Jonah:Disappointed. I thought there’d be magic flying everywhere and brawls in the streets. What’s there to be afraid of?
He got back a string of laughing emojis before Emmett followed up with,
Supe Guru Extraordinaire:See? Told you. A few days from now and you won’t even notice it.
Supe Guru Extraordinaire:If you want to see magic flying around, go to the research floor. That’s where all the crazy stuff happens.
“Who are you talking to?”
James tried to snatch his phone out of his hand but Jonah moved fast enough to keep it out of his grasp, locking it and shoving it into his pocket.
“No one,” he growled, keeping one arm extended to keep his brother away from him.
“Jonah. Answer the damn question,” Dad barked.
He glared at his brother, annoyed that he’d brought the attention back on him. He’d come to accept the way his family ignored him. He preferred it over being under their scrutiny all the time.
“Just a friend I made today at work. Ahumanfriend,” he added for emphasis.
“Oh, yeah? What’s his name?” James mocked.
He wasn’t going to give his brother the satisfaction of answering, but his dad turned around and glared at him, and Jonah knew better than to think he could ignore his brother’s question. James could do no wrong in his parents’ eyes. They probably saw James’s interrogation as him protecting the family name from the embarrassment of their youngest son’s actions, not just James being a nosy ass.
“Emmett,” Jonah finally grumbled.
Since James couldn’t find anything wrong with the name, he went with a different tactic. “You got the hots for him or something? Does he know you’re a pathetic supe supporter?”
That, he knew his parents didn’t care about and wouldn’t force him to answer. They didn’t care about his sexuality, homophobia was replaced by speciesism a long time ago, but they weren’t interested in hearing about it either.
“I’m going to eat in my room,” Jonah mumbled, snatching the hot water from the microwave, dumping it into the styrofoam cup, and grabbing a fork from the drawer. James sneered at him when he walked past, and Jonah knew the conversation wasn’t over just because he walked away.
As he sat at his desk, setting his noodles on the surface so they could cook, he dug out his phone, frowning at Emmett’s saved screen name. It was playful and funny, and it made Jonahsmile seeing the ridiculous title, but if his family ever saw it, it wouldn’t be good for him. Even the little wolf emoji next to his name would be suspicious.
With a heavy heart, Jonah went into contacts and edited it, deleting not only the nickname and the emoji, but Emmett’s last name as well. Moonfall was too blatantly supe. He had to edit Kian’s name too, since it was obviously a supe name, and he replaced it with just ‘K–Supervisor’ instead. Hopefully that would make his parents turn a blind eye if they saw that name appear on the screen.
When he was done, he set his phone on his desk and frowned at it. He wasn’t sure what he hated more: having to lie to his family about what he did, or having to hide his new friends just because they weren’t human.
He considered moving out, but with his family charging him rent, it wouldn’t be easy. While eating his noodles, he did some initial searching on apartments in the city, but even the cheap ones in the crappy neighborhoods required first and last month’s rent, and he wouldn’t have any furniture or anything to put in it. He also had to acknowledge that if he moved out, he’d probably never hear from his family again. Right now, they put up with him, especially because he was still good labor when they were short handed on the farm, but if he left? They probably would forget he existed. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to go that far yet.
Sure, they didn’t see eye to eye, but they were still his family. When he was younger, before he’d started asking questions about supes, they’d loved him. He and his brother used to play together, and his sister used to help take care of him when he was sick. His mom would feed him, and Dad would say he was proud when Jonah kept up with all the chores he gave him. He kept hoping that maybe one day they’d realize that treatingsupes fairly didn’t change who he was as a person. He was still their son. And he still wanted their approval.
His phone buzzed and his thumb swiped automatically to open the message as it popped up.
Emmett:Why does a werewolf never know the time?
Jonah:Why?
Emmett:Because we’re not called ‘whenwolves’.
Jonah cringed, snickering at the dumb joke.
Jonah:That was really bad. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Emmett:Oh, come on. One of the pups told it to me. I thought it was funny.
Emmett:If you’re so smart, you come up with one.
He thought about it for a moment before typing out a reply.
