Chapter Eight
Seraphina patted herself dry and dressed in the clothes Rod had given her. She recognized the ragged t-shirt right away. It said Megadeth and was the one he wore the first time she’d seen him at Red Cap. He’d been a few shades to the wind and slurring every few words, but his smile reached right inside her and grabbed hold of her heart. Maybe she’d fallen for him that very night. Maybe her fox had recognized something in him that was undeniable.
But it didn’t take long to realize the smile she loved didn’t reach his eyes.
Valerie’s words echoed through her mind. You are changing that… thank you.
Did she really make a difference? Or was she just a distraction. Rod loved his friends. He would do anything for the Dogs and his humans who were so connected to the Vixens. Maybe she was just a temporary reprieve from him drowning his sorrows in booze.
Opening the door to the bedroom, her heart sank as she found it empty. Rod was nowhere to be seen. He’d straightened the covers some and set the TV remote on the pillow. Turned off all the lights except the small lamp on the table next to the bed. Pretty clear he wasn’t coming back.
She sighed, padding over to the giant bed and crawling up. Big bed for a big man? A male like Rod probably liked to sprawl out.
Grabbing the remote, she snuggled back into the pillows, hardly able to resist a little moan. His bed was so much better than the hard one she’d been sleeping on at the hotel. She’d managed to make her room there homey, but hands down, her mattress needed replacing. Except she didn’t have the heart to tell Old Man Hubbard he needed to purchase one. Not when he’d just dumped a lot of cash into fixing the roof.
Clicking on the television, she decided to see if there was anything to take her mind off of this, the Mondayest of Mondays. The screen came up to a list of DVR’d shows. Hm, so no Netflix then.
Curious, she scrolled through the list to get an idea of what Rod liked to watch when he was vegging out. Surely there were some reruns of Street Outlaws or Fast n’Loud. That seemed like a Rod thing to watch. Or Monster Garage? Sally had a lady boner—as she liked to call it—for that show.
But that wasn’t what she found when she flipped through the recordings. No, Rod’s TV was full of…
She blinked, convinced what she saw on the screen would change like magic when she opened her eyes.
But there was no denying what kind of show her man liked.
Row after row, the content was the same as she scrolled the page, except for one episode of Top Gear at the very bottom. Flipping to the top, she went through again, reading the titles silently. The Notebook, Say Anything, Titanic, Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Pretty Woman, Love Actually… these were love stories. Romance movies. Hot Rod Turner’s TV was full of love stories.
And one car show.
No crime dramas. No reality TV. Just cheesy-sweet love stories.
This didn’t look like the TV of a thirty something year old bachelor.
Seraphina frowned. Scrolling back to the top and clicking START on The Notebook.
A heavy knock on the door startled her and she dropped the remote.
“It’s me,” Rod’s voice boomed through the wood, and he didn’t wait for her to answer. He walked in, carrying a tray of food. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and a salad the size of her face. He stopped just inside the door and stared at the tray, not her. “You didn’t eat. So Ma warmed up dinner. I told her you might not want all the greasy shit so she made you a salad too. The result is a metric shit ton of food. Don’t feel like you hafta eat it all.”
His gaze lifted finally, and he went so still he didn’t seem to be breathing. His face was slack, all the creases around his eyes ironing out until he looked five years younger. He didn’t move a muscle. He just stood there, still shirtless, holding the tray of food like he’d been struck speechless mid-sentence.
Seraphina wanted to say something, but it was like one of those surreal moments that go by in slow motion. She couldn’t get her tongue to work, and didn’t know what she’d say even if she could.
Maybe it was her hair? The wet fox look never suited her, but the hair dryer was in her bag in the back of Surge’s truck. So it would have to air dry.
Or maybe the borrowed clothes? They were way too big, covering up all her assets. Not exactly seduction material.
She fidgeted, pulling the sheet higher and pushing her damp hair back from her face.
Rod swallowed hard, blinking until his expression returned to some semblance of normal. “Uh… here.”
He set the tray on the bed and backed away. As if getting too close was dangerous.
“Thank you.”
Music bled from the speakers around the room, bringing his attention to the movie, and his eyes went wide.
“I didn’t know if you were coming back, and I was looking for something to fall asleep to. Sorry if I…” What? Accidently found his secret stash of romance movies? “I… I looked for car shows but…”
He was still staring at the screen.
“Nah, not too many of those on there,” he murmured. “Got enough of that in real life.”
He crossed his arms, watching as the movie played, and she stealthily reached for the tray, bringing it to her lap.
“You like this one?” he asked, never pulling his gaze away.
“Mm hm.”
While the story played out, Seraphina ate the meal Valerie so thoughtfully made, getting caught up in the characters and their plight.
Rod stood at the foot of the bed watching until she cleared her throat.
He dragged his eyes away from the screen.
“Sit.”
