“Hey now, young man.”
Wolfman plucked a young boy up by his sweater. The boy was in the process of removing a wallet from the owner’s pocket while said owner was distracted, chatting away on his cell phone.
The boy grunted at him as Wolfman took the wallet away and handed it to its owner.
“Here you go, sir.”
The large male ended his call and gave Wolfman a befuddled look. “Oh, thank you.” He looked down at the squirming boy. “He did this?”
“Yeah,” growled Wolfman as the boy kicked up his struggles a notch. It should not be this hard to keep hold of a ten-year-old boy.
The male scowled at the boy. “Jeez – kids today.”
“Don’t I know it,” agreed Wolfman.
He’d seen another kid, about the same age, stealing candy the other day – sadly he hadn’t been quite as successful in catching her. She must have had gazelle genes in her because she sure could run. But then, she wasn’t hampered by a thirty pound costume.
The guy held out his fist and Wolfman cocked his head and then shook it. The guy smirked at him, took out his phone and snapped a photo.
“You don’t mind, right?”
“Nah,” said Wolfman, blushing a little.
“My girl is going to get a kick out of you saving my wallet – she loves you. She can’t wait for Halloween to roll round – she wants me to go as you. FYI – our sex life has improved no end thanks to you. She roleplays that I’m Wolfman and she’s a sexy cat burglar who I have to punish.”
The guy waggled his eyebrows.
“Ah,” Wolfman groped for something to say – his wolf shrugged - before settling on, “awesome sauce.”
Thankfully, most of his face was obscured otherwise the guy would see the ever-deepening blush.
“Awesome sauce – love it!” The guy hooted in laughter before giving him a keen look. “Bet that costume gets you lots of tail.”
Wolfman shrugged again. Well, he had been partially mauled by a few antelope shifters – but given how drunk they were, he had stopped it before it went too far. He was supposed to be a good guy, after all, and taking advantage of drunk girls was not a good guy move. Besides, that was before he met a certain lioness. The closest he had come to – ugh – tail as the guy put it, was with Avery – the epitome of female perfection. He sighed as he thought of the lovely lioness and then grunted as he realized the male was looking at him expectantly.
“You know it!” he agreed awkwardly.
“Awesome sauce!”
The guy laughed, growled at the squirming boy and went on his way.
Wolfman watched him and realized belatedly they went to the same high school together. His name was Brick or something. He was a couple of years ahead of him and had taken great delight in stuffing Winston and the rest of the sci-fi club into their respective lockers on several occasions. Now, he was saying awesome sauce to him! Huh – the power of the costume. The guy wouldn’t look twice at him without it. Neither would Avery… His wolf humphed, and Wolfman pulled himself together.
“Now, young man, we must – oof!”
The boy kicked him in the groin. Wolfman dropped him, and the boy started running away.
Wolfman wanted to run after him, but instead, he collapsed on the ground for a small rest.
*
“I hear you bested your sisters again with very little effort.”
Avery cursed under her breath.
“I heard that,” added her mom.
Caller ID was absolutely useless when her mom could just call her using a different phone. She knew she shouldn’t have answered – knew she shouldn’t have paused The Hobbit to answer the phone. Well, this was her punishment – listening to a crazy woman. Her lioness, so docile a moment ago in enjoying watching Richard Armitage as the sexiest dwarf in Middle Earth, was now snarling.
“How did you find out?”
She doubted her sisters would admit that she had managed to bitch-slap them without even breaking a sweat. Admitting defeat or weakness to your leo (and mother) was never a good idea.
“Aimee told me.”
“Ah.” Poor little Aimee, she never could lie when faced with their terrifying mother.
Their mother was the leader of their pride – named the leo, and everyone lived in fear of her, particularly her youngest sister. Not that Avery was technically part of the pride anymore – she’d left all that behind. Or at least she was trying to – they weren’t making it easy.
“Any chance you can tell them to stop attacking me?”
“You are still in the running to be the next leo.”
Her beast snorted impatiently. “Moth-er, I am not rejoining the pride.”
“You would make an excellent Leo – your sisters can’t compare with you.”
Avery was born with a particularly large, strong and fast inner lioness – few male lion shifters could compare to her. Many bear shifters couldn’t either. Though, she was happy to admit she wouldn’t be a match for the SEA nurse Helga – a polar bear shifter that inspired such fear that no one dare take a sick day in case she came to see how they were doing.
“I’m not interested – I like my job.”
“Humph. You have no loyalty,” sneered her mom.
You have no morals both she, and her lioness thought.
Avery had decided long ago that she wasn’t interested in following in her mother’s footsteps. Her mother was selfish and ruthless, and Avery wanted no part of it. She left her mother’s pride as soon as she could and definitely did not look back. Sadly, her mother didn’t seem interested in listening to her and was convinced she wanted to be the next leo of the pride.
Of course, to pick the next leo, she told all her children that they needed to fight it out among themselves – she encouraged them to attack one another in what she called the ‘competition.’ They didn’t have to kill each other, just best each other. Abby was pissed when she got pregnant – meant that she was out of the running for at least a few months.
Avery always thought Andrea would be the next Leo – she almost matched her mother for ruthlessness, but it pissed her off no end that Avery was the better fighter – none of her sisters could best Avery. Poor little Aimee was never going to win, but she kept trying – probably just to appease their mother. Aimee was perhaps the smallest and clumsiest lioness ever born.
