Authors: Tammy Blackwell
Tags: #Young Adult, #Paranormal & Supernatural, #Werewolves
“Trust me, no one wants to know how Charlie would react if I brought you home smelling of Alex.”
I lifted the Spider-Man shirt to my nose. All I could smell was a citrusy fabric softener. “You smell him on me?” Was that part of a Seerʼs ability? Could they smell Shifters?
“Of course not, but to Jase and Charlie youʼll reek of wolf. You need a really long shower and some clean clothes.”
Talley Matthews, Shifter Expert.
Yep, I was still pissed. I concentrated on drawing deep breaths in through my nose and letting it out of my mouth slowly. “Fine,” I said through clenched teeth. “Letʼs go.” Alex intercepted me at the door. “Scout, wait.” I stopped, but didnʼt look up. “Youʼre not wearing shoes.”
Crap. He was right. Where were my shoes? For that matter, where were my clothes?
“Liam washed everything, but youʼll have to rewash it to cancel out the the eau de wolf.” He did the whole stare at the feet, chew on the lip thing. “Do you want to come with me to get everything?”
“Sure.” What was I supposed to do? Stand there stubbornly and demand that he bring me my freshly laundered clothes?
I followed him to the laundry room, where he closed the door and unleashed his heart melting look of sincerity on me. “Iʼm sorry.”
“My best friend is a Seer and you didnʼt tell me.”
“She begged me not to.”
“And you hugged her. And held her hand.”
“I hugged her because she was clearly upset and, in case you havenʼt noticed, Talley is a bit of a hugger.”
“And I guess you had to hold her hand because talking on the phone requires a ton of moral support?”
Alexʼs eyes darted towards the living room where a voice called out, “Go ahead. Tell her.” I would have wondered about Seers and super-hearing, but since I could hear her mutter, “Like I could stop you,” I attributed her ability to eavesdrop on thin walls.
“Do you remember when I was telling you about Seers and I said that some of them could See what you were thinking just by touching you?”
“Yeah. Thoughts, emotions, deepest secrets.” They were the Seers that most freaked me out. I liked for my private thoughts, emotions, and secrets to stay private. The idea that someone could know those things about me without my permission was not exactly comforting.
“Talley is that kind of Seer. Theyʼre called Soul Seers.”
“Or, as Jase prefers, a Touch-and-See,” Talley added from the living room.
“And that explains why you were holding hands how exactly?” I didnʼt really care which one of them answered. I assumed that Alex had pulled me into the laundry room for a private conversation, but that had proven to be pointless.
“Talley just happens to be an extremely powerful
Touch-and-See
. Most of them can only glean random images or thoughts from the people they touch. They canʼt control it. Little Miss Diligent in there has been conducting experiments and has figured out a way to take only what she wants and block out everything else. I donʼt think sheʼs got it down to an exact science yet, but if youʼre thinking direct thoughts, like an elaborate lie as to your girlfriendʼs current location so that her family doesnʼt know that sheʼs been hanging out in your bed all morning, she gets the message loud and clear.”
“So you were just telling her what to say to Charlie?” It made sense. He wouldnʼt have been able to speak out loud without Charlie hearing him. And somehow knowing that Talley hadnʼt suddenly morphed into an expert liar overnight made me feel better.
For the first time since Talley arrived, Alex smiled as he nodded his head in agreement.
“And you couldnʼt have touched her shoulder or something?” I tried to sound annoyed, but my lips were turning up in response to Alexʼs newly elevated mood.
He stepped up and placed a hand on the small of my back. “You know, Iʼm finding the whole jealousy act very endearing.”
“Iʼm sorry about the wall,” I said. Now that my anger was diminishing I had the emotional capacity to feel very foolish over my earlier outburst. “Iʼll pay to have it fixed.”
“Donʼt worry about it. Werewolf homes have a tendency to attract destruction. A little hole is nothing compared to the time Liam ripped the kitchen counter off the cabinets and threw it through the French doors.”
Was that supposed to make me feel better? Knowing that Liam was strong enough to rip up a kitchen counter with his bare hands? “Oh good. Maybe heʼll decide weʼre kindred spirits and stop hating me.”
