Werewolf Single Dad 3, page 14
“Oh, of course,” Grace replied. “Confidentiality is a big part of AWOO’s policy. AWOO understands all too well that oftentimes, the less werewolves know about other werewolves, the better. Still, when you call up and offer your plan of action officially, specify how you’d like your details to remain confidential, just to be on the safe side.”
“I most definitely will,” I said. “Shall I wait until you’re working and have this conversation with you? I called in yesterday thinking you’d pick up, and planned to say all this to you in real time, but someone else picked up the phone, and I suddenly panicked that my idea of governing behind a fake name sounded shady, so I made this big bullshit song and dance up and started pretend panicking that I’d phoned AWOO instead of PackMate’s helpline.”
“That’s hilarious!” Grace laughed. “I’m not in the office ‘til next week, but I think definitely call the main office and tell whoever picks up everything you’ve told me, and you can tell them what I’ve told you as though it was your own research. If they already think you were trying to get in contact with PackMate, and you call back again and say you have all your facts straight and then lay out your plan to them, then it would go down well. AWOO likes people who come prepared, and I think calling them after saying you’ve called PackMate will just further convince them you’ve been doing your research, and it’ll put your plan in better stead. Plus, I think it will look good if it’s on record that you’ve spoken to more agents than just me. Makes it look a lot less like we’ve been cooking some harebrained scheme up together.”
“Good idea. Wouldn’t want to give the game away, would we?” I asked with a smirk. “Okay, so I will call AWOO back, and I will make it expressly clear to whichever agent picks up that I have done my research. I’ve found nothing that contradicts me being allowed to run my packs from an Alpha-verified account with a fake name, and I will demand absolute confidentiality as far as my real identity is confirmed. And I will not mention by absolutely any means that I have had any prior conversations with a certain Agent Sato during a call on her private number.”
“I’d say that’s about the size of it.” There was a palpable fondness in Grace’s tone.
Our call was heading to its natural finish, but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Miss Sato just yet.
I’d grown very fond of Grace, though never in what I would have considered in a romantic way, so why was it playing so heavily on my mind that she seemed to have a boyfriend?
Up until yesterday’s conversation, I’d seen Grace as nothing more than a friend. She was a great support network for me, and she’d really helped me navigate the choppy waters of my newfound Alpha status. Every conversation we ever had made me smile in some way, but I didn’t think I wanted any sort of romantic entanglement with her.
But ever since last night, when I’d heard her answering the call of a male, knowing she’d taken time off work to be with him, I was surprised to find I was feeling jealous.
I guess I wanted to know where mine and Grace’s relationship stood. Obviously, the two of us had never expressed any sort of desire to get to know each other on a more personal level, but there was a certain underlying flirtiness that pervaded all of our phone conversations, and I didn’t want to have to suppress our naturally playful chemistry because of the fact I now knew she was in a relationship.
Obviously, Grace knew she was in a relationship the whole time working with me, and if she didn’t want to flirt with me, she wouldn’t have.
But because I knew she had a boyfriend now, did that mean our tongue-in-cheek banter had to stop?
I dunno. I think I just wanted some clarity on Grace’s situation so I could get some clarity on my own confusing feelings. Then, if need be, the two of us could work out a new normal and talk in a way that respected the feelings of all parties.
After all, it was only natural a woman might find me attractive and exciting and get a little bit carried away with flirting with me, even one in a loving relationship. And my new Alpha mindset was predisposing me to try and attain as many potential mates as I could, and Grace was a very attractive woman who I genuinely enjoyed the company of, so of course my new-found need for a harem was overeager to amass eligible and beautiful recruits.
Though, it was strange, because the whole thing about an Alpha wanting to collate a harem was to do with breeding at its core, and Grace wasn’t a werewolf, so this want for her I’d seemingly unearthed seemed to be detached from my need to procreate an Alpha offspring, and more rooted in the fact that I liked Grace a lot as a person.
Honestly, my still blossoming Alpha puberty mixed in with the human-werewolf Ying-Ying equation was an unfathomable mindfuck at the best of times.
“Grace, before you go,” I said tentatively. “Can I ask you a question that isn’t government related?”
“Oh, erm…” Grace sounded surprised. “Well… nothing is going to stop you asking me a question, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer it… What do you want to ask me?”
“I was just… wondering where you were.” I cringed at my own tactlessness. “I-I mean. If you’re not at the office until next week, does that mean you’re on vacation?”
“Oh, y-yes. I’ve taken the week off to spend some time in a country lodge.” There was hesitancy in Grace’s voice. “I’m… here with my partner.”
“Oh, cool, I didn’t know you had a partner.” I laughed dryly, despite the stabbing sensation in my chest. “But I suppose why would I know that? Wait, are we talking partner ‘yee-haw’ or partner-partner?”
“Partner-partner,” Grace said with a forced laugh.
“That’s nice,” I said overly-cheerily. “Where are you staying?”
“Eaglewood,” the shifter agent replied.
