Derek and Cal decided that they wanted to feed everyone, so the next day, there was a brand new coal grill in the yard and then soon after, a delivery van brought them a couple of new picnic tables.
“All on the Council’s buck, don’t worry.” Noah grinned at Derek and Cal who were a little bit speechless. Then again, they’d agreed to pay for anything they’d need so… here they were.
The window company came on Wednesday, so they decided to give the boys a day to clean the mess left behind and to scrape the loose paint off. On Friday, they were havingtalkoot, if the weather held.
It did, and the autumn day was surprisingly warm, starting from mid-morning. Derek felt good, Cal was healthy, Kit seemed happy and was starting to get a handle on his crush on Noah, and… everything was fine.
Around midday, people from the Jarvela farm—including the wolf pups—had congregated in Cal and Derek’s yard. The rumble of an SUV signaled the last helpers arriving.
Joonatan jumped out of the driver’s seat, grinning at Mikael who went to greet him. A pretty woman with some serious curves got out of the passenger’s seat and went to open the back door. In quick succession, she got three kids, all under five, Derek thought, out of the car.
The wolf pups all ran to greet the human kids and Derek smiled. Yeah, he knew how the Council could’ve taken this. If somehow Joonatan’s family, after they’d found out about wolves when Joonatan had seen Jude’s accident and subsequent involuntary shift early in the summer, would’ve been a problem, the Council would’ve eliminated them all somehow.
Derek had always had mixed feelings about the Council. Sure, they kept shifters out of the limelight, but they also took care of problems. Sometimes, those problems were humans who had seen too much and if they happened to have kids, well, sometimes those kids became collateral damage.
“Derek, you okay?” Kit asked, touching his hand as he came outside.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He glanced at Kit. “Where’s your dad?”
“He’s coming, he couldn’t find the shirt he wanted to wear for the painting.”
They were all dressed in their most ratty clothing for the job they had ahead.
Kit went to the other boys who were talking to Joonatan now. Anton wanted to be a mechanic and would be apprenticing with Joonatan, starting in a couple of weeks’ time.
The kids, all six of them, were rolling in the grass or running around—depending on how well they could move. Joonatan’s wife was sitting next to her littlest, the one who couldn’t walk yet, and smiling at the others when they went to rummage through the bag of toys she’d lifted out from the car.
“Hey, did I hear a car?” Cal asked as he finally surfaced from the house.
“Yeah, Joonatan brought his family, too,” Derek said, smiling as he nodded toward the kids who had found a soccer ball from the bag.
“Oh,” Cal said in a weird tone.
Derek turned to him and saw something horrible happen in Cal’s expression. Cal blinked a few times, then bolted back inside.
“Cal?” Derek called after him.
“Derek, what’s wrong?” Noah jogged to him, alerted by the tone of his voice.
“Cal, something just triggered him, I think.” He gestured at the open doorway. “I gotta—”
“Yeah, go, we’ll handle this. Go find your mate,” Noah said.
Derek ran up the stairs and closed the door behind himself. He kicked off his boots and started to look around for Cal. When he couldn’t find him anywhere, he realized there was only one explanation.
He went to the bedroom to the side of the bed he couldn’t see from the doorway. Cal’s clothes, shoes included, were on the floor by the bed, with his shirt halfway under it.
Derek knelt on the floor and peered into the dark space.
“Sweetheart, whatever it is, could you please come back to me?” he said in a calm tone.
The cat made a half-threatening sound that cut off abruptly, probably because Cal pulled the reins as hard as he could.
“I’m not upset. I’m worried. Would you come here and sit with me on the bed for a while, then shift when you feel like you can?” He got to his feet and climbed on the bed, then settled against the headboard.
He hoped this strategy would help.
Listening to the sounds from outside, Derek tried his best to relax. This waiting might take a while.
