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John-Henry, somehow, managed to keep a straight face.
“You’ve got something to say?” North said.
Shaw was giggling helplessly into the lapel of his smoking jacket.
“Not particularly,” John-Henry said.
“I was stating a fact,” North said. “And for the record, you’ve got the personality of shit that’s gone through a blender.”
“Maybe I should go to the hospital,” Theo said. “Maybe I do have a concussion.”
“Don’t worry,” John-Henry said. “I get that feeling pretty much every time I’m around them.”
“Is everybody ok?” The question came from Tean as he and Jem hurried across the parking lot. An officer moved to intercept them, but John-Henry waved him back.
Jem glanced at Theo and then around the parking lot. “What happened?”
“Daddy went street fighter,” North said.
“One of them was a werewolf,” Shaw said. “Theo hit him in the throat. And Auggie ripped off a rat’s ear.”
Tean blinked and reached up as though he might straighten his glasses before stopping himself.
“He didn’t rip off an ear,” North said. “It was a lobe. Not even all of one.”
Jem looked past their group to Auggie, still walking Lana around the lot, and said, “Respect.”
When Theo glanced over his shoulder, Auggie grinned and then hid his face in Lana’s dark hair, whispering something to her.
“Oh my God,” Shaw whispered. “My ovaries.”
“That’s how you look with the girls,” Tean said to Jem. Then, to Theo, he said, “You can always tell when somebody’s a natural with kids.”
“You should see him when they wrestle,” John-Henry said.
“They’re going to explode,” Shaw said. “My ovaries are literally going to explode.”
“For fuck’s sake,” North snapped, “we get it. Old Man River got himself a wundertwink.”
“I thought he was a wundersquirt.”
“He can be two things!”
“You know,” John-Henry said mildly, “Theo’s actually younger than me.”
“Oh, we know,” Shaw said. “You can totally see it.”
“Uh. Ok.”
“It’s your skin. Well, mostly it’s all the lines, which is why I say Auggie—”
At that point, mercifully, North clapped a hand over his mouth.
Jem wore a huge smile, revealing slightly crooked front teeth, and a laugh rode the crest of his voice when he asked, “So, what happened? Emery told us to get over here as fast as we could; I think he’s staying with Evie and Colt.”
They went through all of it from beginning to end, and as they did, the crowd of responders dwindled. The ambulance left after Frannie had checked one last time that Theo and Auggie didn’t want a ride to the hospital. Then the officers left, and as their spinning lights shut off, the parking lot fell into the buzzing, yellow haze of a lone security light.
When Theo had finished, he noticed Auggie standing next to him, without Lana. “Asleep,” he whispered. “In her car seat.”
