Chapter Four
We went to what I guess was a gas station. I had never seen where gas came from before. I hadn’t even thought about what made a car run or a great engine spit out smoke. Alex opened a door, and we stepped into what, I realized, had once been a store but was now his home and workshop.
“Sorry about the mess. I’ll bring the bottles out. There’s some chairs just there. Make yourselves at home.”
Blue was used to humans and had no qualms about plopping down in a chair to check her nails. Meanwhile, I was biting mine. What did this guy want with us? Why had he brought us here? I glanced around and saw potential weapons everywhere; great big pieces of metal, huge, heavy tools, and nets hanging from the ceiling. He was out for shifter stew, I was positive.
“Sit down, Emily. We’re fine.”
“How do you know?” Awkwardly, I perched on the edge of a chair. It felt hard and smelled old like musty clothes. “He could be out for our heads!”
“I’ve seen him around,” she shrugged. “He’s just a mechanic. A fix-it guy. Humans come here when they need some little piece of metal fixed. Relax.”
Sitting back in my chair, I looked around the room again. This time, I didn’t see weapons, or at least I tried not to see them. Instead, I tried to see it through the lens of work. It certainly helped. Sure, he could still kill us, but at least I wouldn’t die alone. I had Blue with me.
“Here we are,” he said, coming back in with handfuls of clanking bottles. “One for you,” he handed me a tall brown one, “one for our star,” Blue got a tall, green one, “and one for me.” His had a strange, black liquid in it I had never seen before. “Cheers!”
We clinked bottles and each tried our own. Mine was the bitter, brown stuff that I knew had alcohol in it.
“Oh! Try mine. It’s sweet and full of bubbles.” Blue and I switched, and Alex chuckled at our big, surprised eyes.
“That stuff is called champagne. It used to be what people used to celebrate special occasions. I figured two new friendships is more than enough cause for celebration.”
Blue gave him a shy smile and wiggled provocatively in her seat. “Why, thank you. I’m happy to be your friend.”
Oh great. I was going to have to watch while the two of them fell in love. I sighed and went back to my drink.
“How’s yours?” He leaned toward me and looked at me with big, clear, hazel eyes. His messy hair fell over one of them, but it did nothing to detract from his sweet face. Why couldn’t I get a guy like this one? Blue probably had men falling all over themselves just to get close to her.
“I like this stuff. It’s a little bitter but in a nice way.” I took another drink and held it out for him to try it, but he shook his head.
“Not much of a sweet tooth, I’m sorry to say.” He held up his dark liquid. “This is as sweet as it gets. I’m hooked on the stuff.”
“What is it?” Blue reached out for it and looked at the red paper glued to the glass. “It’s nice. I like the picture.”
“I don’t know what this is. I don’t suppose either of you read?”
We shook our heads sadly. I almost mentioned that I had an odd, little device back at my house that could read anything for us, but it wasn’t exactly mine, so I kept quiet. Tina might not be okay with me offering the reading thing around to perfect strangers.
“Oh, well. It will just have to remain a mystery, I guess.” He went back to his bottle and stared off at nothing. I smiled over at Blue who raised her eyebrows at me. She had some devious plan and was eager to put it to work.
“So. Alex.” She set her bottle down on the floor and draped herself over one side of the chair with a beautiful, snake-like gesture. “You out here all alone?”
“I am.” He smiled at her and then just stared at his bottle again. Blue shot me a look. What was this about? I shrugged. Maybe he had bad vision?
“That must be,” she reached for his leg, “so hard.”
“It can be,” he nodded, missing the innuendo. “I don’t mind too much. My work keeps me occupied.” To our shock, he turned to me. “What about you, um, Emily, right?”
“Right. Well, I’ve kind of been adopted by a family. They’re shifters. We live in an old prison.”
“A what?” He moved forward and looked at me with a bright light in his eyes. “Are you being serious?”
“Sure.” My shoulders shrugged casually, and I went back to my bottle. “Well, my own place was burned down in a fire, so they wanted to help me out. I’m extremely grateful. I have two little boys in my new place, Tom and Nate. They’re great but, you know, kids can be a handful.”