Alex just laughed and used his favorite diversionary technique. The kissing was just getting good when Talley called from the living room to remind us we had less than two hours before the coyotes came looking for me.
The car was silent as Talley carefully navigated the pothole riddled road that led back to the highway. I had never actually been in the Lake View Trailer Park before. I recognized Garrett Carrowʼs ghetto-wannabe 1984 Lincoln parked outside a trailer that sported Transformer sheets in the place of curtains and automatically slumped down in my seat. A couple of lots down from Garrettʼs place I watched a girl that graduated the year I was a Freshman try to juggle her three small children as she unlocked her car. I was too busy making sure that she didnʼt drop the infant on its head to hear what Talley had said. “Sorry, what was that?”
“I asked if Alex was a good kisser.”
Of all the things we needed to discuss she wanted to talk about Alexʼs make-out skills? “I donʼt kiss and tell.”
“Since when?”
“Since you decided not to See and tell.”
I thought that would shame her into discontinuing her current line of questioning, but she was relentless. “At least promise me that youʼre using protection.” It took a few minutes for me to answer since I managed to suck the piece of gum I was chewing down my windpipe. Talley had to stop the car and pound on my back a couple of times before I was able to quit coughing.
“Weʼre not doing anything that requires protection!” I said, adding “thinks Iʼm a ho” onto my list of reasons to be angry with Talley.
“Really?” she said, finally pulling onto the main road. “Because Alex let a memory of what you guys were doing before I got there slip while I was talking to Joi, and --”
“We were making out!” Holy cow, was everyone privy to my romantic forays? Maybe I should start charging for the show.
Talley stared thoughtfully out of the windshield. “Do you love him?”
“Have you met Alex? I would be crazy not to love him.”
“That doesnʼt really answer my question.”
I sighed dramatically, collapsing back against the headrest. “Maybe? I mean, I care about him a lot. Heʼs like fifteen shades of awesome, and when Iʼm with him it just seems right. He makes me happy. Like, really, truly happy. I
think
I love him but...”
“But Charlie.”
The Methodist church was letting out as we drove by, reminding me I had skipped Sunday morning services to roll around in bed with a half-naked boy. As if I needed another reason to feel like a bad person. “Yeah. But Charlie,” I said. “I mean, if I was truly in love with Alex, I wouldnʼt still feel this way about Charlie, would I?” Talley attempted to pass the octogenarian driving 25 mph in front of us, but gave up when he made it clear he required both lanes of traffic. “Scout Donovan, I canʼt believe that you, of all people, would actually buy into that one true love stuff.”
“Why not?” Was this another one of those ʻScout is unable to connect with real peopleʼ
things?
“Your mom and dad are the best example in the world of how itʼs possible to truly love more than one person.”
“They are?”
“Of course they are. Your dad loves Becca, right?”
“Obviously.” Mom and Dad rarely fight and are always doing really sappy stuff, like holding hands and kissing each other for no good reason while theyʼre cooking dinner. Itʼs unnatural.
“But he still loves your biological mother, doesnʼt he?” My parents donʼt talk about their first marriages often, but once a month Dad goes to the graveyard to put fresh flowers by my motherʼs tombstone. Sometimes I go with him, but not often. I feel like Iʼm imposing on their personal time. He talks to her when heʼs there, telling her about all the things going on with our lives, and how much he misses her. “Yes, he still loves her.”
“Falling in love with Becca didnʼt make him love Jennifer less. And loving Jennifer doesnʼt change the fact that heʼs head over heels for Becca.” Talley made a left onto her street. “There is no such thing as one true love. Thatʼs just fairy tale stuff.”
#
Actually dead mermaids and unconscious girls impregnated by already married princes were fairy tale stuff , but I doubted Talley would want me pointing that out.
“So youʼre trying to say that I could be in love with Charlie and Alex?”
“Iʼm saying that you do
love Charlie and Alex.”
“Then Iʼm an idiot,” I mumbled. She was right, of course. Talley was pretty much always right. Maybe I had known it all along, but talking about it made it more real somehow.
“How does falling in love make you an idiot?”
