Chapter Three

 

 

JACKSON PICKED a nondescript Starbucks downtown, not too far from the cluster of bars he often worked for. After making a decision and sending Leo a text, he freaked out.

Because Starbucks, really? In this area there were at least half a dozen independent coffee shops.

And what if one of his clients saw him? On what could be a date?

And why was he freaking out about possibly being seen on a date with another man? He was a modern, liberal-thinking person. He voted for Hillary. There wasn’t anything wrong with being—

But he wasn’t.

He never had been.

The universe was playing a very cruel trick on him.

Jackson sat in his truck for almost fifteen minutes, making himself very late while he tried to calm down and rationalize a decision he hadn’t yet made. Then he straightened up, reminded himself his parents had raised a man, not a spineless bigot, and stepped out of the vehicle.

As he was crossing the lot, he noticed Leo walking out the front door. Jackson picked up his pace and jogged over, not wanting Leo to slip away.

“Hey,” he said as he caught up. Leo looked… he looked good, in jeans and a gray button-down shirt. It set off his rusty brown hair, cut short and neat to frame his face, and bright blue eyes that were ethereally beautiful.

Leo was a few inches shorter than Jackson, with narrow shoulders and long limbs. Freckles lay over his nose and cheeks, almost invisible at this time of year. Jackson thought in the summer they might get darker.

“Hey,” Leo said softly.

“Sorry. I was running late.”

“Jackson, you were sitting in your truck for almost twenty minutes. I saw you pull in.”

Jackson felt his face heat with a combination of shame and embarrassment. “Sorry.”

He’d apologized to Leo a lot already.

“Come on,” Leo said softly, putting his hand on Jackson’s arm again to lead him inside.

This was only their third interaction, and Jackson knew he was just fucking up at every turn. He wasn’t like this usually. It wasn’t like he was a ladies’ man or any hotshot Casanova, but he’d never felt so uncomfortable in his own skin before.

And yet….

And yet, the connection between him and Leo was undeniable. There was something fizzing in his veins, twisting up his stomach, pitching against a sense of settled security that didn’t make sense at all. Everything else felt like it was falling down around him, but Leo was a pillar, propping him back up again.

“What do you want to drink?” Leo asked, startling Jackson out of his moping.

“Oh. Just an Americano is fine. I’ll get them.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Leo stepped up to the counter and placed their order, stuffing a dollar in the tip jar even though he paid on his card. Jackson followed all of Leo’s moves, watching, studying.

Leo was slim, but his forearms were toned, and he moved with an easy sort of grace. He smiled and chatted to the barista and laughed at something she said. Jackson hung back, waiting for Leo to catch his eye, then gestured at a free table near the window. Leo nodded, so Jackson went to claim it.

The table was low, big comfy armchairs providing seats on either side, and Jackson fiddled with his phone, turning it over and over until Leo came back with a mug in each hand and a slice of chocolate cake balanced on top of one of the mugs.

“If you don’t like chocolate cake, I’ll eat it,” he said, setting the mugs down on the table and the cake between them. “But you looked like you could use some cake.”

Jackson smiled. “Split it with me?”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

He pulled two forks out of his back pocket and stuck them unceremoniously into the cake.

Jackson leaned in and split the cake down the middle, nudging the piece with the most frosting toward Leo. He liked frosting, but….

“I don’t know anything about you,” Leo said, scooping up a piece of cake on his fork and raising an eyebrow at Jackson before popping it in his mouth.

Jackson leaned back in his chair, bringing his mug to rest on the arm.

“I own a microbrewery,” he said, deciding to start with what he considered the most interesting detail about himself. “The Lone Wolf Brewery.”

“No shit? Really?”

“Yeah,” Jackson said with a small laugh. “For a few years now. I supply some of the bars in this area. Not many, though. I’m trying hard to keep things small.”

