15
THORNE
After that kiss at my car, as brief as it had been, I couldn’t stop thinking about Raff’s lips… the way they tasted, felt, and fit so perfectly with mine. Every time we were in the room together, I longed to fling my arms around him, nibble on his earlobe, and explore his mouth with my own. When I closed my eyes to go to sleep, images of his post-kiss lips stole my focus. When I dreamed, we were doing so much more than kissing, and more than once I was livid at myself for waking up just as it got to the good part.
It was getting ridiculous. There was no part of the day when he wasn’t there at the forefront of my mind, and most of those times my thoughts weren’t what anyone would classify as safe for work.
We hadn’t talked about that kiss, not even in passing. I didn’t know if he was waiting for me to bring it up or if I was waiting for him. Probably both, but it didn’t matter. We weren’t talking about it, which meant we also weren’t doing it, and that wasn’t working for me.
I wanted to take whatever we had to the next level. I planned some sweet, cute ways of bringing it up, but ultimately, I just went for it, telling him he could come to my place a few seconds after I told him Rupert was gone for the night.
Thankfully, he was fully on board.
“I need to make a quick stop along the way. Is that all right?”
“Absolutely.” He could’ve asked me anything at that point and I’d have agreed to it. My eye was on the prize, and the prize was his lips on me. “Why don’t we leave my car here and you drive?” I wasn’t ready to be away from him and I was still intoxicated by that kiss enough that my inhibitions were in the far off distance.
He drove away from the city and pulled off onto a dirt road. This was the point in horror movies when people screamed at the character, telling them to get some self-preservation skills. But me? I was ready for what lay next. I was curious beyond measure, and if he brought us out here to kiss… all the better.
“Are we going to a party?” I finally asked.
“Nope. No party, although I did bring a gift.” He pulled to a stop and got out of the car, leaning in and saying, “Wait here a second. I’ll grab it for you. Well, it’s not for you, it’s more for Rupert, but I want you to see it first.”
He went to the trunk and slid back into the driver’s seat a handful of seconds later. He placed a gift bag on my lap. “This is a joint gift. It’s for you, and it’s for Rupert.”
I reached inside, pushed the tissue paper to the side, and pulled out a book: My Wolf Family. The author shared his last name.
“Why don’t you read it and see if it’s okay for Rupert?”
He seemed really nervous, and initially, I thought maybe it was because a family member wrote it, or maybe this was his secret pen name. But as I went through page by page, reading the story of people who turned into wolves, it felt a little too real for that to be the reason. Then I came to the page where it mentioned twins being born and their names: Raff-Raff and Bo-Bo. I read through to the end, my attention staying on that page, the twins’ names popping out at me.
I closed the book.
“What did you think?”
“I think… I think you’re trying to tell me something.” It was a gut reaction and not based on anything other than names, but I went with it.
“Yeah, I am.” His voice was robotic, as if each word took effort to get out. I reached out for his hand, wanting to assure him that whatever this was, it would be okay.
Deep down, I knew what he was telling me. He was like the people in that book, sometimes a wolf. Growing up, one of my neighbors mentioned bear people. He was really old, and people dismissed him, saying he was losing his mind. But he always seemed fine. Maybe this was affirming what I’d already known all along, or possibly I was dreaming and none of this existed, or Raff was messing with me and in a few seconds I’d be mad at him. I didn’t think any of those were the case, though.
Look at me picking the wildest explanation to go with.
“So this book is not fiction.” I didn’t disguise it as a question, because if he was being vulnerable, I owed him not to make this harder for him.
“No. It’s not.” He brought my hand up and kissed it. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“I didn’t say that,” I stuck out my tongue, wanting to calm his anxiety. “But not because of this. It’s more like it affirms what was right in front of me and I hadn’t seen.”
I leaned over and hugged him.
“You want to see him?” he asked, and I nodded into his shoulder.
“Yes.” It came out a little too enthusiastically.
“I have to tell you one more thing.”
I pulled back enough to meet his eyes.
