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The grits had begun to thicken as I stirred, so I turned the heat down and removed the spoon, going to one fridge to collect the butter and garlic, then getting paprika from the pantry. It was all a stall tactic to keep from talking about things with Cash, but it didn’t matter how long I put it off, Lina would circle back around again like a hungry vulture.
“He’s been really busy with school, and it’s making him kind of a grouchy dick,” I announced finally.
In spite of my being twenty-one, I half-expected Lina to scold me for my language. When she didn’t smack me with a spatula, I let out a sigh of relief.
“Is he still treatin’ you good?”
“Good enough. He isn’t being mean to me or anything. Just aloof and short-tempered. I don’t think all this recent werewolf media attention is helping.”
Lina made a thoughtful mumbling sound. “You think he’s bothered by it?”
“I’m not sure.” I sliced cubes of butter into the thickened grits and seasoned them with some nea
rby Australian pink river salt. Only the best ingredients in Lina’s kitchen. As I was stirring in the paprika, I said, “I think me being a public figure bothers him. We used to joke about the whole princess thing a lot, make fun of it. But I think he’s started to realize I am a princess and the whole world knows it.” Returning the butter to the fridge, I grabbed some aged white cheddar and found the cheese grater on a hook next to the island.
“He doesn’t like that you’re powerful?”
I grated a healthy dose of cheese into the pot, more than she normally might, but I liked my grits cheesy. Sometimes when I made them in the city I’d cheat and use Velveeta because I liked how smooth it was, and I secretly thought grating was a pain in the ass.
“I think he didn’t know what he was signing up for when he started dating a werewolf. Now he’s learning what it really entails, and he’s not such a big fan of having an exotic supernatural girlfriend.” I bit my lip. This was the first time I’d said what I was feeling out loud, and voicing my concerns felt like a betrayal to Cash.
“Maybe he’s under a lot of stress. With law school.” Lina was playing devil’s advocate. She would probably never tell me outright to end things with Cash, especially considering how long he and I had been living in sin together. I think she was hoping we’d get married and she’d be able to babysit our adorable mixed-race, potentially werewolf children.
That was something he and I had never discussed. He’d teased me a few times about the idea of getting married, but we hadn’t once had a serious sit-down discussion about it. I knew he wanted kids since he was from a big family, and I did too, but if we ever planned on having any, we’d need to talk about the possibility of them having werewolf genetic markers.
Not just anyone could be turned into a wolf, in spite of what horror movies had led the world to believe. A person needed to meet certain genetic requirements in order for them to become a werewolf after being bitten by one. Children with two werewolf parents were guaranteed to carry the DNA, but it wasn’t always a sure bet with only one parent. It happened more often than not, but not in every case. Rarer still were the outliers, the people with no werewolf family connections at all who carried the right DNA. Those ones were the odd cases who became weres after being bitten by a rogue, or by accident.
I wondered if Cash understood the likelihood that our kids would have my werewolf genes. And if they did, I wanted them to be a part of the pack. The choice would ultimately be theirs, that was how the Awakening ceremony worked, but I would never deny them the opportunity to be a part of this world I loved so much.
Realizing I’d been ignoring the grits, I quickly turned the heat to its minimum setting and stirred the thick light yellow mash until all the cheese and butter were completely blended. Once it was all mixed, I sampled it.
“Yum,” I said, unable to stop myself. The real cheese was much better than Velveeta.
“Don’t you forget who taught you how to cook.”
“Never ever.”
She had finished folding the bread dough back into the bowl to let it rise, so she came over and bustled me out of the way, sampling the grits to make sure I’d done all right. Her approving smile was worth all the compliments in the world.
“Good job, baby.”
“So, what do you think I should do about Cash?”
“You got any better offers?”
I thought of Wilder and then immediately banished those full frowning lips from my mind. Bad, bad Genie.
“No.”
“Then give him time. And you talk to him. Lord almighty, girl. All the problems in the world can be solved by talking them over. Either he can love you for who you are, or he thinks you’re going to get in his way. Doesn’t matter. Either way you know.”
Easy for her to say it didn’t matter. As far as I was concerned it mattered a whole lot.
“Now go on. I’ve got work to do.” She kissed me on the cheek and swatted my butt like she had when I was little. “Check the drink fridge. I hid something in there for you I didn’t want those boys down at The Den getting their hands on.”
The Den was our on-site bar. After too many brawls had started thanks to high-strung werewolves mingling with townsfolk, Callum decided it was smarter and safer to build a bar on his property where the shifters could drink in private. And that had been before the secret came out. I had been too young when I left to spend any real time there, and since returning from the swamp I hadn’t taken much interest. Technically, at twenty-one, I was only just now legally allowed to be in there, but that hadn’t stopped Ben from going years earlier.
I opened the fridge and pushed aside a carton of orange juice to find a band-new six pack of Abita Strawberry Lager hiding at the back.