Naming the brewery Lone Wolf had been a risk, one that all sorts of people had tried talking Jackson out of. But he liked the name and the symbolism that came with it. He was a lone wolf, starting a business on his own. The fears of both his family and the brewery’s financial backers proved to be unfounded, though. Jackson couldn’t say he’d lost much business from his insistence on being so brazenly werewolf-owned. Stupid prejudiced people hadn’t brought him down.

“Wow,” Leo said. “I don’t even know what that entails. How did you get into brewing?”

Leo sat back in his chair, crossed his ankles, and looked at Jackson with open interest. He really was attractive. The thought made Jackson nervous.

“Well, I did a degree in business.”

He’d told this story plenty of times by now. How the business degree had been interesting enough, but his real passion had been brewing beer and making wine in the basement of his frat house. The fun part had been not getting caught, and that he didn’t need to be twenty-one to buy most of the equipment online. He’d stuck a lock on the basement door that none of his brothers had protested, and he’d been the illegal supplier of many a keg during his four years in Kappa Sigma.

When he was interviewed by different brewing publications, he kept most of the sordid details to himself. He wasn’t sure if there was a statute of limitations on illegally making alcohol and distributing it to minors, and he wasn’t particularly interested in finding out.

“After I graduated I drifted for a while, doing a few shitty corporate jobs that never really interested me. Then about five years ago my brother suggested I start brewing again as a hobby, since that was what excited me.” He sipped his coffee and shrugged. “It kind of expanded from there.”

“How old are you?” Leo asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Thirty.”

“Oh.”

“You?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Oh.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Leo cracked into laughter. “Well, that’s that, I suppose,” he said.

“You work at the hospital,” Jackson said, hoping this would steer the conversation in a new direction.

“I do.”

“Your card said you’re a music therapist.”

“Yeah. I guess we both chased our dreams.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Jackson said with a laugh. He realized after a moment he was flirting, with a man, and it didn’t feel weird. That in itself was weird. He quietly coached himself through not freaking out. “I chased my love of beer.”

Leo grinned and shook his head.

“I actually started out training to be a nurse,” Leo said. He picked up his fork and took another bite of cake. “It was good; it’s what I thought I wanted—to be a pediatric nurse. I was partway through my first year when I had something of an epiphany with one of my mentors.”

Jackson watched as Leo washed the cake down with coffee. He had a freckle on his thumb. Jackson tried not to feel anything—not arousal or curiosity or discomfort. Not feeling anything was so much easier.

“I was on a ward helping a child who had come out of surgery earlier in the day. He was in a lot of pain, and we were trying to help him with that, but his parents weren’t around to be with him. I ended up sitting with him on my lap, singing and making hand puppets. It took a while, but he eventually calmed down, ended up falling asleep on me. It wasn’t until a few days later when I was talking to my mentor about it that she mentioned I should talk to a music therapist. Something just clicked. I realized that was what I wanted to do—still helping children, but in a different way.”

“Did you have to retrain at all?”

“I was able to transfer a few of my credits, which was good, though I did have to move to a new college. Berklee.”

“Berkeley?”

“No, it’s a specialist music college in Boston. They liked that I already had some clinical training, and I got to transfer midway through the year if I promised to catch up. I ended up graduating in three years. Now I’m doing my mandatory supervised hours before I can start practicing on my own.”

“That’s incredible,” Jackson said softly. “Were you a musician before you started training?”

Leo screwed his face up and made a noise. “Sort of. My mom made me take piano lessons as a kid, and I play guitar and ukulele pretty well. Being a good musician isn’t necessarily that important for my job.” He licked a crumb of cake from his finger and sat back in his chair. “I deal with a whole range of kids who have really different conditions. Some of them are in for routine operations, but they’re scared out of their minds. Singing with them helps distract them, like that first little boy. Other kids have terminal illnesses or severe disabilities. A lot of the time it’s more therapy than music.”

“You seem young to have it all figured out already.”

Leo tried to shrug off the compliment, but his flushed cheeks and almost hidden smile gave him away. “It’s not hard work when you love what you do.”

