Page 13 of Bound

Mostly.

“We done here?”

Cal rose. “Let me know if you ever want to talk. We’re all on your side, Topher.”

The thing was? He probably even believed it. But every night as I tried to fall asleep, my stomach churned at the remembered feeling of lying on the cold floor of that shipping container, knowing no one was coming for me. That I was going to die there, forgotten and alone. And hell if I was letting that happen to my brother. Pulling out my phone, I sent a quick text.

Topher: You. Me. Guillermo’s. One hour.

* * *

Caldwell and I had two rules.

Anything major that was about to go down required a warning shot over text. He’d learned his lesson the time I’d wolfed out in his kitchen over a lead the Council had been suppressing about Kieran.

Sidebar: spiking a takeout container of lamb vindaloo into the face of an attacking werewolf is a totally underrated defensive move.

After I was unceremoniously thrown into his pantry with nothing better to do than lick savory curry from my fur and sulk, I’d eaten my way through his emergency stash of sour cream and onion Pringles along with the box of chocolate almond croissants Dallas’s wife, Lacey, had baked that morning over at Blair’s Bakery. The Pringles, I was pretty sure he could have forgiven me for. But he’d sulked over the curry for a week. Which brought us to rule two. Hangry wasn’t a good look on us. If we were going to go for each other’s throats, we had to eat first.

Dallas Caldwell might have put Blood Moon on the map with The Rusty Spoke, a Texas-style barbecue pit that had been featured in Texas Monthly, but no one could make a greasy burger and onion rings like Guillermo’s. I pushed open the front door, hearing the bell jingle over the strains of classic rock pumping through the speakers. Fans swirled overhead, chasing away the muggy August air. Seated at our usual table in back, West had his laptop out and was typing feverishly.

Beads of perspiration trailed down the sides of two sweaty red plastic coke glasses, forming rings on a clear vinyl tablecloth. Beneath it were photographs from the decades the small-town diner had been in business, families with out-of-date hairstyles gathered in red booths with baskets of burgers and fries, cheerleaders and football players celebrating after a winning game, and my personal favorite, one of Caldwell in his polyester high school marching band uniform, playing his saxophone under the Friday night stadium lights.

Growling at something in his latest chapter, West leaned in closer, his reading glasses lit up blue by the screen. Twenty feet from the table, I stilled. Every time Caldwell got into his inner fantasy geek zone he inevitably slipped and forgot to block me out entirely. I never had figured out whether it was because he couldn’t focus on two things at once, or if he just couldn’t help himself. He lit up like a freaking hundred-watt bulb any time he got within a mile of his laptop. Whatever the cause, it invariably left my pulse slamming in my veins with echoes of every high and crash as his fingers jammed out paragraphs. And like an addict, my wolf couldn’t stop craving more.

During the week he was gone before sunrise and more often than not, buried under a stack of papers to grade in front of Netflix the moment he got home from school. It was weekends where he threw everything else aside and slaved over fic that he wrote for several fandoms, stuff that was by all accounts pretty freaking good.

Caldwell sighed, catching his bottom lip in his teeth. My stomach gave an involuntary flip. The room swam around me. I tried to focus on the smell of seared meat on the grill, on the strains of Carry on My Wayward Son wailing over the stereo, on anything but the fact that my pulse was now jagged as a live wire. West raked a hand through his ash-brown hair, which he wore long on top and swept off to the side. Unfairly long lashes framed deep brown eyes rimmed with a band of dark gray. I swallowed, taking in the fine bone structure of his cheeks and thin lips, the lower of which was flushed pink from being worried in his teeth. He stretched both arms over his head, a light blue button down that he’d rolled up to the elbows stretching just slightly at the shoulders. My mouth went dry, my pulse thundering in my ears.

Spotting me, Caldwell blinked. “Oh, you—”

And just like every time our eyes met, something within me shivered at the sound of his voice, at that faint hint of breathiness and promises of things I wasn’t allowed to want.

“I was just about to text and make sure you were still coming.”

I slid into the booth opposite him. At my place was a battered copy of A Game of Thrones, its cover held together with clear packing tape. “Do we need to revisit our dragon policy?”

“That’s my copy. I’ve had it since high school, read it so many times I’m surprised the pages haven’t crumbled.” He hesitated. “And I wanted to loan it to you.”

I picked it up, inhaling the soft scent of cinnamon and laundry detergent that wafted off the pages, picturing a teenaged West sprawled out in his bed poring over the words in between scribbling his own stories down in his notebooks, and wondered if I’d be getting any sleep at all tonight. “This is great. Thanks.”

The server arrived with our food. At this point, no one needed to ask our order. The gorgonzola bacon burger for me, loaded. West always went with a classic flame-grilled with shredded cheddar, plus a giant tower of sweet-battered onion rings for the two of us to split.

“You should try the sauce.” Taking a hot onion ring off the top of the tower, I dunked it in the diner’s signature creamy barbecue dip. The rings came with three kinds of sauce, Ranch, classic honey mustard, and BBQ, not that Caldwell ever tried any of them. His ketchup addiction? Legendary.

“Keep it up and there may be more dragons in your future.” Shooting me a narrow-eyed look that would have looked a lot more menacing were it not for the English Teachers Get Lit sticker plastered to the back of his laptop case, West tucked his sheaf of writing notes into a gray canvas messenger bag on the seat beside him and reached for the Heinz 57.

I smirked. “Remind me again how you survived childhood?”

“Please. I’m smack in the middle of seven kids. I’m the poster boy for rolling with it.”

“Uh huh.”

He absently pecked at the keys. “Be pissed at me all you want, but I had absolutely no idea my brothers were going to show up at your place tonight until Brody texted me on his way home.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Whatever, Topher.” Caldwell swiped the second to last onion ring off the plate in the middle of the table and dredged it through a lake of ketchup. “Brody said you’re under strict orders not to leave Blood Moon without clearing it with him or Cal first.”