“You sure you’re ready for this?” Leo asked, waggling his eyebrows.
“Oh, I’m on the edge of my seat.”
“Actually, you’re on the ground.”
I let out a soft huff of laughter. “Now who’s the smart Alec?”
“Well, I did learn from the best.”
“Damn right, you did.”
We were both grinning like loons, and I loved it. Talking had always been easy between us, but now the threat of the brothers was gone, it flowed that much easier. It was amazing how not having the threat of imminent death hovering over our heads really lightened things.
Granted, I wasn’t stupid enough to think everything would be peaches and roses for the rest of our life. There had to be some fallout from taking down such a powerful family, and I was sure there would be other people who would rise to take advantage of the power vacuum, but I wasn’t going to sit here and dread what was to come. I was going to enjoy my time with my mate and all the new people I had the honor to get to know. I was going to enjoy myself, starting with the soft cheese Leo pulled out of the basket.
“Is that brie?” I asked, my salivary glands waking up. Like most people with taste buds, I loved cheese, but I rarely got to indulge in anything fancy. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been able to buy a little wheel of something so fancy. Maybe my birthday a couple of years earlier?
“It is.” Leo beamed at me. “And this is camembert.” However, the container he pulled out wasn’t one from the store, but rather one I recognized as my Tupperware. “I roasted this in the oven with honey and some walnuts over it. It’s not as warm as it could be, but it is still a little toasty.”
Was I getting emotional over cheese? Yes. Did that say something about me? Probably. Was I ashamed about it? Not in the slightest.
Leo continued to pull treats from the basket that showed how much he cared and how much he knew about me. I didn’t even remember telling him that I only liked dark chocolate when it was paired with peanut butter, and yet he knew. I also didn’t remember telling him that I preferred plain crackers so the flavor of whatever was on them wouldn’t be interfered with, yet he knew.
Could he get any more perfect?
Well, I supposed it would be cool to have a boyfriend who could fly, but that also seemed a bit complicated. Time-travel powers? No, that would get problematic way too fast, and I didn’t want to end up in some sort of time shenanigans where I met my own grandmother and therefore stopped existing.
Wolf shifter boyfriend it was, then.
“I love you,” I said when he finished his grand parade of lovely things.
Leo looked a touch surprised, but then the corners of his eyes crinkled and he gave me the sweetest, sappiest smile.
“I love you, too.”
It was the perfect note to dig in on, and we did. We served each other and ourselves, chewing between long bouts of conversation. Entirely too soon, the sun began to set, which I didn’t even realize until I had trouble seeing Leo’s features beyond his piercing eyes and bright white teeth. After a couple of minutes of squinting, my mate chuckled before pulling a small camping lantern from the basket.
“I thought you might like this,” he said as he set it beside our blanket and flicked it on. It was dim enough that it wasn’t blinding or disruptive to the nature around us. We could still look up and watch the gradual arrival of the stars as the sky slowly dipped itself into ink, but I could also see Leo’s face whenever I wanted to… which was pretty much all the time.
Our conversation went anywhere and everywhere, meandering through past anecdotes, through his concerns for the newly recovered members of his pack, to my stories about working at the grocery store. It was surprisingly cathartic to be able to grouse about something so mundane. So banal. It seemed like Leo enjoyed the stories, which made sense since he’d never had a minimum-wage job. From what he’d told me his pack had gotten by on freelance labor gigs and pooled all their money to support each other. I couldn’t imagine it, but it sounded nice.
“Do you think you’ll ever go back?”
“Go back?” Leo echoed.
The two of us were lying on our backs, watching the stars overhead.
“To your pack’s old grounds. Your homes are all there, right?”
Although I’d never gotten a clear description, I got the impression Leo’s old stomping ground was somewhat like a trailer park, but with cabins, shacks, or ranch houses built by members of the pack over the past few generations. I knew they had running water and electricity, but they were largely cut off from contact with human civilization unless they traveled through the woods that surrounded them. It was hard to believe there were still places like that in America, but it did sound peaceful. And although I loved my cabin, there simply wasn’t enough room for a long-term situation. The tents, the trailers, the RVs… all of that was temporary. And if we were ever unlucky enough for my landlord to come around, he might kick me out.
“I’ve thought about it,” Leo said, and I could hear the deep introspection within his voice. “But I don’t know how much is left there for us. Sometimes I think it would be better to start over completely rather than chasing ghosts from our past.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the brothers cursed our pack, I’m pretty sure they torched our homes. It’s fuzzy… that whole night is, but I think if we returned home all we would find is ashes.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” In my mind, Leo’s original home was waiting for him to return. I had been bracing myself for the day he would leave me, but after everything that had happened, it was pretty clear he wasn’t going anywhere unless I was with him, so I’d begun to wonder if I would move right along with him. Seemed like all that worrying was for nothing.
