CHAPTER 15
LANDON
Date after date, day after day, Dean and I spent a ridiculous amount of time together, talking and learning about each other and trading favorite books, but I could tell that the issue with his band was weighing on him.
From the way Lucas talked about it, I was sure that band or no, Dean was headed for great things. It made sense, even. The others—Riley and Craig, at least—had joined the band because it was fun. Because it was a hobby, and they enjoyed it.
They had never been musicians, deep down in their souls, in a way that wouldn’t let go of them.
Dean was.
Maybe with Henry, the band would have continued and found success, because half its members were fully invested in it. Without Henry? Two thirds of the band was just looking for a fun hobby.
Riley was great, and I’d enjoyed getting to know them, but I could see where they were much more a person who was looking to squeeze every drop of fun out of life, rather than a serious musician.
It was like Dean was training for the Olympics, and Riley just wanted to play the game.
I imagined that was how most people in garage bands felt.
Unfortunately, knowing that—and I assumed he did know that—didn’t really help Dean. In fact, it just sort of invalidated his own feelings, if no one but him took his dream seriously.
So what he needed, I decided, was for someone to take his dream deadly seriously. For someone to tell him, in whatever way, that music was important.
I mulled that over for a few days, not telling anyone, but letting it turn over in my head. My options were limited, because I wasn’t a musician and never would be. I loved music, thought it was incredibly important to the whole world, but a terrible singing voice and a stint in high school band had taught me that it wasn’t my personal calling.
But then my own employees told me exactly what I needed to do.
“Did you hear the Arctic Monkeys are going on tour this summer?” Julia asked the room at large. “I thought about going to see them, but ugh, concerts, with all the people and the noise and the smells.”
A couple of the others grumbled agreement, that concerts were somehow the best and worst at the same time, but it got me to thinking.
Werecats weren’t quite like werewolves. We had our instincts, sure, but we had to curb them every single day to take part in the human half of our existence, more than wolves did. Because humans relied on community, just like wolves. Cats? Cats weren’t pack creatures. Sure, sometimes they lived together, but lots of cats were solitary, and happy that way.
Since we were used to shoving down those instincts every day, we were often much more able to fit into human society even when there wasn’t overlap in our cultures. Werewolves shut down in noisy, smelly situations like, oh, high school. Mostly, cats just became that weird loner everyone expected to be acreep. That, or we formed our own clique and stuck together since other cats never minded when you just wanted to sit in silence.
All that to say that I didn’t think a concert posed the same challenges for a cat as it did for a werewolf.
That and Dean was a musician, whom I had discussed going to concerts with. I knew he’d done it before and enjoyed himself.
So on my break I looked up when tickets went on sale, only to find that they were already available, and not too ridiculously priced. I grabbed two in a nice section, but not too nice. I didn’t want him to feel like I was showing off, or buying him something he couldn’t repay, since I’d gotten the feeling he didn’t enjoy the fact that he couldn’t provide as much as I could on our dates.
It was just that it was so easy for me. My chosen career path had immediate and almost certain rewards, when he was on a much steeper road.
Still, I was worried when I went to meet Dean that night. Ironically, it was trivia night, which made it a double-edged blade. Sure, Dean was less likely to make a scene if I’d wildly misjudged him and he hated me getting him a gift like this. But also, I was going to be giving him a relatively expensive gift in front of his brother, which could exacerbate any feelings of inferiority the whole thing might prod at.
But... Dean had given me no indication that he was the kind of toxic asshole who was offended by things like this.
So I had to have faith in him.
In what we were building together.
It was just so damn hard, after Geoff.
I arrived at trivia night almost buzzing with a combination of anxiety and anticipation, to find Dean’s seat empty.
Well, no, his coat was slung over the back of it, so he was probably in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Lucas figured things out instantly. “You okay? You look terrified, bossman. You have afight with Dean? I mean, he seemed chill. He hasn’t been so happy in years.”
Well, that was reassuring. Dean was happy, and maybe it had something to do with me. I’d certainly love to be able to take credit for it.
