“Make good decisions tonight and call me if you need anything!” Avery said after the running boys.
An old Bronco that Moira had seen in the parking lot of the Woodpecker Inn pulled to a stop near them and the passenger side window rolled down. It was Ava and Birdie shoved in the open window frame, waving.
“Are y’all heading back to the lodge?” Birdie asked.
“Lodge?” Avery asked.
“Yeah, we’re staying over at the Woodpecker Inn,” Ava explained. “We were going to pick up a pack of Uno cards on the way back to the cabins if you guys want to hang out at the main lodge. We had a huge pot roast meal earlier for UnValentine’s Day, and there are a ton of leftovers if you are hungry.”
“Hell yeah,” Cam answered in a rush. He could tell Avery was interested, and she and Moira seemed to be getting along really well. He liked it when Moira was happy, and he wanted to extend it. “We can pick up drinks and snacks.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Brock said from the driver’s seat. “See you guys there.”
He waved at the Bronco as it pulled past a group of parents and onto the main road. “Okay, I’m ready,” he said to Moira.
“Ready for what?”
“For you to fight me on hanging out.”
She looked up at him with such a pretty smile. “I’m having fun. As long as Birdie doesn’t Change.”
“If Birdie Changes, you can just change into your cat and battle it out.”
Moira frowned. “Oh.”
“What, you never thought of that?”
“Well, no. My cat isn’t afraid of rodents.”
“Why are you?” he asked, leading her and Avery toward his truck.
“Well, when I was six years old, my mom got me this little feeder mouse that pet stores sell to feed snakes, you know? And she was going to teach me to hunt. She’s a cat too, obviously. I was getting closer to my first Change, and she thought it would be good for me to learn to hunt early. So, for my sixth birthday, she got me this little cage with the mouse, and explained, and I reached in the cage to hold it, and that thing bit the crap out of me. Just…” She shook her head and looked up at him wide-eyed. “Teeth to the bone. And it hurt and I had this little dot of blood, and I don’t know. I didn’t want anything to do with it after that. And then my parents were making fun of me so much that it became this big thing in my head. Bigger and bigger over the years, until I just had this phobia of rodents. I know it sounds dumb. The cat doesn’t mind them, but I mind.”
“It makes sense that the embarrassment added to that,” Avery offered kindly. “I don’t like mice at all. Or wasps. I will move apartments if there is a mouse or wasp problem.”
Cam still had his arm around Moira, and she was walking so easily right beside him, quiet in her thoughts. He opened the door for her and offered his hand to help her up, and she didn’t even balk at it or insult him this time.
Avery climbed in the back seat and went to chattering with Moira as he shut the door and made his way around the front of his truck.
He wanted more nights just like this one.
He wanted Moira to come to Nathaniel’s games with him and hang out with him and his sister afterward. He wanted to make plans with mutual friends. He wanted to go to more gas stations and watch Moira and Avery get into heated debates on which candies were the best. He wanted to negotiate who paid for what when it came to a mountain of sodas and snacks. Hewanted to put his arm around her every day. He wanted to taste her always. He wanted to get to know every single thing about her.
Nothing inside of Cam wanted her to leave him tomorrow.
He wanted more time with her.
He wanted more of Moira.
Chapter Nine
Moira grabbed another bite of mashed potatoes off Cam’s plate and leaned back, hiding her cards from him as best as she could. He was sitting right next to her, his outer thigh touching hers.
She drew her knees up into crisscross applesauce and was grateful she’d taken the time to change into her oversized sweatpants and baggy hoodie before she and Cam had made their way to the big lodge.
It was after hours. The grandfather clock near the hearth said 10:10, and Brock had closed the doors an hour ago when they’d all piled in here.
The feeling in here was hard to describe. It was like they were high school kids sneaking into the library and spending the night there giggling and breaking rules.