Jackson barked a laugh.

“What?” Leo demanded.

“Nothing. I’m not laughing at you, I promise. It’s just… I say that all the time. To my sister. Who says I work too hard.”

“Oh. Well, maybe we have that in common, then.”

It was a nice thought.

They’d almost finished the cake and the coffee and Jackson was approaching his limit for interacting with new people for the day. Leo gathered up the mugs and plate and took them back to the counter. Apparently he was that kind of guy.

Jackson walked Leo over to his car and waited while Leo fumbled with his key to unlock it.

“Thanks,” he said.

“What for?”

Jackson smiled hesitantly. “Giving me a chance?”

Leo shrugged. “It’s not much of a hardship.” He looked at Jackson then, really looked, making Jackson feel like he was under scrutiny.

After a second, Leo pulled Jackson into a hug.

Jackson went with it, too surprised to resist, and wrapped his arms around Leo’s shoulders. Leo tucked his forehead under Jackson’s chin and just held on, warm and solid and right.

There was still a lot that was fucked-up about this situation. But he was starting to feel that maybe Leo wasn’t the fucked-up part.

Leo broke away first with a sad smile. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Okay,” Jackson said and just watched as Leo got into his car and pulled out of the parking lot.

 

 

JACKSON THOUGHT it probably wasn’t a coincidence that he’d found a true passion in brewing. It was both exacting and creative, requiring a methodical patience and a curiosity to experiment. That dichotomy had always appealed to him.

He thought Leo could be another enigma he had to unravel, full of what-ifs and coincidences that had brought them together.

After their coffee date, he craved the familiar.

His home was outside the city, near the tiny town of Nine Mile Falls. Jackson had been hounded by his mother when he bought the house, mostly because it was in the middle of nowhere. The isolation suited him, though. He’d grown more and more fond of it as he’d gotten older.

Jackson rarely shifted outside of the full moon, and sometimes not even then. He was a born wolf, not bitten, and he’d always had impeccable control. Once he’d parked the truck, he went to the porch, stripped off his clothes and shoes, and stood naked, looking out at the forest.

He didn’t feel the cold, not really, even though there was still a frost on the ground that hadn’t thawed yet. It would later, when the rain came. He’d always been good at being able to smell when rain was on its way.

For a few seconds, he took deep, energizing breaths, and then he let the wolf out.

In the space between an inhale and exhale his body grew, thickened, and the dark gray wolf took over. It was a relief to let go, to not think for a while, and Jackson trotted toward the edge of the tree line.

He was familiar with the forest, was grateful for it, even though he’d grown up in the city and had never had a lot of outdoor space he could call his own. There were a few other wolves in the local area who ran in the forest, and Jackson was always careful to not scent-mark or claim any space as his own.

He could share.

Though the trees stretched for miles, Jackson stuck pretty close to home, circling round his property, checking for any anomalies. A cold wind whispered through the trees, stirring up the scent of the forest, and Jackson reveled in it. He caught the scent of a squirrel and chased it for a hundred yards, snapping his teeth, then headed back to the house, satisfied.

He couldn’t quite name the instinct that insisted he run the perimeter. Sometimes it was easier to just give in.

Back at the house, he shifted into his human form and quickly dressed, then let himself into the house and back to the brewery. There he could spend a few hours getting lost in his work, not thinking about Leo or anything else.

It was pure luck he heard the knock at his door. He’d only stepped back inside the house to grab lunch and wasn’t expecting anyone. He shoved the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and jogged through the house, then swallowed before he pulled the door open.

“Holy shit.”

His sister stood on the porch, not dressed for winter in Washington. At all. Her hair was soaked just from the run from her car to the porch.

The rain had arrived, then.

“Hey, little brother.”

Jackson laughed as he pulled Valerie into a hug. She smelled like the cold and weirdly foreign. He rubbed his cheek against her hair instinctively.

“What happened?” Jackson asked as he pulled her inside and shut the door behind them. “I thought you weren’t due back until tomorrow.”

