“Shit, Dad. I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything of the kind.”
“That’s why I didn’t bother calling. You’re a lover, not a fighter. I knew someone lied about you being in the bar let alone attacking someone.”
“Um, they didn’t lie.”
He grew quiet. “Please don’t tell me you shifted and almost killed this man. If so, tell me now. I’ve got Michael on speed dial.”
Michael, the family and my father’s corporate attorney who’d dug the entire pack out of one potential crisis after another over the years. He and his staff were paid well to be a gate keeper.
And to keep the secrets of the pack.
He was human after all, allowed into the secretive darkness of our world. Sworn to secrecy. I’d heard the man had been forced to take a blood oath to the pack, any discrepancies punishable by death.
Maybe another old wives’ tale to keep the human and his minions in check. But from what I could tell, my father’s strong message had been an excellent deterrent.
“No, of course not. But I wanted to.” It was a difficult thing to admit.
“You wanted to shift or kill him?”
“Both.”
“Uh-huh. Answer me this question. Was a woman involved?”
“How did you know?”
His laugh caught me off guard. “Trust me. Your father always knows. Let me guess. She’s beautiful and you can’t figure out why you can’t stop thinking about her. Right?”
“Well, yeah. She’s just magnificent. She’s the kind of woman who could keep me on my toes. That’s for certain.”
“So this guy in the bar. He hit on your girl?”
“Well, she’s not my girl. As a matter of fact, I don’t think she particularly likes me.” Not that I was going to give him the gory details of the mess I’d gotten myself into.
“Oh, my guess is that she can’t figure out why she’s drawn to you either.”
“I wouldn’t know. She really didn’t like me when I first met her.”
He took a deep breath. “You ask your mother how much she hated me in the beginning too. Women are fickle. You need to handle them just so. Maybe buy her flowers.”
“Oh, don’t mention flowers.”
“Okay, I won’t ask. Did you almost shift when you attacked this guy?”
“I wanted to.”
“But…”
“I came close to shifting earlier today, Dad. It was the second time in days. That hasn’t happened since I was a kid and fell in love with Amber Jones. Do you remember her?” I laughed at the memory. I’d been raging hormones and little else, challenging every other young pack member to every contest there was.
I thought my father’s reaction would be completely different. When I heard ice shifting against the side of a glass, I knew he was in deep thought. But I figured he had a huge smile on his face since he’d been forced to fully explain why dating an older woman wasn’t in my best interest.
“I remember. I had to bribe her father with season tickets for the hockey games to keep him from getting you kicked out of school.”
“I didn’t know that.” I had a bad feeling that what he was about to tell me would rock my world even more.
“I don’t always tell you everything, son. A father needs to hold certain things back until the time is right. Unfortunately, I think I waited too long.”
“Too long for what?” As a couple strolled arm in arm toward the bar, I felt a strange pang in my chest. A longing that I hadn’t experienced since being that boy believing he was in love with a girl who was six years older. Six. I’d thought I was a stud muffin.