I couldn’t help but detect a little bit of tension over the phone between us now, like she didn’t really want to tell me about her partner, and I guess that was in case it spoiled things between us.
And the only reason I came to this conclusion was because I was feeling the same way. I almost regretted asking her.
“It was his birthday on Sunday, so we’re here until Friday,” Grace continued after a quiet moment.
“Ah, well, I hope he’s having a lovely birthday getaway,” I said in an attempt to shoehorn some normality back into this awkward conversation. “And I hope you have a lovely week away from the office! Bet you were happy to get away for a few days. Hey, I’ll bet you hoped it meant you could go a week without me calling you up with another round of dumb questioning! Looks like you were wrong about that one, though, doesn’t it?”
I wanted a sinkhole to swallow the van up with me inside it at this point. Why was I being so awkward?
“I’d never hope for that,” Grace said with a light laugh and a hint of gentle wistfulness in her voice. “I like talking to you. You brighten my day whenever you call me up. You never fail to make me smile. Even when you are bringing heaps and heaps of trouble to my door. You always seem to make trouble somehow enjoyable. And I was on the honor roll at school. I don’t say things like that lightly.”
“That’s a real glowing review, Grace,” I chuckled. “I may have to get that one in writing.”
“I’m not one to leave a paper trail,” the agent said with a song-like laugh.
Grace’s calming magic and perfectly-placed sense of humor had gotten me through every difficult situation I’d ever approached her with so far, and it had worked on me again.
I felt relaxed and reassured in her company, even if it was just over the phone. Grace was the calm in my endless storm, and I knew we both realized the special connection we had, even if we may have been confusing what it really was for something else in this early flowering stage of our personal and professional relationship.
Whatever it was, I liked Grace a lot, and I hoped she’d be someone who stayed in my life for a very long time.
The two of us enjoyed a moment where we were both silent, but I could somehow tell both of us were smiling.
“Well, then, Mike, if that’s everything, I really should get going,” Grace said. “This lake’s not going to swim in itself. Wait… did that even make sense?”
The two of us burst into authentic laughter.
“I don’t know if it did, but we’ll roll with it,” I said. “Okay, well, have a great few days away, and I’ll call AWOO later and report my new situation to them, leaving you out, just like we said. And I’ll call the usual number at some point when you’re in to fill you in with my newest batch of dumb questions and drama.”
“I can’t wait,” Grace said with a deep warmth to her tone. “Speak to you later, Mike. Bye, now.”
“Bye, Grace… ”
My phone screen had blacked out due to the length of the call, and I sat for a second or two just gazing out the van window while I replayed parts of the conversation over in my mind.
When I went to disconnect the call, I saw Grace was still lingering on the other end, and my heart skipped a beat and landed in my throat. Grace and I seemed to be having a “no you hang up,” moment. Not the kind from Scream, but a real romantic kind, maybe like from The Simpsons movie, in the scene where the government is tapping everyone’s phone calls.
Damn it, I really did reference The Simpsons far too much.
Like how people in long-distance relationships find some sort of comfort in falling asleep on the phone to people they care about, just so they wouldn’t have to say goodbye, Grace and I seemed to be finding a modicum of comfort in keeping our phone call connected.
However, saying goodbye was inevitable, and after a few more seconds basking in each other’s silent company, Grace finally pressed the big red button on our call, and the line went dead.
Strangely, despite no words being spoken during that thirty seconds or so, I felt like I knew exactly what Grace was thinking. There was a were-elephant in the room between us. Maybe something neither of us had been able to put our fingers on yet or figure out, but something big.
I leaned back in my driver’s seat and tried to make sense of what my something big was, and I knew I was prone to daydreaming and some mental meanderings, so I paid extra-special attention as I tried to keep my thoughts as grounded as possible.
I felt like there was some sort of charged energy simmering between Grace and I whenever I called her, but did she feel it, too?
There was little doubt in my mind she sounded hesitant when she went on to tell me about her boyfriend, and I had a sneaking suspicion she only told me about him because she knew I’d heard him on the phone the night before, but did all that really mean Grace had found herself falling for me in some capacity?
Or was I totally misreading the signals of what I conceived to be Grace’s subtle flirtations here, just because I was still getting my head around the fact that I was suddenly some sort of He-Man Adonis, therefore every woman who ever laid eyes on me simply must have been in love with me?
I dunno. There were a lot of conflicting feelings coming at me from all angles, and it was impossible for me to pinpoint what myself or Grace were truly feeling, but I felt like I needed to go with my gut on this one.
I could have been totally fabricating a narrative here, but when I thought about it again, it just felt like Grace was kinda stuck or overly settled in a relationship and had found herself to be unexpectedly interested in me in a deeper way than either of us had anticipated.
And though she was quiet and a self-confessed stickler for the rules, I got the feeling Grace was actually quite the lover of excitement.
After all, why else would you become a government agent?
Even if it wasn’t strictly a romantic vibe between us, there was definitely something there, and I could tell Grace and I were both scared to lose whatever “it” was now that we both knew Grace had a boyfriend.