“I got a call from the airline to say the flight I was booked on was full, and they had a space on an earlier flight if I could get to the airport in time. I figured if Mom was planning a big surprise welcome-home party, being early would be better than a couple days late, which was my other option.”

Valerie followed Jackson back through to the kitchen and helped herself to a bottle of water from the fridge.

“So, tell me everything.” Jackson took a seat at the kitchen table and waited for Valerie to sit down opposite.

When Valerie had announced she was taking a year off work to travel around the world in an attempt to find her soul mate, none of Jackson’s family had been surprised. In fact, they almost encouraged it. Valerie was a dreamer, a romantic, and it fit her personality to put her life on hold while she went out in search of a person made just for her.

She’d left thirteen months ago. And had returned alone.

As she caught him up on her adventures, Jackson paid more attention to the gaps between her words than the words themselves. There was a sadness in his sister’s eyes that hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen her, and his heart just ached.

She pulled an iPad from her bag, full of bubbly joy and excitement to share stories and photos of all the places she’d visited. First South America—Brazil and Argentina and Peru—then New Zealand, Australia, Japan. India. Backpacking through Europe, what a cliché, before flying home from Scotland. Thirteen months of adventure, and she somehow still looked so sad.

By the time she was done, Jackson’s stomach was growling again. It had only been a one-slice sandwich.

“Not that I don’t want you to keep talking,” Jackson said, “but I’m starving. You know there’s nowhere to go eat around here, so what do you want to do?”

Valerie rolled her eyes. “It’s your fault for living in the middle of nowhere.”

“I like nowhere. And anyway, I can get pizza delivered if that’s what you want.”

“Pizza and beer.” She grinned at him. “It’s good to be home.”

 

 

THEY DEMOLISHED a large pizza between them and a six-pack of beer, and Jackson let Valerie pick the movie, since he was feeling generous. He found a tub of ice cream in the freezer too, one he’d been saving for a special occasion. He figured catching up with his sister for the first time in over a year was pretty special.

“So, I have news,” he said, sitting down on the sofa next to Valerie and handing her the tub.

“Thanks. I don’t know if I can share this.”

“I met my mate.” Like ripping off a Band-Aid, right?

“Motherfucker.”

“He’s a man.”

Valerie turned to him, eyes wide. “Are you serious?”

“A human man.”

She silently passed him the tub of ice cream.

“Jesus Christ,” Jackson mumbled, and dug his spoon into the goopy mess.

“I’m going to need details, Jackson,” Valerie said seriously. She muted Bridget Jones—and holy shit, that should have been some big neon sign telling Jackson not to be an asshole—and shifted round to face him.

Jackson found a little piece of fudge and excavated it from its ice cream enclosure.

“I met him a few days ago. We just went out for coffee this morning.”

“Tell me everything.”

“His name is Leo. He’s just graduated college. He’s…. I’m…. I don’t know how to do this, Valerie,” Jackson said, passing her back the ice cream, then reaching for his beer instead. It was social lubrication of the most necessary kind.

“Is this where you come out to me? Because I’m totally okay with that and will be so supportive and everything.”

“I’m not gay.” He felt guilty saying it aloud. Like he was somehow dishonoring Leo, which was stupid. They only just met. It wasn’t like Jackson owed him anything. “I’m not bisexual either, before you ask.”

“But….”

“I don’t get it either. Leo is, I’m pretty sure of that. I haven’t slept since I met him, trying to figure it out. I’ve turned it over and over in my head, Valerie, and it’s just not there. At this point I almost wish I was gay. It would make things so much easier.”

“Maybe it’s a platonic soul mate thing. It doesn’t have to be about sex. There are no rules.”

“Valerie.” He ran his hand over his face, then gulped the rest of his beer. “Platonic mates is such bullshit.”

She huffed. “At this point, I’d take it.”

“Shit.” He knew this wasn’t going to go well… how could it? He got what his sister had always wanted, and now he was throwing it in her face.

