I nodded. “Can’t talk about it, though. He confided in me.” Cracking a smug expression, I met Roscoe’s eyes. “He’s toldme things he won’t even tell Adam, so that rotten pineapple’s actually pretty sweet inside. He also showers more now. Still gonna call my bluff?”
Roscoe said nothing.
“That’s what I thought,” I continued, knowing deep down I wasn’t going to do anything. No way would I break the promise I made to Adam, even if he stomped on my last nerve at times. “Do you even know where we’re going?”
“Nope. If they wanna be seen, they’ll find us. Ever open a piece of cheese around a dog?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s kinda what we’re gonna do, only the dogs are eight-foot-tall and really territorial.”
“Well, when you put it like that, I’d rather go back and take my chances with Mosavi.” I tugged at Roscoe’s ratty, black, sleeveless shirt that didn’t go past his midriff. This was the first time I’d ever seen him wear it, and it had the wordcumwritten in the style of a popular video game title on the chest. “Where the hell did you find this?”
“Would you believe someone just threw it away?”
“Yes, I would.”
We walked in silence for only a moment before Roscoe’s tone slipped into something more concerning. “I haven’t been able to find my orange hoodie. You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, would you?”
I was hoping I could get that thing clean before he noticed it was gone.
“I put it in with the load of laundry earlier. You’re lucky I didn’t throw it away.”
His ears pressed angrily against his head. “You washed it after I told you not to?”
“It was filthy, and I got tired of smelling it.”
“You know how long it took me to get it smellin’ like that?”
“Dude. Nothing should smell like that.”
Roscoe huffed, looking away. “You don’t understand. Smells mean everything to a werewolf. That hoodie was comfortable and familiar, and someone special gave it to me.”
“It’s just in the washing machine. It’s not like I threw it in the fire pit.”
“You may as well have. It’s gonna take months to get it smellin’ the way it did.”
“I swear to God—”
“Don’t go changin’ everything,” he snapped, which startled me. “It’s bad enough yer makin’ me take showers all the time. It’s hard on my skin, you know? We ain’t like humans. Gotta have them natural oils or we start to itch all the damn time.”
“Then why don’t you and Austin just shift into your half-turn form when you shower? My skin doesn’t itch.”
Roscoe gritted his teeth, glaring straight ahead.
“Don’t wash my hoodie no more.”
“Whoa, you’re really upset.”
“Just a little.” He forced a smile. “Yer gonna learn to love that smell one day. Nothin’ really stinks to a werewolf. Certain smells just makes us think about things.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, see that pile of deer shit over there?” He turned to the right and nudged me. Sure enough, there were deer droppings not far from where we were walking. “I can tell you almost anything about that deer just from smellin’ it’s shit.”
“Ew. Are you fucking with me right now?”
“Ain’t gonna lie about that, otherwise you’d probably think I was into it.”