Morally, from this point forward, I should have decided I was going to address Grace with the utmost formality.
But I was a morally pliable kinda guy, and if Grace saw no need to water down the chemistry simmering in the airwaves between us, then neither did I.
After all, a little window-shopping isn’t illegal if you’re spoken for. You’re just not allowed to touch the merchandise.
As my racing thoughts about one of the ladies who had made a big impact on my new life calmed, I brought myself back to Earth and reminded myself that I’d thought about meeting another for lunch.
I was already out and about with not a lot on my to-do list, so I decided it was the perfect time to drop in on Ava, even if it was far too early for lunch. So, I sent the pretty Omega a text asking if she’d like to meet up, and she replied almost immediately saying she’d love nothing more.
The drive over to the tattoo parlor was smooth, and I didn’t notice any suspicious activity from any single car around me. The hundreds of glinting windowpanes in the city’s tall skyscrapers shone like a hall of mirrors as I passed them, and I felt good about the day ahead.
But that feeling was short lived, because I was met with an unpleasant welcome when I parked in a parking lot in Ava’s part of the city.
“You looking at me, asshole?”
Chapter 7
“You wanna say that again?” I slammed my van door shut with a loud BANG. “Why would I be looking at you?”
The dilapidated parking lot was empty save for these two guys and me, so I’d noticed them hanging around as soon as I pulled into it, and-- naturally-- they noticed me. If anything, I should have been the one picking a fight with them for staring, since they hadn’t been able to pull their wired eyes off me from the moment I parked.
Both guys were semi-buff and looked to be in their mid-thirties. One was a blond Caucasian in a beanie hat, the other had light brown skin and gelled-back black hair, and both of them were dressed in gray tracksuits and shiny white Nikes.
And both of them had a crazy look in their beady, staring eyes.
“You tell me, dickwad,” Beanie-Hat said as he puffed out his chest. “You tryna start shit?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I scoffed. “I’ve just parked my fucking van. I haven’t said two words to you.”
“Don’t need two words,” Gel-O chimed in with his top lip curled. “You were staring like you wanna fight, bro.”
“Oh, please.” I could feel the anger rising in me. “I wasn’t staring at anyone! Get a fucking clue, ‘bro.’”
The guy with the gelled black hair took immediate umbrage to my mocking use of his language, and he scrunched his face in fury and began charging toward me, with his beanie-hatted accomplice close on his heels.
It was abundantly clear these guys were wired for a fight, and I was pissed off now, but I had to be extremely careful about how I dealt with these two vagrants.
There was a very thin, lingering scent of werewolf in the air, but I couldn’t definitely attribute it to these guys from this distance. That scent could have been from a couple of werewolves who passed by earlier today, and there was a good chance these two were humans. I couldn’t risk losing my temper and even partially shifting, because attacking humans was exactly the kind of bad behavior that would earn a werewolf like me a long stay at The Pound.
But I could tell there wasn’t going to be any use in politely asking these guys to leave me be.
“Come on then, you fucking asshole!” the blond fella in the beanie hat taunted as they drew closer. “Think you’re some big fucking tough guy, huh?”
“I could snap you like a fucking toothpick!” I snarled as I took another step closer to meeting these assholes in the middle of the parking lot.
“I’d like to see you fucking try it, pal,” Gel-O spat as he quickened his pace to beat his friend to what he clearly thought would be the first punch.
He should be so fucking lucky.
There was a second-long pause as the three of us stood almost nose to nose and bared our human canines to each other, and I could have sworn I saw just a glimpse of panic when these two aggravating fuckers realized how much bigger I was up close.
But we’d all gone too far to kiss and make up now.
I was mildly riled up by this point, but I wasn’t at the point of losing it, and if anything, I was hoping this chance encounter might be a good way to let off a little steam.
These guys needed to be taught a fucking lesson, but at this point, I was sure they weren’t Betas, since I couldn’t smell that familiar scent emanating from them. My working assumption was they were just plain old irritating as fuck human beings, but the fact they were human didn’t exempt them from receiving a well-deserved ass-whooping when they needed it.
After all, AWOO rules only said you couldn’t kill or grievously injure a human, not that you couldn’t bash them around a little if they deserved it.
My two new punching bags-to-be had a matching look of arrogance in their eyes, like they really believed they’d won this fight before it had even begun.
But I knew all along I was the only one with the real power here.
Gel-O threw the first punch, and in a way vaguely reminiscent of my first encounter with Ally and Red, the three of us exploded into a swirling Hanna-Barbera style dust cloud of wildly flying fists and colorful vulgarities right there in the middle of the parking lot.
Alongside the residual scent of a passing werewolf, the air was thick with the smell of rust, gas, and motor oil, and as all three of our fists collided with each other’s jaws, it didn’t take long for the metallic odor of blood to seep into the air like a spritz of perfume.
I swung my shoulders and extended my elbows as I planted a series of pummeling punches onto the heads of the double-team that I was brawling with, and I shuffled my feet as I evaded as many blows from the rock-em-sock-em dunderheads as I could.