“Mom, Leo, just tell my sisters to stop attacking me – it is starting to get annoying.”
Having her lunatic sisters turn up on her dates had been pretty awful. Not that she was doing much dating recently. No, her nights were all about Wolfman now.
“The future of our pride is important,” she said in a voice dripping with icicles – the type that could drop and pierce someone’s heart.
“Then perhaps you should be more careful who you do business with,” replied Avery in an equally cold voice.
She knew her mother had been involved with some of Los Lobos’ shadier characters in the past – getting involved in any number of deals that skirted the law. A part of Avery had dreamed of arresting her mother – it would be awesome - but they never got enough evidence to do anything.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said primly.
“Sure,” scoffed Avery. “I gotta go.”
The DVD was paused at the point where the dwarves were about to ride down the river in the barrels, and she was much keener to re-watch that than listen to anything her mother had to say.
“Now listen here…”
Avery hung up, and her beast growled in frustration. She had to believe other people had better relationships with their mothers. Otherwise, the rate of matricidal homicides would be through the freaking roof.
*
Winston limped home a little bruised – well a lot bruised. He kept his costume at his comic book store. He used to keep it at home, but given his mom’s rampant need to clean, she had come close to finding it one too many times. It actually worked out, because it meant he could change there and not have to worry about sneaking out past his mother in costume.
Course, now he just had to figure out how to sneak the frozen peas past his eagle-eyed mom without her noticing – his boys needed icing.
He loved his mom, but she was… overprotective. Yeah, that was the kind way of saying it.
Another way was saying that she was an emotional blackmailing crazy lady. Okay, so he didn’t really blame her. His dad had died when he was a kid – he was mugged and killed over the fifteen dollars in his wallet. It had been devastating, and even before it happened she had been a little overprotective – now it was magnified times a hundred.
“Winnie?”
Winston and his wolf jumped away from the freezer, yelping at her sudden appearance. He then yelped again as he caught sight of her – she had a green facemask on and curlers in her hair. With the housecoat and fuzzy slippers, she was quite a sight to behold.
She folded her arms. “Where on earth have you been?”
“Ah, just at the store. Doing inventory.”
She frowned and he gave her a wobbly smile. Inventory was his go-to excuse and the one she usually bought. If he had said out on a date, then she really would have been suspicious.
“Hmmm. It’s very late.”
“Ah, one of the hazards of owning your own business, Mom.”
“I suppose so,” she grudgingly agreed, though her eyes didn’t lose their skeptical glint.
“Anyway, it’s late, I better get to bed.”
He waited for her to go but she continued watching him. Sigh. Looks like he wasn’t going to get those peas. He settled for a can of orange soda from the refrigerator – it was quite cold, plus he could drink it after. Though, would he want to drink it after it had been pressed against his crotch?
He kissed her on the cheek, wiped his mouth of the green goo from her face, and started making his way to the basement. Living down there almost gave him the façade of freedom – almost, and it had taken a lot to get her to agree that him moving down was a good idea.
Winston almost thought he had made it to safety when his mother said, “Someone from Golden Days Realtors called for you earlier.”
He stopped in his tracks wincing as his wolf hid his head. Damnit. He told them only to call him at work.
“Oh really?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Yes.” She pursed her lips. “They say they have a number of ideal studio apartments for you to look at and to give them a callback.”
“I think they had the wrong number.”
Well, it was worth a try.
“They asked for you by name.”
“Ah.” He slumped. “Look, Mom, you know I’m going to have to move out eventually.”
“But why? I cook for you and clean for you…”
This had been coming for a long time, and he just needed to bite the bullet and tell her.
“I don’t need you to do those things, Mom. I’m a grown man; I kind of want my own space.”
Her eyes started welling with tears, and a little bit of his resolve started to crumble.
“C’mon, Mom, it’s not like I’ll be going far…”
“I do everything for you – I buy your underwear!”
“Yeah, I really wish you wouldn’t.”
Though, he was impressed that she managed to find Thor underwear in his size.
“I just… I just…”
She started breathing heavily and staggered a little. Winston ran to her and helped her to a chair. She placed her hand over her chest.
“My poor heart,” she whimpered.
She was sweating and panting, and while he didn’t actually think she was having a heart attack, he had to give it to her – she was good at pretending. There was a reason she always got the lead role in her amateur dramatics productions – even when they did Sweeny Todd.
“Look, Mom, I…”
She clutched his hand and gave him a wild look. “Is this what you want? To leave me here and have a heart attack and die alone?”
“Well, no…”
Grrr. Well, he couldn’t say yes to that!
“Don’t move out yet,” she pleaded. “You can one day, but not right now, please. I’m all on my own because of what happened to your father…”
She gave him a look filled with motherly guilt that naturally made him give in – he always did. His wolf huffed, but really the beast was no better at standing up to her that he was.
“I won’t move out yet,” he muttered.
Yes, he knew she was just using emotional blackmail, but she was his mom. Besides, he had his store to hide his Wolfman costume, and it wasn’t like he was planning on bringing any girls back home. His mind drifted to Avery, and his wolf panted excitedly. Yeah, but Avery had no idea who he really was – and the likelihood of her being interested if she found out was pretty slim. So, he might as well live at home and save money on rent… for now. He’d break his mom’s heart another day.