“Oh, sure. I let a little beggar kid live here with me for a few days. He was super fun, but man, I had to really watch him! He got into everything. One day, his mom showed up and just walked out the door with him. I miss him, but I don’t miss the mayhem.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” We laughed, and I caught him watching my face as I broke out into a happy expression. Then I caught Blue eyeing us. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to; with one glance, she let me know that she wasn’t going to pursue this guy.
“Hey,” I tried, “did you know that Blue is a professional singer?”
“I did know that,” he said as if he knew a million performers. “I’ve actually caught your show a few times. You’re a snake, right?”
Blue’s eyebrows raised in a haughty expression of disapproval. “Snake? No, darling. I’m a boa constrictor. And my embrace is deadly.” She wiggled her toes up onto his leg as she said it, and he jumped back a bit. We laughed at him, and he blushed a little as he calmed down.
The night went on. We drank a little and laughed a lot. To my surprise, Blue finished the entire bottle of champagne and set it down with a victorious bang. “That’s that.” She slapped her hands on her legs and stood to go. “Well, I’m off.”
“Should I go with you?” I started to stand, but she gave me a tiny, almost imperceptible head shake.
“Don’t worry, darling! I have a shortcut to my house from here. And anyone who messes with me will regret it. I insist you stay here and impose on our friend Alex.” She shook a finger at me. “Get into lots of trouble. Promise?”
I pulled her into a hug. “All right, fine. If you insist.” She giggled and pulled back from me. Then, to my complete shock, she grabbed my face and kissed me on the lips.
It wasn’t a quick peck. No, it was a full-on, real kiss. She even closed her eyes and moaned just a touch while I kept my eyes open and fell silent from the surprise of it all. She let me go and gave me a wink. “Well, all right then. Bye.”
“Yeah. See you.” I stood and watched her go. Alex was too floored to get to his feet. He could only manage a little wave as she stepped out the metal door.
“What was that about?” He looked at me, but I could only shake my head. “Are you two together?”
“I literally just met her tonight.” I reached up to touch my lips, which were buzzing a bit from their latest adventure. “That’s the second surprise kiss I’ve had tonight.”
“What was the first?”
I told him what happened with Black Feather, and he was instantly angry about it. “What a jerk,” he said, spitting out the words. His eyebrows went into a deep scowl. “What makes him think he can just demand you do that for him? Who does he think he is?”
My anger didn’t meet his at all. I had been around shifter guys long enough that I had come to expect weird moments like that. “When you’re a shifter,” I explained, “you have two sexualities happening at once: human and animal. And, unfortunately, none of us really know how to manage either side. Male humans have a strong drive, but so do females. Then you mix in animal instinct, and well, you’ve got a bit of a mess on your hands. Things get out of hand sometimes.”
“Out of hand?” He went a bit red from emotion and balled up his hand into a fist and pounded the arm of his chair. “What does that mean, out of hand? Have you ever been forced to do something?”
“No,” I assured him, “it’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?” His voice was louder, sharper.
“Hey,” I retorted, “just calm down, okay? You don’t understand. Things are different when you’re part animal.”
“All right then, educate me.” He glared and worked his jaw back and forth as he studied my face. “What exactly is so different? Because it sounds to me like the guys in your community can just do whatever they want.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. No female bear or eagle is going to let some guy tell her what to do.”
“I should hope not.”
We settled into an uncomfortable silence and tried not to look at each other. I finished what was left of my bottle and then set it down. “Look, I’ll just leave. Sorry I bothered you or whatever.”
He stood and grabbed my elbow. “Emily, don’t ever let someone force another kiss on you.”
“I don’t need any life advice from you, okay?” I started to turn away, but he didn’t let me go. “Hey! I said I was leaving.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“Why? I’m nobody.”
“Don’t say that!” His grip on my elbow got tighter.
My breathing grew faster, and my teeth clenched. “Well, I am. I have no family, no life. I’ll never have a job or anything. I can’t get married or even go on a date. I’m just a thing that takes up space. So…so…”
“So, what?”
I looked at him and saw myself in his big, soft eyes fringed by long, dark lashes and heard myself go on. “So, if some guy sees me for a minute, just acknowledges that I exist, then maybe it isn’t so terrible if he wants to force his lips on mine. Even if it’s gross. Even if I hate it. At least I’m being seen.”
“Emily, you deserve better than that.”
“Right.”
