Page 16 of The Golden Receiver

I noticed small changes at practice too. Now that Kieran was running with me in the morning, he seemed to be making strides with other members of the team. I saw him talking to another wide receiver on the team. I was pretty sure his name was Marlon or Marvin or something. He was a third-string rookie, a freshman who had played for his high school team somewhere in the middle of the country. I didn’t know much about him, but I’d been fascinated watching Kieran have a whole conversation with him.

I’d never seen him have a conversation longer than a few sentences with anyone else on the team. It stirred something in my gut, something that felt almost like jealousy. But that was ridiculous. Why would I be jealous that he was having a whole conversation with Marlon or Marvin or whatever his name was? It was a good thing. It meant that Kieran was making strides at fitting in with the team.

That wasn’t just good for him; it was good for the whole team. Anyone who played team sports knew that good team chemistry made a difference at game time.

His conversation with Marlon or Marvin or whatever his name was had taken place on Wednesday. I spent that entire night thinking about it, and I came to a decision. I needed to figure out a way to get rid of the jealousy. The logical thing might have been to talk it out with a friend or maybe just find a way to move past it. However, I wasn’t known for being the most logical werewolf in the pack, not by a long shot. I came up with a different solution.

If watching him have that conversation made me seethe with jealousy, then the only way to quell it would be to have a longer conversation with him. It would mean that I won, and then the feelings would go away. Simple. Easy.

Except the next morning, Kieran was even less chatty than usual. I could barely get more than three words out of him beyond good morning. It didn’t help the big ball of jealousy in the pit of my stomach. It made it worse. It turned it from a mild annoyance into something that felt like obsession. I couldn’t focus during morning training. I spent the entire time watching him, and when I noticed him making small talk with Eric, I did a bad thing.

I closed my eyes and drew on every lesson Kali had ever taught me. It took less than thirty seconds before I felt my ears tingle. A moment later, my hearing had improved. I knew that it wasn’t subtle. My wolf ears never were, but I didn’t care. I wanted to hear what he was saying.

It turned out to be a waste. They were just talking about the regimen the trainer had put each of them on and how much they were lifting. I wasn’t surprised to find out that Eric was lifting more than Kieran, but the amount Kieran was lifting couldn’t have been normal for a human. Could it? Maybe I’d call my biological parents that night, find out what they lifted. Maybe humans were a lot stronger than people thought, or maybe Kieran was some kind of outlier.

Hmm…

I kept my wolf ears out for the rest of the morning’s training session, trying to listen to anything and everything Kieran said. While I listened, an idea formed in my head. If I wanted to have a real conversation with him, then I had to know something about him. I could figure out everything I needed to know. I could listen to him around campus today, and then I could work it into conversation tomorrow.

Was it obsessive? Maybe.

Was it invasive? Definitely.

Was it wrong? Probably.

Did I care? Not even a little bit.

It was the only cure to the toxic ball of jealousy in my stomach. How else would I be able to focus on anything else going on around me? It was all I could think about, and it had been since the day before. It was for the best; it had to be.

Yes, my mind was absolutely made up.

I spent the rest of the day with my wolf ears out, gathering what bits of information I could about Kieran. I couldn’t tell you anything that happened in my classes, but I could tell you every detail of a small exchange he’d had with some girl he’d bumped into somewhere across campus. I could tell you details about him and that guy he’d hung out with at the bonfire, Teagan, talking about their new roommate. That was probably the most interesting thing I’d heard while I was listening.

A new roommate was interesting. A new roommate was something I could work with. That didn’t happen often, because the dorms were usually full and there weren’t a lot of transfers. Maybe I could use that to get him to open up. Then we could have a longer conversation than he’d had with Marlon or Marvin or whatever his name was, and that ball of feeling in my gut would go away.

I didn’t shift back to my human ears until we were in the locker room before practice. My helmet would smoosh them down, and I’d learned the hard way that it was very uncomfortable. It had not been my finest hour, the day I got so excited and partially shifted after my first touchdown the year before. The ears hadn’t been the worst part. My tail ripping through my uniform pants had been the worst part…

Wes still teased me about it every chance he got. Next time he did, I was going to chase him up another tree.

I still couldn’t focus on anything other than Kieran. I was distracted by him, by his presence and the way his smell lingered in the air when he went to run a drill I’d just finished. It was always stronger when we were working out.

I’d hoped that running with him in the mornings would make me less sensitive to the smell, but it had the opposite effect. Instead of making me less sensitive to it, I’d become more in tune with it. I would catch a whiff of him at random spots on campus, and I just knew he’d been there. It didn’t matter how many other smells were in the area, I could pick up on his. It was weird.

Needless to say, it wasn’t my most productive practice.

I woke up on Friday with a full sense of purpose.

Today was the day. I was going to have a real conversation with Kieran Sawyer. It was going to be longer than his conversation with the rookie. I had conversation topics. I had a plan. I had a bottle of his favorite blue sports drink, the one I saw him downing after every practice. I’d even chosen to meet him at a spot as far away from the practice facility as I could manage without leaving campus. My plan was that we’d have a good run and then afterward, I would use all the information I’d gathered about him the day before to have a conversation.

He had a new roommate. His dad worked at a bar, and he got updates on regulars with names that seemed important to him. He had three classes on Thursdays, and they were all boring. One of them was his Introduction to Monsterkind class, and I’d heard stories about that class. I’d listened the most when he was in there, wondering if he’d ask any questions about werewolves. He hadn’t. He’d not asked anything. He didn’t talk much in class, just like he didn’t talk much anywhere else.

Today would be different.

Today, I would find out what it took to open him up, and then the weird obsession I was developing with learning more about this one grumpy, amazing smelling human would fade away. The weight of the jealousy in my gut would disappear, and I’d be able to go back to normal.

I got to the meeting spot early and started stretching. I finished my stretching before he appeared. In fact, he was a few minutes late. What if he didn’t show up? Okay, no, if he didn’t show up, then I’d just figure out a way to have a conversation with him another time that day. I’d corner him in the stairway of the dorm or something. I knew he lived in Karloff Hall. Once I tracked him by his scent the week before, I had started to smell him everywhere.

I wondered if that contributed to the weird feeling I had about his conversation with Marlon or Marvin or whatever his name was.