Page 42 of Bad Blood Bear

Chapter 18

Tank and Lissa made it over to the grill area just as the food prep was getting underway.

Xander looked up from his place at the end of redwood picnic table and said, “Well, if it isn’t Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Took you long enough. I thought we were going to have to deliver your burgers to the shower.”

Lissa felt her face get a little red at that. Did everyone know she and Tank had been in the shower together? That was embarrassing.

Tank just narrowed his eyes at Xander, who smirked.

To distract them both, Lissa said. “Ursa Major and Ursa Minor? What does that even mean?” She figured it had something to do with bears—the People of Ursus were the People of the Bear.

Sloan, who was sitting at the other end of the table near where Jasmin stood at the grill, spoke up in his quiet voice. “They’re constellations,” he said. “The Great Bear and the Little Bear.” He grinned. “I guess that does sound like you guys.”

“They’re also called the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper,” Jasmin added.

Xander guffawed. “That’s even better! We can call them the Big Dip and the Little Dip for short,” he said. “Although I don’t think the little one can get any shorter.”

“Shut up, Xander,” Flynn said casually, from over in the shadows. He was slouched down in a patio chair, his legs splayed out in front of him. He’d put on a t-shirt as his one concession to the dropping temperature, but he was still barefoot. “She just got here today. Leave it until tomorrow to start annoying the hell out of her.”

“But then she’d feel left out,” Xander said. “I’m an equal-opportunity annoyer.”

“It’s okay,” Lissa said, slinging her leg over the bench midway down one side of the table, giving both Xander and Sloan some space. Tank perched himself on the stone half-wall that surrounded the grill area. “Xander tired himself out today, carrying my stuff and hunting for my treasures. We all know little boys get cranky when they’re tired.” She reached into a nearby six-pack and grabbed two cold beers. “Here, Baby Cat. Here’s a bottle.” She tossed him one.

She knew he would be embarrassed if she said ‘thank you’ in front of everyone, but she wanted him to know she appreciated what he’d done. Some guys were just more comfortable with friendly insults.

He looked so startled he almost missed catching the beer, but he snagged it out of the air at the last minute.

He twisted off the top and raised the bottle slightly to her before he took his first drink. “It took about two seconds,” he muttered. “You suck at hiding things, Little Dip.”

“Yeah, that’s sweet,” Jasmin said. “Are you planning on slicing those onions any time soon, ‘Baby Cat?’ Or should I take your knife away and give it to one of the grownups?”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Xander muttered.

Jasmin gave him the slitty eye, and then turned on Sloan, who was chopping tomatoes. “Diced, I said diced!” she snarled. “Dice are cube shaped. Why the hell don’t people know that?”

“Jaz was a fry cook before she got stolen away by Alexander Grant’s evil minions,” Xander said, wielding his knife like a machete and cutting the onions into a decimated mess that in no way resembled slices.

“Fry cook?” Jaz gave another snarl, turning on him and stabbing a carving knife into the table, millimeters from his hand. “I am a cordon bleu chef, and I was head chef in the top restaurant in St. Louis.” She growled, then turned back to the grill, muttering, “Fucking fry cook. I’ll fry your fucking balls in hot oil with you attached. See how you like frying then.”

Xander just grinned.

Lissa looked at Sloan. “Was she really head chef?” she whispered.

“I heard that,” Jasmin snapped. “Shifter hearing. And what, you think I make this shit up? Like I think it’s going to get me respect from these hotdog-eating, horse-piss-cheap-beer-drinking morons? Dream on.”

Lissa sipped her beer and watched in fascination as Jasmin moved around the outdoor grill area, doing things to food that Lissa didn’t even recognize, giving the others jobs and then bitching at them for doing it wrong.

Flynn just sat in the shadows, drinking, an ironic smirk on his face. Tank sat on his stone wall, looking lost in thought.

Lissa glanced at him every once in a while, something uncomfortable slithering through her chest. She kept thinking about what they’d done in the shower, how he’d been so passionate and yet so gentle, how he’d murmured sweet things to her and seemed to want her as much as she wanted him.

How it had seemed like even more than wanting. Caring.

He’d washed her clean afterwards, touching her gently, but he’d seemed far away even then. And as they got dressed and carried her boxes and sheets and towels over to the tiny house, he’d grown even quieter and more distant.

Maybe he was sorry for what he’d done. Maybe he was missing Angie. He was obviously still in love with her.

Maybe being with Lissa felt like cheating on her, even though she was dead.