Being(s) In Love 03 - A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate (22 page)

He gaped for another moment, then realized he was. Violet stared at him in confusion. “No, I, uh….” Theo paused to make a gesture at his shirt with the fire company’s logo on it, his pants, his suspenders. “I live here. Theo Greenleaf.” He stepped forward to put out his hand. Then wondered if he ought to leave his scent behind on Littlewolf and potentially interfere with so fragile a new relationship. Of course, he was mated and pretty much harmless, and the sheriff really wasn’t the insanely jealous type, but a new mating was a new mating.

In any event, Littlewolf stared at him suspiciously before taking his hand in a brief, firm handshake. “Tim. Timothy… Littlewolf.” The lie was visible in his expression as well as audible in his stuttering pause, but Theo didn’t remark on it. Like the rest of the town, he was waiting to find out more. “Wait, Greenleaf?” Theo expected a comment about his family, or old wolf blood, or maybe a connection to Aunt Ramona. Instead, Littlewolf rolled his eyes and sighed with loud exasperation. “Another fucking Greenleaf. Well, it explains your face.”

Theo touched his face without thinking, and Littlewolf continued with what might have been his version of an apology. “Don’t get me wrong. Your face is perfect. You must be the porn star fireman. And the sheriff is the porn star cop.” Littlewolf’s eyes got huge. He bit his lip. “Don’t tell anyone I talked about the sheriff. I don’t need him angry with me.”

Violet and Theo exchanged a puzzled look. Theo leaned in, trying to be gentle. “He won’t be angry with you. And to be honest, if you find him attractive, he already knows.” Surely Littlewolf knew that one basic thing about werewolves.

But Littlewolf surprised him by turning a darker shade of pink. “Shit.” He bit his lip harder. “You can’t blame me, though, right? Look at him, and the moon and everything…. No wonder he hates me. First I yell at him and insult his alpha dignity, then I reek of lust every time he comes near me. I should leave. What the hell am I doing in this town anyway? Ray was so wrong.”

Theo spent a moment wondering what “alpha dignity” meant, then who “Ray” was, then shook his head. “Don’t go. The sheriff isn’t really as scary as you seem to think.” It was as far as he got.

“Yeah right.” Littlewolf seemed to have no filter. He hopped forward, got onto his toes, and waved a finger in Theo’s face. “I might be a failure of a were, but you know what? This town is weird. I thought a town full of werewolves would have a clear social order and rules and an alpha wolf who would be a lot less confusing.” His voice was almost a whine before he firmed it and got louder. “If you guys want to be easier to understand, maybe you should stop saying ‘instinct’ all the time to explain how things work here. Because that means nothing to anyone else.”

“Hear hear,” Violet cheered him on. Theo stared at them in betrayal.

“Right?” Littlewolf rallied at Violet’s support. Theo was beginning to see the danger in Littlewolf and his regal posture. The sheriff wasn’t going to walk all over him. If anything the sheriff had better watch himself. Littlewolf was already winning allies, and Theo didn’t even see how, because he wasn’t exactly polite. He’d never seen charisma in action before, outside of Sheriff Neri, but Littlewolf was a firebrand. “They say ‘instinct’ in response to everything. Like that’s just how they do things in Wolf’s Paw. Hey, the sheriff thinks you ought to live with him for some reason—’instinct.’ You tell the sheriff you can feed yourself and he brings you lunch anyway—’instinct.’ You imply once or twice or a dozen times that the sheriff is going to hurt you, because that’s what alpha wolves do, isn’t it? Only he looks at you like you insulted his grandmother, and then he smells like you’ve wounded him somehow, as if he’s really gentle on the inside and—” Littlewolf abruptly stopped his bizarre list of perceived wrongs there. “It’s like your sheriff doesn’t have anything better to do than take care of me. Well, I have been elsewhere, and this town is not the only place in the world. The rest of us get confused no matter how many pamphlets we read. Where is the pamphlet explaining smells, huh? Or the pamphlet to teach you how to manage a sheriff? And when do the rest of us who didn’t grow up here get clued in on all your weird dating rules? Uh, not that I plan on dating anyone.”

