“Notice you have kids’ games out. Makes sense, given the, you know, situation.” He stared right at my belly.
“Dick,” Jack muttered. “You need to cut it out. You can be here if you want to be nice, but if not, you can leave.”
“Like I owe you anything.” And off he went. For someone who all but barged in here, he left after one pregnancy dig. Strange.
I couldn’t piece together why he showed up in the first place other than to be a fucking dick. Just saying something mean to me didn’t make sense. But ultimately, it didn’t matter what the reason was, because the end result was that three minutes later, the only people left in the room were Jack, Phelan, and me. Gone was the merriment, the laughter, and the normalcy.
All I wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep so I could wake up to find out it was a dream and game night hadn’t even happened yet. But it had. No amount of sleeping would change that.
“Why is he always like that?” Jack asked.
“He...” I trailed off, starting to put away the Candy Land. “I don’t know.”
“He has issues,” Phelan said and left it at that. “But hey, I’m gonna go make some sandwiches.” He kissed the top of my head and walked out.
I wasn’t hungry. I doubted Jack was either. There was enough food already out for a million people, but that wasn’t what he was doing. He was giving us time, time to talk, just the two of us. He knew how the strain on the relationship with my former roomie was eating at me.
“There’s a lot that needs to be said,” Jack said gently.
I took her hand. “I promise you, I wasn’t leaving you in the dark.”
“I know, but you... you cut me off. I was so worried.”
“I’m sorry. But there are some things I want to tell you.” It was now or never.
“Such as?”
“Phelan thinks we’re having a pup.”
“You’re having a shifter baby?” Jack gasped.
“I think so.”
“Then why don’t you look happy about that?” Her response made sense if I was a latent or even a regular old human. But that was the thing, despite Phelan’s reassurances, I didn’t think I was either.
“Please don’t be mad at me, Jack. But I think... I think I might be a hunter.”
“No, that can’t be. You can’t be. You’d know.” She was looking at her lap, her eyes no longer on mine.
“And how would I know? Being good at archery? Cause I got that.”
“No, a single skill means you have a skill. What does Phelan say?”
“He says they’re not real.” And I wished I could believe him.
“Then maybe live with that as fact. Focus on that. Are you still having nightmares?”
“No, but I hear one voice.” She hadn't known about that, but keeping everything bottled inside wasn’t doing me any good. It still worried me, but it wasn’t the same.
“That’s probably your baby.”
“Babies don’t talk.” Not before birth, anyway, and for sure not with the vocabulary my head was feeding me though I did prefer thinking it was the baby’s voice. “But there was another voice but that’s been mostly silent lately.”
My friend scratched her head as if that was too much information. “Let’s focus on this hunter thing. Why does Phelan think they don’t exist?”
“He said they’re like the boogeyman.”
“That could be, but maybe they are real,” Jack whispered.