“You do. You should have real love in your life.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I looked down. They fell perfectly through the air, not touching anything until they splashed on the floor. “Stop.”
“Stop what?” His hand moved up my arm and held it gently.
“This! Stop making me feel so much.”
His fingers lifted my chin. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. Feeling. Anything is better than being numb.” His foot stepped toward me, and his arms went around me. My body responded immediately. I pulled him in, tilted my head, and let my lips meet his in a warm, soft kiss.
With one touch, he erased my memories of Black Feather and Blue completely. There was only the two of us in the world, and that was all I wanted.
We kissed for a long time, but it felt like only a few seconds. As soon as we stopped, we just started again. I had an urgency in my body that I hadn’t felt for a long time. I needed to grab him, taste him, squeeze him. All of him–I needed all of him.
“Let’s go lie down.” His words made the air around me shift to the left. Sex. He was asking for sex.
“I don’t know.”
We parted, and he tilted his head to mine, touching my forehead with his. “What don’t you know?”
Oh, great. A challenge. What didn’t I know? Where to start? I didn’t know the first thing about sex. I had never seen a man naked and couldn’t begin to guess what it would be like. Would I even like it? I crossed my arms over my chest and started to breathe a little faster.
“I’m just not sure, okay? Can I just feel doubt? Do you mind?” Oh, I’d done it now. He’ll be furious.
The fury I was sure he’d throw at me never came. Instead, he laughed.
“Of course. I was just trying to be sexy. I’ll stop.” He pulled me in for a hug, but I kept my arms around myself for a moment. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being with him. Sure, he was gorgeous, but he was also human. What would it mean to let him have sex with me?
“Do you always get so nervous with guys?”
I stared at him and slowly realized what was happening–he didn’t see it. He had no idea. I turned and gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m a virgin. I’ve never...like, never even come close.”
“Oh yeah?” To my surprise, he wasn’t all that surprised. Rather, he took the news by sitting down and then patting his leg for me to cuddle up on his lap. I relaxed and sat on his thighs, leaned my head against his chest, and let him play with my hair. “Sorry. I didn’t know. It doesn’t matter. Being a virgin. It’s how everyone starts out. It took me a long time to even want to have sex.”
“Mm?” I was so relaxed. Each drag of his fingers through my hair seemed to melt me just a little more.
“Sure. All the guys I grew up with, they started young. They weren’t even in their twenties by the time they got girlfriends and started bragging. Meanwhile, I was in my dad’s shop, playing with little gear sets and my tools. I would say it was cute, but really, it was just a way to hide. I was too shy.”
“You?” I sat up a little bit and smiled at him. “You stood up to a bully and rescued two girls in the process. Is that shy?”
“Was. I was shy. I got braver as I got older.” Satisfied, I leaned against him again. A big, happy sigh came out of me but morphed into a yawn.
“Ahh. Sorry. I guess I’d better get back.” I stood up and stretched, while Alex stared up at me. My arms flopped down and made a big slapping sound as my hands hit my hips. “It’s pretty late.”
“It is.” He reached for my hand and toyed with my fingers. “Why don’t you sleep here? You can go back in the morning. It will be safer.”
This idea was ludicrous, of course. I couldn’t spend the night at some random guy’s house. Never. I opened my mouth to tell him so and found that I had no voice. I tried again–nope. Still not there. Finally, I just surrendered mentally. This gave my throat and mouth the ability to speak once again, and I said, “Sure.”
His bed was a metal cot covered in old sheets that were paper thin. The room was small and dark with only one opening in the ceiling. I liked it, and I could see a few stars if I stared hard enough. I squinted up through the space as I lay on his little nest of pillows and sheets and found I was very comfortable.
“How is it?”
“Great. Where are you gonna sleep?”
“Ha ha.” He sat down to take off his shoes. I had seen pictures of that style in old magazines and books. They had a special name. They were held on by long strings that crisscrossed in the front. He had to untie the bow at the top to get them off. I watched, and he bumped a shoulder into me playfully.
“You like my sneakers?”
“Your what?”
“My sneakers.” He held one up. “I got them at an abandoned store back when I used to travel a lot. Before I got the station. They’re great.” I held one for a little while and felt its weight in my hand. It felt sturdy and safe. Safer than my flat, open shoes anyway.
“They’re nice,” I said and then lay back.
