Being(s) In Love 03 - A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate (21 page)

Theo stopped dead in the middle of the street, ignoring the honking of already slow-moving traffic. Tourists and residents alike ignored street signs and crosswalks and crossed as they pleased. Most drivers avoided Main Street for that reason.

He wanted to sit down. He was so tired.

But Zeki had said he had to be there for when he wanted to talk, and would most definitely not be pleased to find Theo curled up in the middle of Main Street. So he hefted the grocery bag of microwave popcorn and candies Maria had requested for their mob-themed movie night and continued on firehouse errands.

He hurried forward in relief when he walked into the drugstore and saw Violet behind the front counter.

Violet had cut their feathery hair short and dyed it black, and today wore no jewelry, just a simple T-shirt and the khaki pants they were supposed to wear when at work but almost never did. Violet was apparently testing a new moisturizer on their arms but dropped the bottle and hurried around the counter when they saw him.

Theo was engulfed in a slightly slippery hug. “Hey.” He couldn’t rest his cheek on Violet’s head now, but wrapped one arm around them to return the embrace. It had taken Violet a while to get used to how much weres touched each other. Surely Zeki could get used to other things, given enough time. Theo wouldn’t be oblivious, or not
as
oblivious. He’d make sure everyone was as kind to Zeki as Zeki wanted to be to them. Zeki had returned to Wolf’s Paw to help people. He shouldn’t be punished for his feelings simply because he wasn’t a were.

“Theo! Where’ve you been? I hear things but you don’t call, you aren’t at home… silence from you isn’t that unusual but people keep telling me the wizard charmed the firehouse or something….” Violet pulled away and pointed at Theo’s suspender strap in surprise. Zeki’s magic put itself forward and refused to be ignored.

Theo lifted his chin. “It’s to protect me.”

Violet took another step from him and narrowed their eyes, but then smoothed out their expression and sailed back behind the counter. “Your mother called me. Evidently you haven’t been calling her.” Violet let Theo react to that and went on after he gave a start and shook his head. “The powwow went well, but she’s thinking of cutting short the family visits and speeding up here. I nicely lied and told her you were fine. You’re welcome.”

His parents hadn’t been sure about leaving him here alone. Theo had to convince them he would be okay, and he would have been. No one had predicted Zeki would return.

That no one had called her or his father to tell them Zeki was in town was a small miracle, or quite possibly, the work of a certain pixy, and perhaps the sheriff, although Theo couldn’t see why Sheriff Neri would bother with him when he had other things on his mind.

“Thank you,” Theo thanked them obediently, then met them at the counter. He dropped the bag of popcorn on the floor. “Did you tell her about Zeki?” Violet had threatened to. Theo had been too distracted to question why his family hadn’t immediately called him. He’d assumed they’d decided to drive back instead and had been out of touch.

“No.” Violet made a little moue at him, as if hurt he would think that. “Are you kidding?” They swept lotion down their arms and tried to act nonchalant. “If… if something were to get off the ground with you two the way it couldn’t the first time, the last thing you need is your family around, alternating glaring at him and throwing him into your path.”

Violet had accurately summed up how his family would have reacted to Zeki. Nonetheless, Theo spent a few moments imagining how Zeki would respond to them the moment they interfered or said anything about instinct. Violet was right. Zeki didn’t need any more reasons to think this was a bad idea. And there was no reason to get his parents upset if Zeki was leaving anyway.

“But you know about everything?” This was Theo’s first time out in public since Zeki had left his house, but he assumed the town had been talking about it. There was little else to talk about unless it was the murmured speculation about what the sheriff would do during the full moon. Theo guessed he’d work. He always worked during the full moons. A mate who didn’t want him was hardly going to change that.

Unless his mate went out to find someone during the moon. That could happen. Theo felt a moment of real fear on the sheriff’s behalf and wished they were friends so he could stop by the station and distract him, or comfort him if that happened.

“Everything?” Violet snapped him out of his unhappy thoughts. “What does
that
mean?”

So the others at the firehouse hadn’t mentioned his date with Zeki to anyone, and neither had Zeki. Theo felt a rush of grateful heat and then a shiver of regret as he realized he had incited Violet’s curiosity.

