A few minutes later, I found myself standing behind a stool in Boone’s disheveled front room.
Apparently, he hadn’t spent all summer fixing this place up.
The kitchen table hadn’t been replaced like Ravik’s. It was old and warped with visible splinters poking out everywhere. Floralwallpaper was peeling away from the walls. Random clothes were draped over the saggy furniture—like maybe he hadn’t discovered hangers yet. And there was still a thin layer of dust over everything.
The contrast to Ravik’s pristine house was... stark.
“Why me, though?” I asked after he settled in the seat and shoved the “tools” he’d been using to give himself that hatchet job of a haircut toward me—a standard Barrington’s clipper set and a pair of old metal house scissors. “I’m still not sure why you didn’t just drive into Blue Water to visit a real barber.”
“Don’t like humans. They talk too much,” Boone answered. “Plus, they’re nosy as fuck.”
Okay, maybe Zion hadn’t been exaggerating about Boone being a bit of a grump.
“I’m a human,” I reminded him.
He mumbled something that sounded like, “For now.”
“What?” I asked.
“Said you’re the exception,” he answered a little louder. “And you mentioned to Zion that you used to cut your own hair all the time, so...”
I’d told Zion that in passing the last time he’d cleaned up my sides. But, of course, that meant all three bears apparently knew one of the very few things I’d shared about myself.
“Wow,” I said as I placed a towel around his shoulders. “I’m never going to get used to all of you being privy to every conversation the other two have. But be aware, I’m Black, somy fix might not be much better than what you’ve got going on now.”
Boone answered my warning with a baleful look.
“It’ll be better than this,” he insisted gruffly. “Seriously, I look like a Karen with a beard.”
This time, I didn’t even try to hold back the laugh as I got to work.
“It’s not so bad, you know,” he said out of the blue when I was almost done combing the layers near his right ear.
“My haircut?” I raised both eyebrows since he couldn’t see what I was doing.
“Having Vik and Zion in my head all the time,” Boone answered. “Zion talks too much. But he ain’t so bad. And Vik’s great.”
“Seriously?” I paused mid-snip. “He’s not giving you orders all the time?”
“No, he only tells us what to do when it’s for our own good—or, you know, foryourown good,” Boone answered. “But there’s always some kind of good intent behind it.”
“Hmm.” I resumed snipping. “Why do I feel I’m getting reverse Jehovah’s Witnessed?”
Boone chuckled, a low rumble that sounded more bear than human. “You’re the one who brought it up. I’m just saying, with the bond, I don’t need words. Vik feels what I feel. Zion knows what I mean even when I can’t say it right. I guess I was kind of lonely and didn’t realize it before we came to Canada. ’Cuz now I never feel all alone, or like everything’s all on me.” Hepaused. “Never misunderstood, like when I was working for the humans.”
Something sharp twisted in my chest.
Never misunderstood.
That sounded... nice. Terrifying, but nice.
“And you don’t feel crowded?” I asked. “Like you can’t have your own private thoughts without having to police them, or feeling really self-conscious?”
“Nah. We can mute it if we've got something we don't want the others knowing, but I stopped caring about it one way or the other after a few days.” He shrugged those massive shoulders. “Mostly, it just feels right. Like I’m supposed to have them there. Like I was incomplete before.”
Incomplete.
The word lodged in my chest.