Violet was clapping. “Like, scent, right? They don’t even talk to us half the time—they all look at each other and shrug or roll their eyes and sniff things. What does that even mean, Theo? Use your words! Sometimes I think you guys hide behind your traditions.”

Theo was frozen. Violet could have been teasing, but he could tell they meant it too. He had never stopped to think about how the werewolf way of life might affect a pixy. He turned back to Littlewolf, who seemed to grow even fiercer before Theo’s eyes. He was stunning when he was angry. Theo had never been so grateful to be mated, even unhappily. He didn’t need any crushes on any scary little wolves. Zeki always tried to be so wonderfully calm, even when he wasn’t. Even scared or outraged or worried, he kept himself level. Maybe that was due to all his thinking. Maybe that kept him from responding to everything with his emotions blazing like this.

Theo missed him. He had barely gotten to bond with his mate, but he already missed him. He cleared his throat and kept his head down, not wanting Littlewolf to think he was challenging him in any way. Littlewolf seemed to be focused on things like that. “You don’t understand your instincts? Is that why you Re—” To speak of a rejection was like speaking of a curse or a jinx. Direct acknowledgements sometimes made them worse. “I mean, what would you”—and he included Violet in that—“prefer us to do?”

He raised his hands when Littlewolf narrowed his eyes, but then Littlewolf eased down and glanced away. He was uncomfortable and awkward again, not a firebrand at all. “How the hell should I know?” he grumbled, and hunched his shoulders as if he wanted to take up even less space. He poked at a bag of chips. “This town has sex on the brain. Or love. Whatever. With your festivals and your kids and Meadows and your ridiculously attractive sheriffs.” He stopped again, like he’d bitten his tongue.

For someone about Theo’s age, he talked a lot like a cranky old man. Theo pictured him ranting like that in Sheriff Neri’s face and then shook his head. From the outside, he supposed it was difficult to understand the instincts that drove a mating. Theo didn’t understand them, he just trusted them. They felt right. Generally, they
were
right. Given time, if both sides chose to accept it, the mated pair would be perfect for each other. But for those not involved in it, or for a werewolf who knew nothing about weres, or for a human, it must look bizarre.

Movies made it sound romantic, but human movies got everything about weres wrong, never distinguishing between different were cultures, or giving them ridiculous superpowers they didn’t have. They were villains in early films, or doomed. Now they were romantic leads half the time who violently claimed their supposed “mates.”

Theo didn’t choose to watch those movies, but they’d been watched in the firehouse on plenty of movie nights. Those movies didn’t even use werewolf actors and had werewolves declaring instant true love before claiming their mate in a bout of passionate lovemaking.

“Matings aren’t about sex,” Theo heard himself explaining slowly, then went hot at his unintentional lie. “Not completely anyway.” Of course touch mattered too. Touch mattered even if the couple never had sex.

“Matings?”

Littlewolf froze in place, and Violet whispered, “Oh shit, Theo,” in barely controlled alarm.

Theo panicked in silence, and then Littlewolf went on. “I don’t know anything about, um, matings. I wasn’t talking about… that. I was only venting. About your sheriff. I’m sure he’s awesome. Great. You all love him, so he must be. I’ll shut up now.”

Theo took time to draw a breath in relief when Violet spoke up once more. “But you’re right.”

Littlewolf carefully glanced at them. “Come again?”

“This town has the rules for the benefit of, um… of people like you, or me, not that a pixy needs their help. But sometimes the traditions get in the way, and they never explain anything. That makes sense. I mean, in the rest of the world, in the majority human world, I bet they don’t stop and explain how they think to the few beings around them.”

Littlewolf shook his head.

Violet had never been outside of Wolf’s Paw. Neither had Theo, except for his classes in Carson and family trips. Littlewolf, like Zeki, knew the world as very different. Zeki had asked Theo about senses, scent in particular. He’d suspected, correctly, that weres used more than scent to read others and respond to them. But of course he was still essentially blind to it, even with that knowledge.