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted truthfully, lack of sleep or the fattening moon rendering him careless. “I recognized him before, but now I know him. He’s wonderful. Maybe he wouldn’t do for you or the sheriff or my sister or anyone else, but he’s wonderful for me. He’s as pushy as you.” He smiled as he said it and ignored Violet’s aside that Theo needed pushy friends. “But he’s not mean. He’s… clever. He wants things to be safe, and to grow. He thinks fast, maybe he thinks too much, sometimes, but he can’t help it, Violet. That’s what he trusts. It’s all he had in school. When he did what should have been natural, when he felt and followed his feelings, they teased him for it. They bullied him, because he wanted
me
.”

The noise he made for that wasn’t contented or happy by any means, but there was some satisfaction in finally knowing personal details about his mate—that Zeki had longed for Theo all along.

Violet considered him critically. “You’re different. Something about you is different.” They stepped away for a moment to ring someone up, then came back with their arms crossed. Theo tried to hold still and couldn’t. Violet gasped. “Oh my God, you fucked him!”

“No!” Theo’s entire body was on fire. Anyone in the store would have heard that. Zeki said he didn’t mind, but that didn’t mean he wanted everyone to know everything.

“He fucked you!” Violet guessed in the same tone.

Theo growled, just because. “Violet, I swear….” He stopped at their brief shamed expression. Theo gestured at them, at anyone else in the store listening in. “It wasn’t like that. We… were together.” He knew the words for what they’d done, but the technicalities didn’t matter. This was about touch and scent and intimacy and… he flushed all over. He wanted to put his nose against Zeki’s soft belly and breathe in.

Violet gasped again. “Theo, do you realize how much harder it will be for you when he leaves?” In a flash, Violet was around the counter again with their arms wrapped around him.

“He might not leave.” Theo bent to pick them up so he could sigh into their hair.

Violet squirmed. “Using you like that, that son of a—” They stopped midrant. “What do you mean he might not leave? He said he was going to leave.”

Giving voice to his uneasy hope only made it stronger and more frightening. “Now he has some work here, and an interest in staying beyond his dad. He likes me. But this confused him. He… he said he didn’t know, and he had to think.”

Violet wriggled until Theo put them down. “Likes you?” They blinked several times. “Think?” The word seemed as alien to Violet as it was to Theo. But he nodded. “
And
?” they demanded.

“I don’t know.” Theo truly didn’t. “But he said… he said it wasn’t a no.”

He appreciated how lost Violet looked. It was how he’d felt for the past several days. Violet put their hands at their hips. “Then why did he say no the first time?”

“He didn’t know.” Theo gave up. With a stifled cry, he put his hands on the counter and lowered his head. He had never felt as stupid as he had when he’d heard Zeki innocently mention Theo asking him out.
On a date
. Theo squeezed his eyes closed. He could not have approached his mate in a worse fashion. “He didn’t know he said no,” Theo confessed to an alarmed Violet. “He thought… he thought I was hinting for a date. But as a joke. Remember Jason and—never mind. He thought I was another bully. So he said no. To the date, Violet. The date, not to me. But then he wanted me to know he had a crush on me in high school, and he would have said yes if I
had
wanted to date him.”

Since he had no clue what to do with that, Theo sighed. He didn’t see why a run through the woods wasn’t allowed. He’d come back. He would have even without a full moon and his mate in town to return to. He choked out a rough sound. “Somehow he studies every fact about every kind of magic—including sex magic.” Theo was sounding more wolf by the second. “
Sex magic
.” He wasn’t going to think about Zeki’s confidence or experience or how he’d hurried to reassure Theo he’d only dabbled in it. Theo’s wounded jealousy must have been on his face. “He can study that but then manage to ignore every fact about weres he should have learned in this town.” His pathetic growls ended at the thought. He was angrier with himself for never once turning in teenage Zeki’s direction. “He wasn’t happy here. I should have paid attention. I should have looked up once in a while to see that.”

Theo wasn’t sure what to say next, and then he heard himself, quiet and despairing. “He doesn’t trust in what he feels.” That’s what he’d said, but it felt like he didn’t trust Theo, or werewolves themselves.
I’m just a human
, he’d said, as if someone had made him feel like that was less than being a werewolf.

