Page 6 of Same One
“Okay, well while you sort that out, give me your phone.”
Tru rifled through her giant purse and pulled out her phone, fumbled it, dropped it, but Tabian caught it before it hit the grass. He faced it toward her so the facial recognition could unlock it, and then he added his phone number to her contacts.
“If your kid is some kind of werewolf fan, probably try to aim his interests at something more productive. We’re all a mess.” Tabian texted himself from her phone so he had her number too and then handed it back to her and stood to his full height. He was easily a foot taller than her. She was hands-down the prettiest human he’d ever seen.
Age didn’t mean shit to him, so this was a her-issue.
“I’ll meet up and say hi to him as a favor to you if you want,” he murmured. “I can meet him at that coffee shop if you want.”
“Oh. Okay,” she said softly.
He turned to leave but rounded on her again. “I know I’m not supposed to care, but you said something about mothering a man, and that doesn’t sit well with me. I know you’ve probably had a bad experience, and you’re just aiming at anything with a dick, but no woman would ever have to mother me. Not my style.If…and it’s a big if…I ever decide to settle down, my woman would be spoiled rotten. I don’t need anything from a woman but companionship, and even that is a new urge for me. I blame it on my Pack. They’re all pairing up and sometimes I see it and I think it would be nice to have someone to come home to, who gave a shit about how my day went. I’m also comfortable being alone though, and don’t need anything from anyone. I haven’tsince I was younger than your boy. Fuck age, Tru. A man is a man, and that has nothing to do with the number of times he’s lived through a rotation around the sun.” He looked her up and down. “You sure look pretty with the sunlight hitting your eyes like this.”
And with that, he nodded his head in a goodbye and made his way up the street back toward the coffee shop, forcing himself not to look behind him.
Chapter Two
Tru couldn’t take her eyes off Tabian.
She’d done a deep dive researching the werewolf Packs around here, but from what she could find online, part of the Pack had split off and hadn’t re-registered. Tabian used to be a part of the Coeur d’Alene Lake Pack, but was now listed as a Rogue, and very little information remained online about him. The fact that he was even still in the area was news to her. Maybe that meant Liam and Nate and Vic and the others were still hanging around too.
She huffed a sigh as she watched him take a sharp right and disappear around a house.
He was the hottest man she’d ever laid eyes on, but here was the problem—she had the worst taste in men, so clearly something was very wrong with Tabian Garr. Her being attracted to him proved it.
That man was tall, and tan, and muscled. She could tell even through the black hoodie he was wearing. Under his black baseball cap, his blue eyes had blazed so brightly, it was hard to look away.
She should’ve felt scared at the unnatural set of his facial features, but she had been around this before, after all.
Nothing scared her anymore.
Her phone buzzed with a text message. It was from Bayen.
Hey, do you still want me to pick you up at the coffee shop?
Oh shoot, she’d forgotten to text him. She’d been distracted by a werewolf.
I would be too weird to ask him to meet Tabian at the coffee shop.
I’m walking home. I’ll see you there.Send.
She started walking, but just a few minutes later, when she turned onto their street, her car pulled up alongside her and Bayen rolled down the driver’s side window. “Are you okay?”
His eyes were blazing bright gold, and her instincts wrenched up. “Are you?” she asked, stepping off the curb to come closer.
“Yeah, I just got worried. Something didn’t feel right.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “My whole last period at school, I felt like something was wrong.”
Tru sighed and let her shoulders slump in relief. Bayen’s instincts were insane, thanks to the wolf he was trying desperately to manage. No kid should have to deal with what he did.
She scrunched up her nose. “Want to get burgers for dinner? I’m wiped tonight and I don’t want to cook.”
“Do we have the money?” he asked.
“I got paid today.”
He grinned. “Then yes.”
She laughed and shook her head as she walked around the car and got into the passenger’s side. Keeping a teenage werewolf fed was the focus of her life most days.