How frustrating that must have been for him as a teenager. He loved learning, but no one had given him a way to find out how werewolves thought, or spoke to each other, or why they viewed the world as they did. “Instinct means information I don’t consciously process half the time.” Theo got Violet and Littlewolf’s attention but hardly noticed. “That’s what it means for humans too, but they don’t have the same information. No wonder it’s confusing. No wonder they would need to reason and think. No wonder they would hesitate, even when it hurts us.”

The rules existed for that reason, but Theo had never had to think about them before. Like most traditions, he’d accepted them. But this was part of the tradition too, the part no one talked about, and that movies didn’t show. Zeki was
supposed
to be thinking right now. For once between them, everything was exactly as it should be. Even if Zeki decided he didn’t want Theo, Theo wouldn’t have done anything wrong this time. If Zeki didn’t want him, it wasn’t because Theo had messed up, or because Theo wasn’t good enough. It meant Zeki was skeptical, as he had every right to be. It also meant until he said no, again, properly, Theo could try to reassure him all he liked. Theo could court him, like he should have at sixteen.

Not that he’d had anything to impress a mate with his suitability at sixteen. But he could have taken Zeki to the Spring Thaw like he’d wanted, bought him ice cream, tried to win him something at a carnival booth. Theo was terrible at carnival games and never had the right spirit for dancing. He had only one real skill, and nearly put his hands over his burning cheeks to think of the brownies he’d made.

“I lied to myself,” he said aloud in astonishment. “I’ve been courting my mate this whole time.”

“I… what?” Littlewolf had a cloud of confusion around him.

Theo ran a hand over his suspender strap, the embroidered letters reassuring under his fingertips. Zeki had admitted to making his stronger, to touching him when he didn’t have to, to wanting to give Theo more. He’d been showing off for Theo’s benefit, demonstrating to Theo that he could protect him. “And my mate was courting me.” Theo had been so worried about how things were supposed to go he hadn’t noticed he and Zeki had been doing fine on their own.

“Oh wow.” Violet, at least, understood Theo’s shock.

Theo focused on them. “I’ll send someone else in for the bodywash.” His mind was already in his kitchen. “I need to get back to the grocery store. Uh, nice to meet you,” he murmured at Littlewolf, already distracted, and barely remembered to grab the bag of popcorn and candy before he was out the door.

Chapter 9

Z
EKI
KNELT
down once again to stare into the coffee shop’s pastry case. The croissants and scones from the shop’s usual supplier were mostly gone, probably because no other options were available. No offense to the croissants, but people more interested in cookies and dessert bars had been disappointed for the past few days. Theo hadn’t been in with a delivery, and as far as Zeki knew, he had no plans to.

If he’d called Mr. Elliot, Mr. Elliot hadn’t said a word to Zeki about it, aside from commenting that sometimes Theo brought in too much and sometimes, like after a fire, he didn’t bring in anything.

But there hadn’t been any fires. So Zeki sighed and picked apart a healthy treat made of cranberries and oats without eating much of it. He wasn’t actually hungry, but he needed something to go with all the espresso in his stomach, because he’d had too much of it, because he was tired, because he hadn’t slept well.

He was being foolish and he knew it. When he wasn’t staring at the empty display, he was staring out the window, trying to see if Theo was working at the firehouse. He thought he was. Earlier that morning when he’d been opening the coffee shop, he thought he’d seen a glimpse of him, but since then he hadn’t seen much of any of the firefighters.

If Theo was doing well enough to go to work, that was good. Zeki should be happy with that. If he said no to jumping into “forever” with Theo, Theo wasn’t going to turn into some kind of wreck. He wasn’t a teenager anymore.

Zeki wasn’t a teenager anymore either. Which meant he shouldn’t be up all night thinking of Theo and sighing, pining for a glimpse of him, and he shouldn’t be making decisions about the rest of his life—their lives—based on his feelings from high school.

Of course, Theo wasn’t exactly how Zeki had imagined he would be in high school, and thinking of it in terms of a crush wasn’t helpful because it reminded Zeki of what his dad had said about everything.