“Falling in love always makes people idiots. I just have the distinction of being a double-idiot.” We were rapidly approaching Talleyʼs house, for which I was grateful. I was ready for this conversation to be over. “On one hand, Iʼm in love with someone who I have to lie about and sneak around to be with because, if anyone ever found out that weʼre together, it could cause some sort of crazy Shape Shifter epic battle. On the other hand, Iʼm in love with my brotherʼs cousin who thinks of me as the little sister he never had. And letʼs not ignore the fact that theyʼre both classic B-movie monsters. If thatʼs not idiotic, then I really donʼt know what is.”
“Youʼre not an idiot.”
“What am I then?”
Talley threw the car in park. “Youʼre a human, Scout. Congratulations on finally joining us.” She placed a consoling hand on my arm. “Now, as a human you may experience a wide range of emotions in addition to the annoyance you are used to feeling. Do not be alarmed. While somewhat baffling and occasionally painful, these emotions are normal.” I narrowed my eyes. “You are turning into such a smart ass.”
“I learned it from the best,” she said with a wink.
“Iʼm going to pretend youʼre referring to Jase.”
“If it makes you feel better.” She started to open the car door, but stopped and faced me.
“We have to go see my mother.”
I re-clicked my seatbelt. “Never mind. Take me home.” I would much rather face an irate Charlie than a disappointed Mrs. Matthews.
Talley reached over and undid my seatbelt. “Too late. Anyway, sheʼll be happy to see you.
Sheʼs spent half the day certain you had been kidnapped by an online predator.” I reluctantly got out of the car. “What does your mom See?” Hopefully it wasnʼt whether or not you were lying, although that seemed like the most Mrs. Matthews appropriate power in the world.
“Colors and patterns,” Talley said, opening the door to the garage her mother had converted into a workshop. “Not as flashy as some other powers, but infinitely more profitable.” Mrs. Matthews looked up from her sewing machine. If she suspected anything, it was masked by the tiny prisms of multi-colored light dancing across her face.
Mrs. Matthews was a seamstress who specialized in shiny. She received orders from all over the world to make outfits for gymnast, ice skaters, and drum majors. If it required sequins, Delia Matthews was
the
seamstress to hire.
“Scout, good.” She stood and managed to look much taller than her five feet and four inches. “There is something I need you to try on.”
She clomped over to one of the creepy mannequins that sat in the middle of the room. The workshop was strictly off limits when we were kids and I had very few reasons to visit her private sanctuary since then. It was a shock on the senses. Bright reams of fabric lined the walls in every imaginable color. An aisle of shelves held bins filled with millions of beads and sequins in various sizes and shapes. The smell of the dyes burned my nose and my ears took offense to the Bluegrass music she had blaring.
“Here, put this on,” she said, handing me a strange corset looking contraption made out of a light bronze satin.
I wasnʼt really in the mood to disrobe and figure out all the wired hooks on the bizarre Victorian torture device, but it was preferable to arguing with Mrs. Matthews.
“Hmmm...your breasts have grown again, so Iʼll have to let out the top, but other than that itʼs fine.” She reached up and, in less than ten seconds, undid the hooks I had wrestled with for five minutes. “Youʼll need to come over and let me do another fitting in a couple of weeks.”
“A fitting for what?”
“Your prom dress,” she said as she reattached the thing to a faceless mannequin.
“My what?” I looked to Talley for an explanation, but she was sorting through a Mason jar full of buttons. “Thatʼs very nice of you, Mrs. Matthews, but Iʼm not going to prom.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, really. Iʼm not. I donʼt do school dances.”
Mrs. Matthews leveled me with her eyes. “Youʼre doing this one. Talley has a date and youʼre going to go along to look after her.”
Talley had a date? To prom? With who? Did she tell me
anything
?
“Okay, weʼve got to leave now,” Talley suddenly said, abandoning her buttons. “Miles to go and all that. Weʼll be in my room if you need us.”
Talley was ushering me out the door as Mrs. Matthews called out to tell me I should come by next week to make sure the bodice was right before she moved on to the skirt. In my state of confusion I heard myself agreeing to do so.
***
Seriously? Youʼre going to prom with James Kiplinger? Youʼre dragging me to prom for James Kiplinger?”
“And this is the reason I didnʼt tell you sooner. I knew you would freak.” Of course I was freaking. I was a good friend. Good friends freak when you decide to commit social suicide and damn yourself to a night of awkward date hell.