Valerie reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “I love you, dude. I want amazing things for you. Of course I’m jealous,” she added with a little laugh. She finished the rest of her own beer, then held the empty bottle up expectantly.

Jackson needed a break anyway, so he went to fetch another bottle from the fridge. It gave him breathing space. He wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted out of this conversation. To get the whole thing off his chest for one.

“What are you going to do?” Valerie asked.

On the screen, Bridget was contemplating blue soup and flirting with Mr. Darcy.

“I have no idea. I mean, I don’t hate him. He seems like a nice person.”

“Is he cute?”

Jackson scowled. “I don’t know.”

“Well, find me a picture of him. I need to know if he’s cute.”

“Valerie. I don’t have any pictures of him.”

“Tell me his name, then.” She reached under the sofa and pulled out her iPad. “I’ll Facebook stalk him.”

“Don’t you dare.” He sighed. “Gallagher. Leo Gallagher.”

“Leo… Gallagher… Leo Gallagher of Berklee College?”

“Yeah, that’ll be him.”

He turned back to the screen, feeling supremely uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“He’s super cute,” Valerie said. “He looks young, though.”

“Yeah, well. He’s only twenty-two.”

“Huh. Are you attracted to him? In a ‘want to bone him’ type way?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he snapped. “I’m not homophobic. I can objectively tell you that he’s an attractive man. Like I can objectively tell you Colin Firth is an attractive man. But I’m not sexually attracted to him.”

“You’ve never been with a guy at all? Not even in an experimenting type way?”

“No!” he exclaimed. “It wasn’t that kind of frat house.”

She laughed at that, like he wanted her to.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Jacks. He looks like a nice guy. He’s cute.” She shrugged. “You said he’s human? Did he feel it too?”

“I didn’t ask him,” Jackson admitted.

“What else?”

He huffed a laugh. Valerie had always been perceptive. Their mom said she’d inherited “the sense” from their grandmother, her mother, when she’d passed away. Jackson wasn’t so sure, except in times like these.

“I don’t know how to explain it.” He swigged at his beer again. His third bottle was emptying rapidly. “However much this situation is confusing the hell out of me… there’s something there.”

“Have you talked to anyone else?”

Jackson snorted. “No,” he mumbled. “Do you think Brandon will ever look for his soul mate?”

Valerie sighed dramatically. “Jackson. Brandon is ace.”

“Well, yeah. He’s our brother. He’s awesome.”

“No, Jackson.” She shook her head. “Asexual.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t play dumb. You know what that means.”

Jackson stared at her, dumbfounded. “Well, yeah. I just didn’t know it was a term that applied to Brandon.”

“He’s never dated anyone.”

“Because he’s our weird brother who doesn’t date.”

Valerie smacked him upside the head.

“Ow!”

“He’s not weird.”

“Yeah, he is. Not because of the asexual thing. But he’s my little brother. I get to call him weird.”

She glared at him, but let it go. “He came out a while back.”

“Not to me he didn’t.”

“You were there!”

“When?”

“Oh fucking hell,” Valerie muttered. She’d finished the tub of ice cream a while ago but reached for it again, just to make sure.

“Sorry. Sometimes I don’t always notice the significance of an occasion.”

“You don’t say,” she drawled. “Anyway. You’ll have to ask him yourself about the mate thing. I have no idea how it works for asexual people.”

“I’m sure that conversation will be just as enlightening as this one.”

“Fuck off, Jackson.”

She’d dropped in on him and he’d unleashed a bombshell, and they’d drank plenty of beer so far, so he wasn’t going to be offended. He reached for his bottle again and drained it.

“Are you staying here tonight?” he asked.

“Probably should.”

“Okay. I’ll make the spare room up.”

“Oh good,” Valerie said, unfolding herself from the couch. “Because there’s a bottle of pinot in the back of the car that’s got my name on it.”

Jackson winced as she walked away. He was definitely going to have a headache in the morning.