Only a few days after that meeting with Austin, Lucas found himself back at the garage for another walkthrough. He had gone to Destiny and had formally accepted the job, which Destiny had accepted with an odd look. Lucas knew that, in Destiny’s mind, he had already agreed to do this, but Lucas had to say it aloud for himself.

The two of them had sat down and talked about the specifics of what was going to be done. Destiny had a list of things he wanted to accomplish, most of which were items that Lucas had already noticed as things that needed to be done anyway. However, they each had a few specifics in mind the other hadn’t considered, and they also got down to discussing those.

After that, Lucas went through the list and broke the particulars into specific projects, seeing what the best way would be to organize this while causing the least amount of disturbance to the members of the two packs. It was inevitable that there would be a hitch or two in the daily life of the community, but Lucas had learned from his father that people appreciated it more when they had to adapt less—especially when they were having to adapt to something which was already out of their control.

Talking over the parameters of the job made him feel better. When he stopped doubting himself and just sat down to work, everything he had learned came back to him so easily.

He even earned praise from Destiny for his clarity and communicativeness. Both of them seemed surprised about that.

Destiny had made this list. Now Lucas was plotting, planning, and marking down estimations for materials and times. He was completely absorbed in the work, his mind running a mile a minute while he struggled to keep up with it in his notes. Unleashed, he had a thousand different ideas. There was nothing to hold him back now.

So he thought.

Soft footsteps approached from behind, coming directly towards him. Ignoring them for a moment, Lucas finished jotting down the last thought he’d had. Then, he turned to greet whoever had come up to him, although he was personally confused as to why anyone would come to him in particular. He was a member of the pack without any real authority. All he could do was answer questions about the job he was doing, and he felt like someone would go to Destiny for that.

None of that mattered in the end, as he found himself facing Austin. The wolf stood there in his blue police uniform, which was again stretched across his frame. He looked fine as hell, and Lucas felt a warm stirring in the pit of his stomach at this realization. He pushed the feeling aside, though. He couldn’t let any echoing attraction from their previous romance color this interaction, because he had an idea this wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Austin gave him a smile. There was warmth behind the the expression, though he looked as if he was trying to stay businesslike. “Hard at work?”

“The work could be harder,” Lucas replied. There was a teasing tone to his voice that he hadn’t meant to put there. It had just happened, quite against his will. It seemed like whether or not he wanted to appear attracted to Austin, his body was going to make its own decisions. Being out of control like this was how Austin had always made him feel, and it could be a little scary.

Austin flashed a brief grin, though he quickly wrestled it under his control again.

Lucky.

“Did you have a question or something?” Lucas asked.

“Actually, I had a few questions.” Austin reached into his pocket and brought out that notebook. This time, Lucas noted, he had a pen. He held the point poised over the paper, ready to start writing things down. “If you don’t mind?”

Lucas' insides trembled, but he opened his mouth and prepared to be a good citizen. A muscle at his hip jumped anxiously.

And jumped again.

“Oh!” he said, suddenly realizing that it was his cell phone buzzing in his pocket. Reaching down, he grabbed it, and looked at the screen.

Opposite emotions dueled within him. Eagerness, as always, because it was his father calling him, and he loved his father. He enjoyed speaking with him, enjoyed spending their time together.

And dread, for a reason he couldn’t really identify. It was just something in the pit of his gut, a dark and roiling wariness.

Lucas held up the phone. “I need to answer this real quick. Do you mind?”

A flicker of impatience crossed Austin’s face, there and then gone. He dropped his arms, letting the notebook dangle uselessly at his side. “No. Not at all. Go ahead.”

“I’ll just be a minute.”

I hope that’s true.

Leaving Austin where he stood, Lucas hurried off down the nearest hallway so he wouldn’t be overheard. He didn’t know why he did that, only that it felt like the right thing to do.

Once he judged himself to be far enough away, Lucas brought the phone up to his ear. “Dad?”

“Hey, poodle.”

