“Well, children used to have better judgment.”
“Grandpa Alfonse was arrested when he was twelve because he stole the mayor’s goat,” I said.
“That was political.”
I glanced at the Carpenter house. Levi was currently reenacting his rescue for two younger children with more bravery than he’d had during the actual event.
“Send me the name of whoever proposed the change,” I said. “I’ll read the documents and talk to Mom before dinner.”
“The hearing is Tuesday.”
“I’ll have something before then,” I promised.
“See that you do.”
The line went dead. No goodbye. Yet another thing Aunt Karen didn’t waste her time on.
I slipped my phone into my pocket and headed in the direction of home, hoping to get at least an hour to myself before dealing with another perceived crisis. I had made it halfway across the road when a crash came from the house opposite Grandma Ruth’s. It was followed by shouting and something metallic crashing to the floor.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
It could have been a dropped pan. I hoped it was a dropped pan.
“You owe me twenty dollars, Trevor!”
I changed direction.
The pack was small by most standards, though it rarely felt small when everyone wanted something at once. It had formed with the Blackwells generations ago, before anyone kept clean records, then split through marriages and inheritance into three primary bloodlines: the Blackwells, the Carpenters, and the Kipners.
It all sounded simple until actual relationships entered the equation.
Some Carpenters were blood relatives. Others had married in. One branch of the Kipners came through Grandma Ruth’s older sister, while another had no Blackwell blood at all but had been absorbed into the pack after a marriage three generations earlier. We had adopted children, stepchildren, latent shifters, and a handful of people whose exact relationship required a diagram and the patience of a professional archivist.
It made dating difficult.
Packs were communities, not automatically families in the biological sense. Still, anyone considering a relationship within the pack generally checked ancestry first, which quickly killed romance.
My mother had looked outside the pack when she began dating after years of being single. Part of that was practicality. Part of it was that she had already known every eligible person in our community since childhood, and most of them had either shared a bathtub with her before age five or thrown up in her car as teenagers.
Julie came from another pack.
That had worked out well for everyone except the alpha’s son of Julie’s pack, who had wanted her for himself and refused to accept no as a complete answer. Julie had turned down his requests resolutely, even though it caused her to be exiled from her pack.
Another raised voice snapped me out of my thoughts as I stepped onto the porch. I didn’t bother knocking. I opened the screen door and went inside.
Trevor stood in the living room, a hot glue gun tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, several lengths of embroidery thread wrapped around one wrist, and a tiny plastic frog attached to his shirt. He was facing Mason Carpenter, an eighteen-year-old cousin from the uphill branch. Mason had his hand held out, as if he was there to collect a major debt rather than twenty dollars.
Neither of them noticed me.
“I told you I have the money,” Trevor said.
“Then give it to me.”
Trevor paused. “It’s being processed.”
“You’ve been saying that for two weeks,” Mason snapped.
“Websites have processing times, Mason. I didn’t invent that.”
Mason crossed his arms. “You invent everything.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
Patty, my cousin, stood in the kitchen doorway, making no effort to intervene. Her paint-stained fingers gripped a coffee mug that said
Tears of My Enemies in bright red font.
She came by her artistic streak honestly. Her parents – Uncle Mark and Aunt Susan – were carefree, hippie souls who spent most of the year traveling between artisan markets, pop-up galleries, and outdoor art exhibits. They lived out of a retrofitted campervan half the time, which had given Patty a fierce independent streak, a deep love for whimsy, and a total immunity to traditional family expectations.
She noticed me and pointed toward the boys. “Your problem now.”
This happened often.
I sighed. “What’s going on?”
Both boys turned. Mason looked relieved, but Trevor’s expression turned to one of betrayal.
“He owes me twenty dollars,” Mason said.
Trevor held up both hands. “I do not dispute the debt.”
“That’s promising,” I said.
“I’ve been trying to pay him.”
“No, you’ve been explaining payment processing,” Mason argued.
Trevor looked at me. “I sold three custom key chains and a resin trinket dish through CraftHive. They hold new sellers’ funds until the end of the month to protect buyers.”
“Why did you borrow money from Mason?”
“I needed UV resin.”
“Don’t you already have tons of resin?” I asked.
“Yes, but that’s casting resin.”
I waited.
Trevor’s brow furrowed. “They’re different.”
I believed him. Trevor cycled through interests with enough enthusiasm to keep several craft stores profitable. He’d taken up needle felting in January, soapmaking in February, and spent most of March producing miniature clay mushrooms that appeared throughout the neighborhood without explanation.
The adults often treated his new obsessions as another abandoned project waiting to happen, and most became frustrated pretty quickly with him. I didn’t blame them, though. His interests arrived quickly and departed without notice, leaving half-used supplies and ambitious plans behind.
Still, every once in a while, he retained a skill or the confidence that came from making an object that hadn’t existed before his hands got involved.
Trevor was like a little brother to me. His parents were ambassadors for our pack and often traveled to meet with other pack leaders, leaving him behind and to his own devices.
Mason crossed his arms. “I need the money today.”
“Why today?” I asked.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“For what?”
“A road trip.”
Trevor leaned toward me. “With his girlfriend.”
Mason glared at him. “That’s irrelevant.”
“It’s extremely relevant,” Trevor argued. “She’s from the Grayson pack, and her parents only let her go because Mason promised he had enough emergency cash in case the car broke down or something else weird happened.”
I looked at Mason. “Do you have emergency cash?”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “Mostly.”
“How much is mostly?” I asked.
He hesitated.
Trevor smiled with satisfaction.
A muscle jumped in Mason’s jaw. “Enough if he pays me.”
“Where exactly are the two of you going on this supposed road trip?” I asked.
“Blue Ridge. Her cousin has a cabin there, and we’re spending three nights there.”
“Does your mother know?” I asked.
In the mood for romance?
“Yes.”
“Does the girl’s alpha know?”
“Yes.”
“When was your last oil change?”
Mason’s confidence wavered.
I pulled out my wallet.
Trevor immediately objected. “Hudson, you don’t need to – “
I handed Mason twenty dollars. “Take this. Have somebody in the pack check your oil and your tire pressure before you leave.”
Mason accepted it, looking relieved but slightly embarrassed. “Thanks. I’ll pay you back.”
“No. Trevor will.”
Trevor nodded quickly. “As soon as the funds clear.”
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