Strange… Ezra sounded put out. “At Maggie’s, why?”
“I need your help at the house. A few more shingles blew off last night, and if there’s a windstorm tonight I could lose even more.”
Shingles? Windstorm? Was he being pranked right now? “O…kay, well, I can come over tonight if you want, and we can—”
“No, I want to get this done now.”
“Nownow? Didn’t you just get off work with Aaron?”
“Right, and he can’t pitch in with this. So I need you to come to my place.”
“Now.”
“Right.”
True that Aaron couldn’t help replace or refasten the shingles. Three steps up a ladder, the poor guy started sweating and shaking. Four steps up, he progressed to hyperventilating. But their buddy’s phobia was the only thing in Ezra’s explanation that sounded legit.
“I’ll head over there when I’m done at Maggie’s, but there’s not a cloud in the sky right now, and we’ve got at least four hours till sunset, so—”
“Trevor.”
The word was a growl. Trevor stood still and listened hard. Maybe his brother had been kidnapped in town…along with Aaron…by a bunch of wimpy vanilla dudes… Yeah, there was no believable scenario for that one. But in his concentration another voice came from a distance through the phone.
“It’s a real story. We’ll tell you the whole thing this weekend.” Aaron, and he sounded too happy for a hostage situation.
This weekend… That would mean the cookout… Who was Aaron talking to? Must be one of the wolf-mates, an unexpected meeting in town.
“You going to help me or not?” Ezra said.
As a wolf, Trevor should have been able to track both his brother’s voice and Aaron’s. Should have been able to hear the third person too, though that voice was softer. Reminders of loss happened nearly every day of his life yet still made him want to howl—one more thing he could no longer do.
He didn’t have to turn his face from Maggie. In nine years he’d never betrayed a sign, not even to the pack. He pushed loss down again—down down down to the core of his being. It was automatic most of the time, though for some reason in this moment it had surfaced in his head, a conscious thought to accompany his inability to decipher the other voice in the background of the call.
“Of course I’ll help,” he said. Stay on topic. “But you can wait until I’m—”
“I’m asking you to come now, Trevor.”
Bad day, stress about something else—whatever it was, Trevor could honor his brother’s request and shrug off the exaggerated urgency of it. He was finished with the groceries anyway. All that was left to do was visit with Maggie. Her low-grade anxiety left a metallic scent in the room, and he’d wanted to sit with her a while. But he’d be back tomorrow morning. It would be okay.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll be there in half an hour. Think your roof can last that long?”
He sighed, and then his voice was level, typical Ezra. “Thanks, bro.”
“Whatever, bro.” Trevor grinned as he said it, then hung up. “So…Ezra’s acting weird. I’d better head over there.”
“Oh?” Maggie shifted on her feet. “Everything okay?”
“He wants help with the roof, which has been on our project list for like a month.”
“And now it’s an emergency?”
“Yeah, see? Weird. Anyway I’ll come by tomorrow and get everything moved, like we talked about.”
“No problem. I won’t get stubborn and try it myself.” Her lips curved with self-deprecation.
“Don’t you dare, Mags.”
“I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t.”
