Adam had no clue where this conversation was headed. “Okay.”
Alex studied him for a moment. “You’re not thinking of going out there?”
He didn’t hide his surprise. “Los Angeles?”
“Arizona. Or New Mexico.”
“Why would you think that?” A flash of distaste colored his question.
“I didn’t mean disrespect,” Alex assured him.
Adam waived that away. “No, really, why would you think that?”
“Until the pack is reformed and solidified in some way, the hot topic is going to be who’s moving there. It’s rare for there to be essentially a whole pack forming from scratch. So people, like my friend Jen, start to get that itch inside, and think that if there isn’t a way for them to move up in their home pack, maybe it’s time to move on. If there weren’t this possibility of a new pack, she’d probably start thinking about traveling more, visiting other packs that she has a connection to, see if there’s a place, maybe even a mate, out there waiting for her to find.”
“All right, that makes sense. But I don’t know what it has to do with me.”
“Well, they’re going to need an alpha. A strong one. Nothing will really happen until then, and the rest will sort of flow from there.”
“I’m not an alpha.”
Alex’s laugh was genuine, but he bit it off when he saw that Adam was serious. “I want to call you sir, that’s how much of an alpha you are.”
“I don’t mean power,” Adam argued. “It takes more than that to lead a pack.”
“Yeah, it does.” Alex studied him over his water bottle as he took a drink. “Weren’t you a teacher?”
“Yes.”
“A good one?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. All right, well, I appreciate you giving me a few minutes of your time.” He stood and opened the door.
Adam just looked at him for a moment, gave a mental shrug, and walked out. He left the borrowed sweats in a pile of dirty clothes by the back door and changed back to wolf. It didn’t take long to return to Hillary’s house.
He checked his phone, but there were no messages from Myra about when she might be coming out. Thoughts about seeing her again, being with her again, had him setting the shower to colder than he usually preferred, but he didn’t think playing the masturbation game with her again was a good idea. For either of them.
It didn’t take long to follow the directions Hillary had left to her shop, and soon he was pulling up to a small warehouse east of Main Street. Hard rock music, the kind he’d never had a particular fondness for, blared through the space, competing with the sound of some sort of electric saw. It looked to him as though they’d finished setting everything up and she’d decided to get some work done. Her hair was pulled into a French braid and she wore protective glasses as she bent low over the noisy machine that was spitting out sawdust at an alarming rate. A man was at an angled table, pencil in one hand, coffee mug in another, as he studied a paper on the desk.
He was pretty sure Hillary knew he’d come in, but she focused on her task. The man looked up as Adam moved farther inside. He blinked a bit, then offered a smile, gaze fixed on Adam’s chin.
“Hey,” Adam said.
“Hi. You must be Adam. I’m Stephen.”
“Nice to meet you.”
They looked over at Hillary as her machine turned off and the rock music became the only sound. She picked up a tiny remote and aimed, the sound pulling down to reasonable volume.
“Adam, hey, how was your morning run?”
She pulled her glasses off and wiped her face with a cloth she pulled from her back pocket. Stephen pointed all over his own face, indicating she’d missed a few dozen spots, and she stuck her tongue out at him. She looked at her watch.
“Actually, tell me at lunch, I’m starving.”
He waited while they put stuff away, locked up, and then they walked a couple of blocks over to an Italian restaurant. A woman greeted Hillary and Stephen by name and they were quickly seated with waters and menus. Hillary gave him a minute to make a selection, then popped her chin in her hand and repeated the question.
