“Let me worry about that.”
Chapter 5
Beach Wolves
Roscoe and I sat in the back of the bus—in the designated werewolf section—with a few others from Ruskin Street. Though we’d left the apartment at six, it took us nearly four hours of bus-hopping to get to the beach.
“I didn’t realize how far away this was,” I whispered to Roscoe who was manspreading with his arms behind his head. While he had a lot of fur to hide his junk, everything was still partially visible, much to the horror of the humans sitting closer to the back. “I wish you’d wear some damn pants.”
“They can’t see nothin’,” Roscoe muttered, crossing one leg over his knee. “You got the sausages?”
I held up my backpack. “Yeah, they’re in here, but I don’t know how much longer they’re going to stay cool. Are youabsolutely sure Darryl’s not going to mind us dropping in like this?”
“Pssh, nah. He loves it when people visit him.” Roscoe grabbed the case of beer on the floor in the aisle and set it in his lap as we approached the small beach town. “There’s a little bodega on the way. We’ll stop there and get some ice.”
The brakes squealed, and the aging bus rolled to a stop. Most of the passengers stood, filing impatiently into the aisle with the humans getting off first. I slid my arms into the straps of my backpack and followed Roscoe as we side-stepped our way through, finally making it outside.
The atmosphere was definitely more pleasant here than in the city. The briny, cool seabreeze brushing against my face as we strolled along the sidewalk toward the sound of waves and shrieking gulls. I wore a white tank top, shorts and sandals, but covered my arms with a long-sleeved overshirt to hide my extra body hair. Thankfully, people here didn’t seem to stare as much as they did in the city.
After grabbing a bag of ice from the bodega, we walked across the street toward a narrow boardwalk surrounded by thick palmettos. After about a quarter of a mile, the iconic white dunes appeared, and beyond the rolling sand was an endless blue with white capped waves breaking along the shore.
“This is pretty,” I said, eyeing a huge, brown werewolf in the distance sitting high in a white wooden lifeguard chair, an orange rescue buoy loosely strapped to his back. He wore nothing else, and his tail swayed languidly as he leaned forward, keeping a close eye on three young teenagers swimming a little farther out than they should have been. His mane was trimmed shorter than Roscoe’s, but it was still just as thick from behind. I wasn’t able to get a look at his face from here, but he sure seemed handsome.
“Never seen the ocean?” Roscoe asked, slinging the dripping bag of ice over his shoulder.
“I’ve never had the time to come all the way out here.”
Roscoe made a hard right turn as the werewolf lifeguard turned, pulling me with him.
“Shouldn’t we say hi?”
“Not while he’s workin’,” Roscoe replied, pointing to a small beach house on stilts in the distance. “Looks bigger than it used to.”
“You’re not just going to walk into his house without asking.”
“’Course not.”
We approached the steps leading up to a wooden deck. There was a rusted steel barrel sitting in the corner, a charred, foil-covered grate over top. Old tiki torches surrounded the deck, and a large, wooden spool was used as a table with four mismatched lawn chairs. A faded orange parasol with a few frayed tears stuck out from a hole in the middle to give the deck some shade.
“He’s gotten all fancy,” Roscoe said. “Used to just sit on the sand around a fire at night and smoke weed while he played his guitar.”
I placed my backpack on the spool table and sat in a green plastic chair, tipping it back until the top pressed against the wooden railing.
“Did you live around here?”
“Kinda.” Roscoe grabbed an empty cooler that was sitting upside-down against the house. He filled it with ice before shoving bottles of beer into it. “Didn’t really live anywhere back in those days. I’d just crash on couches until people kicked me out. Darryl and I had a lot of fun, especially when he’d bring home a human or half-turn to spit roast.”
“Everyone’s so classy,” I whispered under my breath.
Roscoe tossed me a beer before cracking one open himself. “May have to get more beer. Darryl’s probably not getting off until—” He stopped talking, his ears pointing toward the ocean. I heard it too, the sound of screaming, just loud enough to overtake the waves.
“Oh shit. They must have gotten pulled out too far,” I said, watching two of the teenagers from earlier flail. Darryl immediately jumped from his chair and darted into the rough ocean.
The werewolf was an incredible swimmer, his powerful arms and legs allowing him to glide through the water like a fish. He grabbed the boy and pulled him onto his back before securing the girl onto the buoy, all while keeping both of them calm. He tugged them toward the shore, unimpeded by the strong current while swimming parallel to it.
“Look at him go,” I said, unable to tear away from the rescue. As the waves carried all of them closer to shore, Darryl stumbled to his feet, shaking the excess water from his coarse fur, and I could finally see his face. His muzzle was broader than Roscoe’s with a sharp, defined jawline. Below his lip was a little soul patch he’d left behind after trimming the rest of the thicker facial fur away. His furrowed brow and sly grin gave him a dangerously sexy look. He made sure the kids were okay while walking back to his post, but not before looking directly at Roscoe and me.
“Uh oh. Looks like he saw us,” Roscoe said, his tone a little higher.
