feel like there’s this chunk of you that you automatically knew I’d reject.”

Viv squeezed her fingers tight. “Well, Max took care of that for me, didn’t he? You’re all broken in now.”

“So what do you know about werewolves?” she asked tentatively with trepidation in her heart.

Viv sipped her wine. “I know that Max is telling you the truth when he says he’d never hurt you. I’ve never hurt you, have I? It’s a law punishable by death in werewolf circles, I hear. And I’m guessing when he told you he loved you, he meant it. He pretended to be your dog—
your dog
—because he couldn’t stand to see you cry. That’s not like bringing you flowers to cheer you up when you have the flu, honey. It’s much bigger. The question is, can you live with it? Does it change how much you love him?”