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“Shifting destroys our clothes, so we try to undress before we shift, and then have clothes ready to put back on when we shift back. Obviously that doesn’t always work out so well, as happened this afternoon.” Silas shrugged. “Nudity isn’t a big deal for us. We’ve grown up with it and are comfortable getting naked around other shifters.”
“OK, I guess that’s good?”
“Are we done with this fun little Q&A?” Tanner snapped. “I have shit to do.”
“So sorry for inconveniencing you.” Eva looked down her nose at him and sat up straighter again. I loved how she refused to let Tanner keep knocking her down. She’d found her backbone, and it was good to see. “Feel free to fuck off if my desire to learn more about who and what you are is too much for you to handle.”
“I would, but it’s my home,” Tanner snarled. “So why don’t you fuck off instead?”
Eva’s lip wobbled, but she didn’t run away as I expected.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your fur the moment the road opens.” Silas choked back a laugh at the ‘fur’ reference, but Eva’s sense of humor failed to impress Tanner.
“Good. I can’t fucking wait.”. He grabbed the half-empty bottle of whiskey and stormed off.
I bit back a groan. This antagonism between them was going to make things difficult over the next few weeks. I wasn’t blind. It was obvious Tanner and Eva were attracted to each other. But they were both fighting it tooth and nail.
I just hoped they could find a way to resolve their issues, or Christmas was going to be a real fucking nightmare.
Eva
Thoughts swirled around in my head as I placed glass baubles on the tree Tanner had dragged back from the forest. It was almost touching the ceiling, and I struggled to reach the higher branches, but Silas was way taller than me and he just laughed when he saw me pouting.
“You need to buy a step-ladder,” I grumbled.
“I don’t need one, short stuff,” he chuckled, grabbing the glitter ball out of my hand and hooking it on a branch way past my head. I pouted some more and handed him the gold star to go on the top of the tree.
“It’s not fair. I hate being vertically challenged.”
“Well, I like you being all small and cute,” he winked, and I blushed for the 47 millionth time this week.
Having pale skin was a nightmare. My face broadcast every single embarrassing thought almost instantly. Such as the extremely inappropriate image of Silas, naked in the forest clearing, that had just popped into my head.
“Coffee anyone?” Cole’s voice cut through my head and the image of a naked and extremely buff Silas vanished. Thank god. I could not afford to have thoughts like that. Silas was my protector, not a romantic prospect.
None of them were.
Not even Tanner, even if he loved winding me up with his heated glances and wandering hands when he’d had a few too many drinks. I wasn’t thinking about that, though. No doubt he was just frustrated with me being here. He probably missed watching porn on the 72-inch TV hanging on the living room wall.
“Yes, please.” I beamed at Cole, anxious to clear my head. Pulling some more ornaments from the box, I arranged them on the tree. “It looks so pretty.” My words were mostly to myself, but Silas smiled.
“We don’t usually bother with a tree,” he admitted. “Tanner prefers to drink himself into a coma over the holiday and Cole and I just hang out keeping an eye on him until he comes through the other side with a hangover.”
“Why would he do that?” It was obvious, even to me, that Tanner had some issues. Nobody was that grumpy without a reason. They had to be bad though, if he needed alcohol to get him through the holidays.
He sighed. “Not my story to tell, sugar, but the gist of it is that something bad happened at Christmas when we were all in our teens and it affected him.”
“Did he lose someone he loved?”
Silas nodded, tight-lipped, and then turned away, effectively ending the conversation. Knowing Tanner had lost someone he cared about made me sad. It was no wonder he lashed out in the way he did. He must have internalized the pain and let it fester for years.
I understood that pain. I’d lived with it too.
My grandmother had been the only constant in my early childhood. She filled in the gaps left behind by the mother who’d walked out on me when I was a baby. Gran had made sure I ate enough and used her meager assistance money to buy things I needed. After she’d died when I was 7, life had gotten inexorably worse.
I still missed her sweet smiles and the way she pushed cookies into my hand when Dad collected me from her trailer. Knowing this about Tanner softened how I felt about him. He was hurting, too. I was not willing to overlook all the mean things he’d said, but I was willing to forgive him.
He was still an asshole, though.