“I should go to bed. Got an early morning—”
“Shhh,” she said, accidentally spraying a piece of potato onto the bedsheet. Distractedly, she plucked it off and shoved it back in her mouth while Rod dropped into the chair in the corner.
Two hours later, she was sobbing and snotting into one of the pillows, not even caring what she looked like or what he thought of her. This movie was too much. Too sad and too sweet and too damn horriblewonderfulawfulgreat.
“That,” she sobbed, “that’s love right there. Did you see that? He never left her, even through all that. Wow.”
She wiped her nose on the pillowcase. It was ruined anyway. She’d wash it for him or get him a new one.
Glancing over, she found him staring wide-eyed.
“What? Never seen a girl cry before?”
“A few times,” he said. “Never seen one completely ruin my favorite pillow with tears and snot.”
“Well, now you can mark that off your bucket list.”
She flopped back to the bed, curling around the damp pillow to wait for the tears to taper off.
“You know, I imagined you to be much more… held together. But no. The great vixen Seraphina just crumbled under a mere movie. Fiction brought you to this. Remember that.”
Seraphina raised an eyebrow. “You imagine me?”
Rod’s gaze swept from her face, down the length of the bed, and back, going darker and darker the entire time until they were smoldering.
“Oh, more than you know,” he admitted, and his voice was like a velvet caress sending delicious chills up her spine.
Then why was he always pushing her away?
Maybe that would change now. Maybe tonight was a turning point. Maybe.
The thought made her bold. “Why do you have all these movies on your TV?”
Rod pursed his lips, looking away. If she was closer to him, she might’ve reached out and brought his face back around.
“I like ‘em.” He shrugged. “They take my mind off things.”
“What things?”
His eyes darted to her with a slight scowl. “Things, I dunno. My mom’s health. Work. My life and how it’s turning out. Things.”
The movies were another distraction. Like the booze, but safer. Like… she was?
“Your mom. What’s wrong with her?” Valerie was so fun and vibrant, and full of so much sass. It was hard to imagine she was ill. But both of them had mentioned her health, and Seraphina’s vixen was urging her to dig to the bottom of it.
Rod sighed, leaning his head back on the chair like the subject exhausted him. But the faintest smile crept up on his lips. “A lot of times, nothing. Sometimes, I think we both forget how sick she is… how much our lives have changed.”
Seraphina held her breath for whatever was coming next.
“She has Multiple Sclerosis. It’s a...” He cleared his throat. “A neurological disorder. The disease attacks her central nervous system. So she has trouble sometimes with basic things like swallowing or walking. Occasionally, her vision is affected so I don’t want her driving. On the bad nights, there is pain. There is no cure for it,” he added quietly. “Only managing symptoms. Hard fact is, she will only feel worse as we go.”
“That’s awful,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
He smirked. “Don’t let her hear you say that. She won’t stand for any pity. Ma says this is the battle she was born to fight, because she’s strong enough to, and we each have our thing.”
“Our battle.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
There was truth to that. There wasn’t a person she knew who didn’t have their own battle to fight. For Lexington, it was leading her people to safety. For Sally, it was understanding her self-worth. For Barb, it was finding her place in the world. For Ragan, it was keeping Kit safe and raising him to be better than their kind.
For Seraphina… it was…
“What’s yours,” he asked.
She was quiet while she thought about it. “Fighting my instinct. That’s my battle.”
He watched her carefully, like he truly wanted to learn something about her instead of push her away. Deny her like he was so good at. It was enough to keep her talking.
“My animal is submissive by nature. She wants to say yes when I should say no. I want to say no when no feels right. I want my animal to bow to me, not the other way around.”
He narrowed his gaze. “Your vixen likes to submit?”
She nodded, trying hard to ignore the way his voice went sexy. “But too many people take advantage of a submissive.”
“Who?”
“The males of my skulk. Males like my father. I watched him crush my mother’s spirit because she was too submissive. Then I watched him promise me into a mating before I was old enough to fully know what one was. And I would have submitted to it if the girls hadn’t ripped me out of there before it was too late. Males like Ragan’s mate. Like the one coming for me now.”
His nostrils flared at that. He didn’t like the idea of Maxim hunting her. Not at all. And that gave her a measure of hope.
“So you want your vixen to change?”
She frowned. Did she want that? “No. Not change. I just want to be brave enough to make her meet me in the middle when it’s important. I want to learn to say no. And I want my animal to accept it. To know that I only own myself unless I let someone else have that privilege.”
His throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Is that something you plan on giving away?”
Seconds ticked away before she could answer.
“I hope so.”
Silence settled between them, thick and heavy.
“What is your battle?” she asked Rod.
He frowned hard, and so many moments went by she thought he wouldn’t answer. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe once you figure it out, you won’t be so lost.”
His frown deepened, pulling shadows across his face. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Because that’s what Rod was. Lost. And no matter how much she wanted him, needed him, until he found his way to her, they were as hopeless as a cricket on a summer night.