“You gonna sleep in your clothes?” As he asked, he pulled his t-shirt up and over his head, revealing his gorgeous torso. It was carved of pure muscle like a lot of the shifter guys I knew. Even some girls. The poor life tends to make a creature lean. I couldn’t answer his questions; I was too distracted.
“Suit yourself,” he said after a long silence, and slid his pants off. Underneath, he had black shorts that were tight against him. I couldn’t help but notice how great his butt looked in those tiny things.
“Okay. I mean, I will. I’m fine.” He joined me on the cot and pressed his back against my chest and stomach, sandwiching me between him and the wall. I would have complained if his back wasn’t so well-shaped and strong. I put my head between his shoulders and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The next morning, he kissed me goodbye as the sun came up.
“I don’t want to go.”
“I know, Em.” Em! He already had a special name for me. “But I’m sure your family is worried about you. Don’t want them to panic.”
Our hands squeezed one another as I rocked side to side on my feet. “Can I see you again?”
“Of course. Come see me tomorrow night. Right here. I close up around eight.”
“All right then.” I stepped forward to give him a kiss, and he grabbed my back to hold me there against his lips. I breathed him in. He smelled like salt and the desert air. His lips tasted like the sweetest water the Earth had ever known. We finished and laughed at ourselves for a moment.
“See you tomorrow, Alex.”
“See you.”
The walk home was like nothing I had ever experienced. The sun was brighter, and the air was softer than it had ever been. Every car horn and loud argument sounded gentle and far away. Even the grey stones in the ground glittered in a new way. All I could think was, ‘Someone likes me. Someone sees me and wants me around. Someone who isn’t family or a classmate or anything. Finally. It’s happened.’
The moment I walked into the prison, the spell was broken.
“Mom!” Nate’s voice slapped me right in the face with its force. “She’s here. She came back.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Meredith ran up to me and flung her arms around me. “We were worried sick. Black Feather said something about you never coming back again. Did you two have a fight?”
“He said that?” I rolled my eyes. “You have nothing to worry about. He’s embarrassed because he tricked me into kissing him.”
“Bleh! Gross!” Tom and Nate rolled their eyes and made retching noises at the mention of kissing. “Girls are so weird.”
“Boys aren’t much better,” I retorted. Kneeling, I held my arms out to them. “Can I have a hug?”
They ran up and gave me tight, exuberant hugs. The force of it made me lean back a little bit, and I nearly fell.
“Don’t flatten her, boys. She’s had a long night. You hungry, dear?”
We let each other go, and the boys told me about all the wonderful food they had had that morning. “We had these things called pancakes! They’re circles!”
“What?”
Meredith explained that some of the shifters had been walking around with the reading device and finding all different texts for it to decipher. One of them picked up a box full of white powder and found some writing on the side. Turned out, it was a lesson in how to make a kind of bread called pancakes.
“Emily, you have to try them,” Nate said. His eyes bulged out of his head while talked about their taste. His mother just shook her head.
“I don’t think it’s got a single drop of anything useful. When I was little,” she said, sitting on my bed and letting the boys crawl all over her, “we had a lot of overweight humans around. I’m willing to bet they ate pancakes every day.”
“Wow.”
“Sounds great.”
She put her face in her hand. “Boys, I’m trying to tell you why this is a bad idea.” Her head shook with the exhaustion of it all, and she reached a hand out to me. “We’re so glad you’re all right, hon.”
“Actually,” I said, blushing, “I’m better than all right. I think I might have a boyfriend.”
The phrase sent my brothers screaming out the door. They kept screaming all the way down the aisle between cells and didn’t stop until they shifted to go and hang from their spots on the ceiling. When they finally fell silent, Meredith gave me an interested look.
“You met someone?”
I told her everything. She listened without making any comments until I got to the end, then patted my hand. “Well,” she said as she stood to move on, “I know you’re not going to listen to this, but I want to say it now.”
I grabbed her hand tightly. “What?”
“He’s human.”
I let the hand go. “Meredith! I know he’s human. You don’t have to tell me that.”
“Well, apparently,” she continued as she moved toward the door, “I do need to tell you something else.”
She fell silent as she worried a lip between her teeth. Then she said over her shoulder, “This relationship you’ve formed is a very bad thing.”