The drugstore was silent, as if everyone was either gone or listening. Then the door swung open. Theo didn’t raise his head, but Violet poked him until he frowned upward. Violet jerked their head over and glanced significantly to the side.

Theo carefully looked in the indicated direction and immediately got why Violet wanted him to see the store’s newest customer. Ferocity in a little package stood in the entranceway, letting the door slowly shut behind him. At first glance, the man didn’t seem were. He was small, for one thing. Well under six feet was fine for a human male, but for a werewolf it was tiny. He was shorter than most women, and a lot of the high schoolers. He was also thin, not starving, but definitely underfed. It took a lot of food to satisfy a were’s metabolism, and this were hadn’t had enough food for a long time.

He was dressed for colder weather too, in a T-shirt and two baggy flannel shirts, when most of the weres in town were already starting to wear their summer clothes.

Despite all of that, he was unmistakably were if you knew what to look for. He turned his head to scan the drugstore and the light hit his eyes. They were pale blue, ringed with a darker, midnight blue, supernaturally bright and intense as he mapped the store.

This was very clearly the sheriff’s Littlewolf.

Littlewolf had dirty blond, almost brown hair, and white skin with freckles, and a snub nose. He also had an epic frown on his pretty face and a determined, imperious way of carrying himself, chin up, gaze sharp. Or so Theo thought, until he realized Littlewolf kept to the wall and avoided aisles with people in them.

Theo was staring. Littlewolf probably knew he was staring. The downside of being a were when you wanted to be invisible was always knowing when people were talking about you. Theo turned to Violet with his eyebrows raised. Violet nodded sagely.

Littlewolf appeared younger than Theo, which made him maybe twenty. It wasn’t a huge age difference, but the sheriff was… the sheriff was the sheriff. Sheriff Neri impressed people without trying and intimidated everyone with a pulse. Theo couldn’t imagine he’d have a mate so young. He’d walk all over him.

For the first time in his life, Theo started to truly doubt his instincts. The instincts behind matings must be flawed if they would pair this frightened, strange creature with Sheriff Neri. Perhaps Zeki was right to worry if even two weres could be so wrong for each other.

He didn’t understand, and his suddenly muddled thinking didn’t help. Theo sniffed and rubbed his nose, then frowned. Littlewolf was in the next aisle, staring at bags of chips. He was the source of the magic smell, Theo noticed in surprise. The sheriff’s mate was another were who used magic.

Theo crept closer, not meaning to be rude, but intrigued. Until this, Theo had never met another were who used magic as humans did. Littlewolf continued to scowl as if the chips or the world in general displeased him.

Perhaps he was hungry. Chips wouldn’t satisfy a were’s appetite, especially this close to the full moon.

“Can I help you find something?” Violet chirped in the professional voice they almost never used.

Littlewolf cocked his head in their direction, then turned to look at them. “Oh, hi. No, I’m good.” He returned Violet’s greeting with a wide smile of his own, and it was unexpectedly charming. Littlewolf had a sweet smile, bordering on shy. It lasted for a moment before he took in Theo, near Violet’s side. His frown returned in a heartbeat, and his chin went even higher. “What?” he snapped. “Why are people staring at me
now
? Holy crap!” His gaze swept over Theo from his head to his feet. “Shit, this town is like one model after another.”

“You think I look like a model?” Theo blurted and then cringed to hear himself.

Littlewolf snorted and waved at him. “Please. You might be the hottest thing I’ve seen on two legs except for—” He shut his mouth hard. A few seconds later a blush began to travel through his cheeks and down his neck. Even his ears turned pink. He turned his face away. “Goddamn instinct,” he swore quietly, then angled his head back up, as if he weren’t blushing and he’d deny it if they asked. “Anyway, if you’re a tourist here for, what this town is apparently all about, which is your weird sex festivals, then the condoms and everything are that way.” He pointed expertly to the considerable display, beyond the front counter.

Theo jumped, although it occurred to him that he’d never bought anything from that display to use with anyone else, not even as a teenager. Weres didn’t use condoms unless it was to make a human feel more at ease or to prevent pregnancy. Human diseases weren’t a concern, but lubricant could be nice.