“Well, looks like he’s back to his shitty old self,” I muttered, letting out a yawn before throwing off the covers.
Adam stood and removed his tight underwear and folded them neatly on my nightstand.
“What are you doing?”
“These are the only pair Austin hasn’t destroyed, and he doesn’t look like he wants to gently slide them off of me.”
“Roscoe does that with his teeth sometimes.”
Adam clicked his tongue. “Roscoe’s a sex god. I get it.” He scrutinized my face for a moment. “I think you’re lying to me. You’re just trying to make me jealous over nothing.”
I pointed to the door. “I believe you have duties to perform, soldier,” I said, struggling to keep a straight face. This was petty, but the way he ragged on Roscoe’s age irritated me. For human guys, questioning their virility made sense, but for werewolves? They aged like wine. Even Darryl was incredibly hot for being sixty-years old. “Maybe when you’re done, he might be willing to talk a little.”
“Doubt it,” Adam muttered, sliding his feet apprehensively.
“Just humor me. Try to strike up a conversation and see where it leads.”
We both stepped out into the hall, and I went straight while he turned off toward their bedroom, taking a deep breath before stepping inside. Guilt soon set in. The look he gave made me wonder what the hell Austin did to make sex so terrible.
After stumbling exhausted through the living room, I stood at the entrance of the kitchen, watching Roscoe flip pancakes while humming to a pop song playing through my phone.
“Made you coffee,” he said without looking back. He knew I wasn’t the most cheerful being on the planet this early, so he would graciously give me time to caffeinate before the relentless teasing. This morning, however, I was in a different mood.
“Good morning,” I said, wrapping my arms around him from behind.
His tail wagged, tickling my abdomen.
“Uh oh. What did I do?”
I let out a soft laugh as I buried my face in his back fur. “You didn’t take a shower yet.”
“I was gonna last night, but you know.” He gave the frying pan a toss, flipping another pancake. “You hungry?”
“That depends. Are you going to sing all of Katy Perry’s greatest hits while I eat?” I let him go and backed toward the coffee pot. “How did you calm him down?”
Roscoe slid a spatula under the pancake and stacked it on top of the others before pulling the frying pan off the flame.
“In the mood for a little story?”
“Sure, why not?”
“I was a full werewolf when the second world war started, and in those days, humans didn’t take too well to us—for good reason. I didn’t have that many werewolf friends either, but I got to know a lot of human veterans while on the streets. These were the badasses that ran into a hail of bullets, explosions, and almost four million Nazi landmines on the beaches of Normandy. They also had to deal with the werewolves ol’ Hitler had. It’s a big reason why they don’t use us in the military anymore. The shit they saw and what they experienced that day, I couldn’t even imagine. You hear stories and see the movies, but it’s like trying to take the perfect picture of a mountain. The photo don’t look nothing like the real thing when yer standing at the foot of it.”
I hopped up on the counter like I normally did and continued listening.
“The guys that were the unlucky ones couldn’t cope, and they had a lot in common with our grumpy friend in there. Austin didn’t go into battle, but he experienced shit that I don’t thinkI’d have been able to handle very well, either. When yer own country does those things to you, it’s more than just betrayal. You lose yer self-worth, yer security, and yer trust. When I was out on the streets, I wanted to help these guys, and I’d end up calling some of them my best friends. I learned what shell shock was; we call it PTSD now. I asked if there was anything I could do, and nine times out of ten, they just wanted someone who would listen. They needed to talk to someone, even if they didn’t admit it at first.
“I learned the signs and triggers, and what to do when I’d see ’em lose their shit. It probably wasn’t the best thing, but I’d sometimes help ’em get drugs to deal with it. It’s kinda how I fell down that path myself.” Roscoe paused and drew in a deep breath through his nose. “Then the nineteen sixties happened, and a whole new generation this country used up and forgot ended up in my circle of friends. That’s why I’m careful with him, Cody. It’s always different from person to person, and when you put that kind of trauma in a werewolf, especially one as big as Austin, things get dicey. He’s the first for me. It’s always been humans.”
I stared at him, not really knowing what to say.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, taking another sip of coffee. “Why don’t you ever tell me more about your life?”
“Well, one, I can’t remember a lot of it, and two, I didn’t think you cared.”
“Of course I care,” I said, still shocked by how deep Roscoe actually was. “Did you convince him to come with us today?”
