Chapter 8
This job wasn’t actually going to kill him, but Logan realized he may wish he was dead if he had to keep doing it much longer. He stared down at his smaller than expected paycheck and sighed. All that work for that? No way would this be enough to support more than himself long term. He was a grown man, for Pete’s sake. Logan knew he needed to be able to support himself and any family he might one day have whether he was on pack lands or not. At this rate, it was never going to happen.
Logan almost kicked himself for not taking up the alpha’s offer to go to school this year. At the time, he’d convinced himself it would be a waste to start college without a firm idea of what he was going to do with the expensive education. But he was quickly realizing he would be more likely to get a good paying job with any degree than none at all. It was, after all, the thing that had stood between him and both of the sales jobs he’d interviewed for recently.
Plus, he missed seeing the rest of his pack these last few works working such god-awful hours. He’d almost forgotten what the rest of his pack looked like. If not for the shared sleeping arrangements, Logan suspected he might actual miss the little prick (aka Judas), too.
If not for the weekend of the full moon, Logan doubted his wolf would have gotten even a hint of freedom this week either. At least they’d managed to get themselves not one, but two deer for their efforts. It had been the most fun Logan could remember having in months. Since then, Logan had been too tired to do anything more than shower, eat, and go to bed after each long day slaving away at the job site.
Logan had quickly figured out that he was becoming the go-to boy for hauling and heavy lifting at work. His foreman had obviously picked up on Logan’s superior strength and endurance and made sure to put him to good use being the ‘tonk’, leaving even Logan’s wolf too tired to do much more than basic hygiene and feeding at the end of every day.
Logan opened the front door, expecting the usual silence to greet him. Instead, he found his pack arranged on the sectional, obviously waiting for his return. He was surprised to see the cat seated on top of the coffee table, as if it was now part of the pack, too. Logan’s wolf chortled at the sight but didn’t complain like Logan would have expected. It seemed both parts of him had developed an unexpected fondness for the prickly feline.
“What’s going on? Something happen?” Logan asked.
“Nothing’s wrong. We just hadn’t seen much of you this week and wanted to talk to you,” Ben answered. The hairs on the back of Logan’s neck stood up in suspicion at Ben’s business-like tone.
“What is this? An intervention or something?” Logan asked sarcastically. “I promise I’m not out doing drugs or driving too fast, Dad. Just working.”
“We know. That’s what we wanted to talk to you about,” Ryan added. Logan suspected he interjected in an attempt to keep the conversation from digressing into an argument.
“We think you’ve been working too much, Logan,” Ryan continued, meeting Logan’s gaze directly. “This job’s not good for you. You’re never around except to eat and sleep. You look exhausted all the time. I know the alpha said you didn’t have to work, so what’s up?”
Logan toed off his boots and went to heat up the plate of food he knew would be waiting for him in the fridge. He carried the steaming meal to the living room and sat down on the recliner. Logan pulled a pillow onto his lap to avoid burning his thighs and dug in. If he was going to be interrogated, he was damn well going to eat his dinner while it happened.
“I can’t just sit around here all day doing nothing. It’s not fair to the pack. Izzy has a job. You guys are all going to school. I need to be doing something, too,” Logan finally said.
“Being a productive member of the pack is awesome, Logan, but not if you’re practically killing yourself to do it. How safe does that make the rest of us when our leader can barely keep his eyes open through dinner?” Ben asked. Logan dropped his gaze ashamed. He knew his brother was right.
“Couldn’t you do something else?” Izzy asked. He seemed more than a little nervous at adding his voice to the discussion. Logan smirked as he caught Izzy looking to the cat, as if seeking Judas’ approval that he’d said the right thing. Logan was certain Izzy had no idea he’d even done it.
“I tried, but no one else would hire me. I don’t have any experience doing anything other than construction and I don’t have a degree,” Logan grumbled.
“Well, then go to school with us then. Get some experience doing something else. You know the alpha wouldn’t mind. He told us all to enroll if we wanted to. Don’t try to say you didn’t hear the same thing we did. He agreed that the more education we all have, the better support we can offer the pack later on,” Adam argued. Logan exhaled slowly and took another bite of his meal, keeping his eyes trained on his plate.
“I know. I’m honestly thinking about it. You guys don’t need to worry so much. I’d already decided tonight that I have to do something else. I just need to figure out what that something else is going to be.” Fur brushed against his ankles and Logan looked towards the floor to see Judas curling around his feet.
“Maybe you could be a lion tamer,” Adam said on a laugh. “You seem to have a knack for taming those of the feline persuasion.” Adam instantly stopped laughing as Judas shot him an evil glare and hissed. Adam apparently valued the integrity of his precious skin too much to continue poking Logan about his odd relationship with the cat. Logan hesitated only momentarily before scratching Judas between his shoulder blades. When Logan wasn’t instantly bleeding, Adam continued, “See. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Logan continued to scratch the cat’s spine and the beast began to purr. Logan could feel the rest of the pack watching their interaction in confusion.
“They just don’t understand you, do they, Judas?” Logan said to the cat. When several huffs of disbelief sounded, Logan shot his pack the middle finger, refusing to look up from the cat’s blissed-out face. His pack shuffled off to their rooms, grumbling about his ‘sick relationship’ with the cat all along the way.