Lucas smiled a little. He had always been in possession of very curly hair, which had led to his father’s nickname for him. It started out as a tease and had then melded into something natural. “Hi, Dad. What’s going on? You never call at this time. Shouldn’t you be busy?”

His father, Franklin Pale, kept a rigorous schedule in all aspects of his life. It took something very important for him to deviate from the course he had set for himself. Somehow, despite the strictness of it all, the older wolf lived in a very serene manner. His schedule was not something to abide by. It was his life itself, his haven. When everything else was going wrong, he could still rely on things happening at certain times.

Lucas often wished to have such a schedule as that, to take such solace in his routines. All his previous attempts had failed. As someone who had to go out and find his own work, any schedule he might try to keep was subject to change at any point in time.

“I should be busy, shouldn’t I.” It wasn’t a question. “But something’s come up, and I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”

Uh- oh.

“I’ll try to answer, but I can’t promise anything.”

“No pressure. If you don’t know, you don’t know. That place I get lumber from. The only place I get it from.”

“I know it.”

He knew it, but he had forgotten the name. It was like listening to a song so much and enjoying it, loving it each time, and then realizing he couldn’t remember the title, just the lyrics. He knew his father loved that place, had a long history with it, and he knew that he himself had been planning on going there.

“They closed.”

“What?” Lucas blurted out. “They closed?”

“They closed.” His father’s voice was flat and bitter, with a dangerous undercurrent of anger. “I got ahold of Jim. You remember Jim.”

The owner.

“He said they weren’t closed for good, but they couldn’t currently do any business because of some fucking police investigation. They were given a court-ordered hold on all transactions current and future.”

Which meant anyone who had been waiting on a shipment was out of luck, and anyone in the future would be turned away.

“Jim said he couldn’t give any further information, but he’d get back to me when things got straightened out. He’s lucky I’ll go back to him. A lot of his customers won’t. And that’s a damn shame. No loyalty in this day and age.”

Lucas couldn’t really believe what he was hearing. “I had no idea about any of that,” he whispered. “That project you’re working on…”

“Yeah,” Franklin grunted. “It fucking sucks. I’ll get through it, though. Always do. And if you need a second choice, I’ve got some recommendations for you. But we’ll talk about that later. You don’t know anything, for sure?”

He thought of Austin, doing his investigations. Something twisted inside him, and it was not a very nice feeling at all. It was a deep and red sort of feeling, hot like fire.

“I’m not sure,” he said. His hand down by his side clenched into a fist. “If I find anything out, I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll do the same. Take care of yourself, poodle.”

“Love you, Dad.”

Lucas held his phone out in front of himself, watching the screen as the call ended. The hot feeling inside him grew in intensity, making it feel like his stomach was boiling. He had never been so mad before, not in all his years of being alive.

He knew whose fault it was that this had happened. He knew very well who had been responsible for the stand-still that was affecting his father and himself in a smaller and sideways sort of way.

“Lucas? You okay?” Austin called over to him, approaching slowly. His brown eyes were wide with what seemed to be genuine concern, but Lucas was not going to be fooled any longer by this. He wasn’t going to be taken for a fool by this alpha who thought he could do whatever he wanted just because he was a police officer.

“Don’t get near me,” Lucas said. As far as threats went, it was pretty pitiful. Nevertheless, Austin stopped in his tracks. Surprise replaced the concern on his face. Lucas dropped his phone back into his pocket and stood his ground, though deep beneath the red fire of anger he was also afraid. Austin was technically an authority figure. This behavior could very well backfire on him.

He cared much less about that than he normally would. Times had changed.

“What’s up?” Austin asked. “Who was that on the phone?”

Lucas pulled in a shaking breath. He clenched his hands into fists and fought to uncurl his fingers again, unsuccessfully. “I think you know very well who was on the phone. It was my dad.”

“How would I know that?” Austin’s gaze was steady and clear. He seemed honestly baffled. Lucas wasn’t fooled. Whether or not it was in the air for him to see, to scent, to taste, he knew there was some deflection going on here.

