Little Wolf (17 page)

“Tonight,” Nathaniel agreed, raising his voice, and Tim almost tripped again because all he could think was how adorable Nathaniel was talking at the same volume, probably to make Tim feel less weird.
Adorable
. Tim had no idea what was wrong with him, though he knew Carl would be only too happy to tell him if he asked, not that he ever would.

He wasn’t that stupid.

A
SUDDEN
increase in customers in the gift shop meant Tim spent most of his time answering some of their truly pointless questions, and he didn’t have a moment to think about his own. He was beginning to wonder if people weren’t inventing reasons to talk to him, which was paranoid even for someone who had spent years on the run. But it didn’t keep him from glancing up nervously whenever someone came in through the gift shop entrance, or jumping when an especially tall were in a suit lingered in the shop without buying anything.

Tim always expected Luca to be the one to find him, but perhaps Luca had been replaced, or his uncle had hired someone else to find him first. Tim stared at the stranger without moving, his legs frozen, his heart in his throat, until the were gave him a strange look and finally left.

The stranger went into the café, where he almost immediately stopped to stare in wonder at a human sitting by himself. The human, Mikhail, who ran the historical society along with some of the town council members, and who ate alone every day, glared up at him and opened his mouth, probably to yell at the were for being creepy, but then inexplicably stayed quiet.

Tim eavesdropped without shame, but it wasn’t much of a conversation. The were said, “You,” in a slow, startled tone, and Mikhail whispered, “Oh my,” in the most awed voice Tim had ever heard, before holding out his hand for the were to take, and sniff, and continue to hold.

They left shortly after that, neither so much as murmuring another word. Robin’s Egg smiled after them and cleared Mikhail’s garden burger away. She winked at Tim when she caught him watching.

Tim returned to paying attention to every single person who came in the gift shop entrance. He probably would have started growling, he was so tense and confused, but every time he turned around Carl was there with some comment about the news, or Albert or one of the kids would come in to bug him, or Robin’s Egg would bring him something he hadn’t asked for.

He didn’t get time to start reading any of the guidebooks that might have answers, and at the tourist price, no way was he buying one to take to Nathaniel’s to read. He got fed up with trying by early afternoon, and seeing that Carl was about to get up and head home for the day, or go wherever he went in the afternoons, Tim shouted out a question before he was done handing someone their change.

A tourist, he guessed, though Tim was already dividing the tourists into categories: those who came here looking for sex, those who came looking for love, and those who acted like they were in town as a lark, which meant they were probably looking for love too; they were just more guarded about it. They came in all forms, and all of them seemed more knowledgeable of the town’s traditions than Tim.

“All right, old man, spill it,” Tim called out at Carl, startling a few people milling around the T-shirts. He could already tell they weren’t going to buy them. Those shirts were the kind of thing people bought on their way out of town, not when they were waiting for a werewolf to pop up and bone them. Carl was adjusting his hat, which meant he was ready to go. Tim was too. He’d come in early to unload a shipment of postcards and key chains. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t stay late to grill Carl. “What is going on around here?”

Carl didn’t so much as twitch or ask what Tim was talking about. “Same thing that goes on in lots of places every day,” Carl told him. “Only it involves you, so it’s louder and more annoying.” The nervous laugh that followed that statement could have come from one of the tourists who kept asking Tim stupid-ass questions, except when Tim looked over, Albert was sitting down at Carl’s table as if he’d been invited. Tim didn’t know when Albert and Carl had bonded, but they were both in the café often enough it made sense.

“Is everyone best friends in this town?” Tim demanded of the ceiling.

“Looking for a friend?” someone answered him, and Tim blinked and glanced over at the twenty-something man considering him. For a second Tim froze, since a were was looking at him—a were was looking at him like
that
—and it wasn’t a baby wolf, and he wasn’t crowding Tim into a corner and baring his teeth. Tim dropped his head to consider himself, his flannel, his T-shirt, and then the other were, who was tall, although shorter than Nathaniel, and blond.

