AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That wasn’t so bad.
It took me a minute to figure out how the thing worked—the belt went inside the car seat, before clicking into place—but then I tugged the belt out and managed to get the seat out of the car.
I carried it into the garage, setting it down to open my truck door while Evan wiggled and yelled at me. He started pinching me in the arms and face while he wailed, and I shot him a dry, tired grin. “Really gotta stop that, buddy.”
“Need some help?” Rocco called from behind me.
He strolled up, grinning widely. “Hey, squirt. Come here.” Rocco held his arms out to Evan, and Evan practically threw himself at the gamma.
Lizzy’s wolf watched my friend with narrowed eyes, but didn’t growl at him.
“Thanks, man. The little guy wants to make a run for it.” I climbed into the truck, tugging on the seatbelt and trying to shove it into the hole in the car seat that it had come through. My hands were too massive for it to be easy, though—and when I finally managed to get my hand in, the seatbelt locked halfway through.
I tugged at it a bit, hearing Rocco having a conversation with Evan about whether or not I’d fed him my “famous” peanut butter sandwiches.
“He says he hasn’t had enough chocolate, El. You’re failing,” Rocco teased.
“He’s had enough chocolate milk for an army,” I countered, still wrestling the seatbelt.
“Then you’re smart, huh little man? Everyone smart loves chocolate milk.”
“Not sure that logic will fly in class,” I remarked, knowing Rocco would be headed to the school for work. He taught history, there. Del would’ve been with him, but she still had another month and a half of maternity leave.
“Eh, the kids expect me to use facts, not sound logic. And the chocolate milk thing is a fact.”
I continued wrestling the seat belt, and it had probably been ten damn minutes before I finally managed to get the thing in. I slid out of the truck when it was done, actually sweating a little.
Apparently I needed to start working out again. It had been a while since I bothered. Our bodies didn’t get out of shape thanks to our genes, so there wasn’t really a need for it.
“Thanks,” I told Rocco, holding my arms out toward Evan.
He growled at me and snapped his teeth, making me grin.
“Go back to Papa Elliot. He’ll make you a chocolate sandwich for lunch, I promise,” Rocco told Evan, as he handed him to me.
“Don’t call me that to him,” I warned Rocco, setting Ev on my hip. “Lizzy will decide if and when her son calls me that.”
My possessive instincts had flared up, and weren’t shrinking.
Evan wasn’t my son, though he would eventually be, assuming I won his mom’s heart like I planned. But until Lizzy said the word, he was hers, completely.
“Sorry, man. Have fun at the store.” Rocco gave Evan a high-five, and actually got a normal high-five.
“You were teasing me with the knuckles thing earlier,” I remarked to him, grinning.
He grinned back, and babbled something.
“Sly dog.” I poked him in the nose, then set him in his car seat and buckled him in. “Let’s get going.”
Lizzy’s wolf hopped into the passenger seat, and I slid into the driver’s. She was looking at me with a toothy grin, and I grinned back. “Your human was probably laughing at me pretty hard back there.”
She gave a bark-like chuckle, and licked my hand.
She wasn’t agreeing with me—she couldn’t communicate with her human—but she definitely thought so.
“Life’s more fun when people laugh with each other,” I told her, scratching behind her ears as my grin lingered. “You can both make fun of me any time you want.”
She licked my palm, and Evan gave an unruly scream from the back, making me laugh. “We’re going, we’re going.”
As I pulled out of the driveway, a grin remained on my face.
I couldn’t help but think that hanging out with Evan was a hell of a lot more fun than being trapped in my wolf form throughout my wolf’s hunt would’ve been.
