“Don’t mess with the classics, eh?” He laughed at my scowl even as he plucked the box from my hand. “Here, let me.”
He reached out and slid the box onto the shelf with ease, still giving me a smug smirk.
“Are you trying to give Jenson a reason to fire me?” I asked. “If he catches you doing my job for me, he’s going to demand to know why he’s paying me.”
“Trying to do the opposite,” Alex said, one eyebrow raised. “Because if he sees that you aren’t able to even shelve items without having to lug a stool around with you, he’s going to call you dead weight.”
I raised my eyebrows in ayou’re not wronggesture. “You know, he said I was mopping too quickly last week and that I needed to slow down. Then this week, when I did, he told me I was taking too long and needed to hurry up.”
Alex snorted, rolling his eyes as he flashed a grin. “Yeah, he would do that. But he’s always been like that.” When I shot him a disbelieving look, he bobbed his head in concession. “All right, he’s worse with you, and we all know it.”
“God, why do I even care?” I muttered, glancing over my shoulder. “He makes coming here miserable. I don’t know why I even want to keep this job.”
Alex didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. This job was the only way I could get out of my mother’s house. When I tried to move out and search for an apartment, she had thrown a fit, saying it wasn’t proper for a daughter to live on her own before she was mated, especially someone with my particular “deficiencies.” It had been too much effort to argue with her over it.
We had compromised when she agreed to let me get a job, but she had only agreed to that when I spun it as a way for me to find a mate. To my mother, that was really the only good contribution I could give to the pack. According to her, I’d be lucky to mate with a semi-strong shifter and produce some kids who might be shifters themselves. But it had at least gotten Mom to agree to the idea of me working. Which was how I ended up working at Jenson’s Goods, a small grocery store on the outskirts of town. I hated the hours and my boss, but at least it got me out of the house.
“Thorn!”
I closed my eyes. Only my boss ever called me that. Already knowing who I would see, I turned to see a large man with a paunch and streaks of gray in his hair moving toward me. In my mind, I raced through the last couple of hours, trying to figure out what I might have done that would piss Jenson off since I started my shift, but coming up empty. He must havefound something to blame me for, though. The fact that the pack alpha was my older brother hadn’t softened his antagonism toward me in the slightest.
Alex raised his eyebrows and gave an innocuous whistle as he turned and walked away.
“You’re just going to abandon me like that?” I asked.
Shrugging, he said, “You can handle it on your own. I have faith.”
“Coward,” I hissed without any real malice.
He turned his head and gave a playful wink as he smirked, then disappeared around the corner just as Jenson arrived.
I straightened, turning to face my boss as he scowled down at me with distaste. He always stopped just short of outright antagonizing me, or, at least, doing so in a way that I could prove it and complain about to Elias. Not that I would. I didn’t let my brother fight my battles for me.
“Yes, sir?” I asked.
His tongue prodded the inside of his cheek as he looked me up and down, sizing me up the way he did whenever we came face to face. I waited, bracing myself for whatever he was going to yell at me for: not putting the mop back in the storage closet the right way, putting an item on the shelf crooked, breathing wrong.
“You’re clocking out early,” Jenson said.
I frowned, unease crawling up my spine. “Am I being fired or something?”
“No.”
“Then what—?”
“The Oracle’s summoned you to a meeting.”
I froze as the words sank in. I blinked in surprise.
“The Oracle?” I managed to ask.
His lips pursed. “Did I stutter, or is your hearing just that bad?” he demanded.
“I heard you the first time, sir,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I’m just surprised. What does she want with me?”
He rolled his eyes and shrugged. “You’d have to ask her that, wouldn’t you?” he said. “Now, go.”
He made a dismissive, shooing motion with one hand before turning and marching away, leaving me alone as I tried to figure out what the hell the Oracle would want with me.