“I got some, thanks.” Tim jerked his head toward Albert and Carl, then turned to face their identical expressions of surprise. Maybe Tim wasn’t supposed to refer to them as friends yet. He wouldn’t know. He’d never had friends before. He hurried past his faux pas. “I bet you have to deal with that too,” he said to Albert instead, since Albert was of legal age and attractive. Albert appeared even more surprised, as if the idea of someone hitting on him was unheard of.

“You don’t like it?” Albert scratched his head. It brought Tim up short. He whipped his head around to look at the blond were as he left the shop, mostly at the guy’s ass, as he realized he had just blown a chance to get a piece of that. Another were, someone Tim wouldn’t have to be careful with, provided he wouldn’t laugh at Tim for not knowing what he was doing or turn out to be another Luca.

“Yeah.” Tim said it because it could mean anything, then cleared his throat and rang up a sale of some overpriced “silver” handcuffs while waiting for his face to cool. The wink he got after giving the customer a receipt was just perfect. Tim stalked to the edge of the shop and crossed his arms as he considered Carl and Albert, who were watching him like his very own fan club of grumpy old man and bored teenager. “
Same thing that goes on in a lot of places
,” he repeated Carl’s words. “What does that mean?”

Carl readjusted the brim of his hat. “I’ll grant you it’s a trifle old-fashioned, especially considering how things will get around here come August.”

“
What
is a trifle old-fashioned?” Tim did his best to be patient.

“I like it,” Albert chimed in. “It’s always seemed romantic to me.” Tim turned on him. Albert was practically glowing with the “romance” of whatever he was talking about, so Tim wished Carl would keep talking. Carl could be counted on to be sensible.

“You stay in here any more, Albert, and I’m going to ask Robin’s Egg to hire you to deal with these people for me,” Tim threatened idly while waiting for Carl to speak.

Albert perked up. “Really? With you?”

Tim caught a glimpse of Albert’s wide eyes and intense expression and almost stumbled into the counter. “Where’s Graham?” he asked without thinking, putting his hands to his face. Carl, damn him, was smirking at him now.

Asking about Graham seemed to deflate Albert. He sagged into his chair. “In school, taking finals we all know he’ll pass easily,” he said with a sigh and then a disgruntled murmur. “Not that I care.”

Sometimes Tim forgot Graham was in high school. Albert seemed younger than Graham, despite being eighteen and taking a few classes at the junior college about forty minutes away. Tim didn’t know anything about teenagers, but now that he thought about it, he supposed in a small town most of the kids would know one another and hang out despite their age differences. But Albert still seemed out of place. The rest of the group were in school, yet Albert seemed to spend his time waiting for them, or maybe just Graham.

“Did you and Graham grow up here together?” It might explain why they were so close.

Albert shook his head. “My dad and I came here a few years ago after my mom left. He works with the forest service. But Graham has been here his whole life.” There was a hint of something in the air when Albert said “Graham,” a scent not quite there, and Tim wasn’t good enough to trace it. But he leapt on the last part of what Albert had said.

“So, can I ask about the traditions?” He looked over his shoulder for any weres who would hear him regardless of how much he whispered, but the people around him seemed mostly human, or at least, not weres. “The, uh, practice, that you all do as teenagers. Is that true? Oh shit.”

Carl put his head down on the top of his table and started chortling to himself, the bastard. Tim made a face at him but surrendered to the inevitable.

“The sex practice,” he said directly. “Because it makes sense. Sex with the possibility of claws and teeth and brute strength. You’d have to prepare and practice on others like you, weres who can’t really be hurt. That doesn’t seem very old-fashioned to me. That seems pretty forward thinking. You should hear what Scott’s mom thinks about it, let me tell you.”