“Dad told me that one of the companies he uses has been put to a court-ordered standstill.” Lucas narrowed his eyes. He was shaking now, the fire inside him making him quiver like heat waves. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? You’re just the cop investigating supply companies. This couldn’t possible have been your doing.”

Austin’s eyes suddenly sharpened. He nodded a little to himself. “I’m really sorry if that affected your dad, but it had to be done. I can’t let anything happen until I’m sure they’re good.”

“That’s an abuse of your power!” Lucas snapped. His hackles were up now. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. “You’re just a rookie cop doing this because no one else wanted to bother with it! You could have just seized the records! You didn’t have to grind everything to a halt!”

“You don’t know anything about what I had to do,” Austin growled. Unlike Lucas, who was raising his voice, Austin’s tone only grew lower and lower. He was also shaking, now. If they had been true wolves, they would have been circling each other, searching for an opening, an opportunity to attack. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a police officer. You don’t know procedure.”

“I do know that stuff like this doesn’t happen unless there’s a damn good reason for it!” Lucas tossed his hands into the air. He turned away, wanting to break off this conversation, then whirled back. “You’re supposed to help people, not make their lives harder! I thought maybe I could trust you after the way you helped me when my bike was busted on the side of the road, but now I see you’re just a bully. You don’t really care. You just want to look good.”

Something about Austin changed, almost seeming to wilt. However, it wasn’t a change made for the better. Rather, the alpha drew himself up, squaring his shoulders as if bracing himself. Adding to his defensiveness was the way a mask seemed to drop down over his face, concealing all his emotions.

The mask could do nothing for his voice, which was tense and tight. “You don’t know anything.”

“I do know I have the right to refuse to talk to you. And you can’t do anything about it without acting like an asshole, not that that’s stopped you before.” Lucas turned on his heel and walked away. Everything inside him was shaking, trembling, vibrating. His stomach was a hellish pit of flames, seeming to shrivel up his being like charred pieces of paper, until he was taut and tense. He could feel his muscles, his tendons, tightened up from the anger inside him. It was almost painful. At the same time, it felt good. It gave him purpose.

He was very, very worried that what he had said would come back to bite him. He was only an ordinary citizen who had mouthed off to a police officer. Historically, that just didn’t end well. At any second now, Austin would come storming up behind him, accusing him of being antagonizing, of interfering with his investigation by walking away.

“Lucas!” Austin called after him. He sounded stricken suddenly. That was all. The cop didn’t follow. He didn’t yell again. He didn’t do anything.

Lucas reached a staircase and mounted it, wanting to put as much distance between himself and the cop as possible. That was just like the bullies of the world, to be all bark and no bite. Austin could say whatever he wanted because of the badge he wore, but as far as personal authority, he had none.

Lucas sheltered in one of the common areas on the second floor of the garage, gripping his notes tightly in his lap. His palms were clammy, and his papers grew moist on the outer edges from his nervous sweat. There were other wolves in the common area, passing through on their way to other places, or just lingering to enjoy themselves; they didn’t pay much attention to him, and he was glad. He felt tongue-tied, like he wouldn’t have been able to form a coherent sentence if he wanted to.

No one came to fetch him. Austin didn’t bother him. If the cop was still in the building, Lucas would be surprised.

As the minutes went on, Lucas went from angry to nervous, and he was able to admit to himself that he had acted a little too angrily. Most of his displeasure and anger had been for Franklin, for the inconvenience this would bring his father. Lucas was very protective of his father. To have something—anything—go wrong for the man who had raised him all on his own, well, he hated the very idea.

Then, there was anger that he himself had been inconvenienced. He had really been hoping to get through all of this in the best way possible. This wouldn’t make a difference in the long run, but it was so inconvenient to have to change tactics.

Then, in such a small and secretive amount he hardly wanted to admit its existence, there was a sense of betrayal.

Maybe this is my chance to really branch out on my own. Instead of using Dad’s connections, I can make my own. Maybe I should be thanking Austin instead of insulting him.

That frail attempt at cheering himself up only lasted for a few minutes. The more he thought about it, the more he doubted he would be able to do that. In his mind, he was back to square one.