Albert slid out of his seat and came over to Tim. Tim raised his head and remembered all over again that Albert was taller than him. Even though everyone was taller than him, he kept forgetting that. It was how Albert stood around him, like he was waiting for Tim to tell him what to do.

“Do you want practice?” Albert smiled at him and put a hand on his arm. Tim stopped breathing, completely and totally taken by surprise, though he knew he shouldn’t have been. Carl’s laughter ended with a painful hitching sound, and in the momentary quiet, Tim heard a new heartbeat and turned his head to stare at Nathaniel.

“I think there’s something in the air today,” Tim remarked blankly, aware his blush from before hadn’t left him. “Spring, or something.” The surge of sex smells from the customers around him at Nathaniel’s arrival was distracting and irritating and probably the reason Nathaniel was distinctly unhappy.

On Nathaniel that meant he was even more still than usual and his eyes were narrowed. He wasn’t speaking. His scent had an edge. The people ogling him didn’t seem to notice.

“There’s always something in the air in this town. Thankfully I can’t smell it.” Carl got up and took a wide step around Nathaniel. “Sheriff.” He bobbed his head in acknowledgment, then took off as if he’d spotted a demon he owed money to. Nathaniel didn’t glance at him.

Tim waited a second, then narrowed his eyes in return, because he hadn’t done anything wrong that he knew of. “I was asking about town traditions,” he explained, but if anything, that made Nathaniel look even more unhappy. Tim’s heart thumped against his ribs, and Albert took his hand from his arm. He gave Tim, and then Nathaniel, a small apologetic smile.

“I, um, should go. But thanks, Tim. Let me know what Robin’s Egg says, okay?” He gave Tim an unnecessary wave, then almost walked into Nathaniel. “Sorry, Sheriff.” He ducked his head and then had to go around Nathaniel, because Nathaniel wasn’t budging.

“Wait, what Robin’s Egg says about what?” Tim called out after Albert. His threat of employment had been taken as an offer. Typical. “Do people even listen to me?” he asked but answered himself. “No, no they don’t. Bad day?”

Nathaniel watched Albert go.

“You’re here early.” Tim attempted a different topic, trying to figure out if Nathaniel was mad. Nathaniel was like a statue, albeit a statue of some kind of possibly wrathful god. Tim wished he weren’t the sort of person to provoke a wrathful god. He snapped his fingers. “Hey!”

Nathaniel turned to him, his eyes glowing with some emotion that didn’t seem like anything close to anger. A discreet sniff gave Tim no new information, except for a zigzag flash of heat, like electricity, and then warm, blood-like
hurt
. He looked Nathaniel over for injuries, and when he didn’t find any, stared up into those fabulous eyes.

“You were asking questions about the town?” Nathaniel’s voice made Tim’s pulse skip into an even faster rhythm. To cover, Tim focused on the customers hanging around to leer at Nathaniel. He was getting real tired of their shit.

“Ask him out or leave already,” he barked, scowling at them for wasting his time, and because Nathaniel was hot but he was more than a piece of meat in a room full of hungry carnivores. “You know the rules,” he snapped a moment later when one of them tried to argue. Tim wasn’t even sure the town
had
rules until that moment, but the others all seemed to know them, because with a lot less grumbling, they left. He watched them go with a satisfying feeling of accomplishment, knowing his uncle would be proud.

For all that Nathaniel had criticized the weres clinging to the so-called old ways, this town seemed to have plenty of its own traditions. Tim had noticed it was the tourists who usually made the first move—the human and non-were tourists, that was. The weres who came into town, even the weres who lived here, were
much
more direct with one another. Yet when a human or an out-of-town being was involved, the weres would approach them without ever actually asking them out. The non-weres had to do the actual, out loud, verbal asking. That seemed like something that ought to scare the humans, weres and rejection in one big package, but Tim supposed if they came here, then they accepted that the weres would already know they were attracted to them. If they couldn’t manage more than awkward gawping at Nathaniel, then they could fuck off.