I shook my head. “I don’t want your money.” I pointed toward the plastic frog on his shirt. “You’re going to make me a key chain.”
He went from defensive debtor to hyper-focused entrepreneur in a single heartbeat. “Seriously? What kind do you want?”
“Dealer’s choice.”
He glanced at Mason, then back at me. “I’ve been working on layered acrylic ones. I can put dried flowers inside, or foil, or tiny gears. The gears won’t move, but they look mechanical.”
I thought about it for a few seconds. “Tiny gears.”
Trevor grinned. It wasn’t the polished smile he usually used when defending his latest venture. This one reached his eyes and made him look younger than seventeen. “I’ll make it tonight.”
Mason folded the twenty into his pocket. “Can you still make mine?”
Trevor turned toward him. “You said key chains were a waste of time.”
“I said the one shaped like a toilet was a waste of time.”
“It sold within nine minutes of me listing it,” Trevor said.
The argument restarted with less hostility, which was good enough for me. I headed to the door.
Patty leaned out from the kitchen. At twenty-four, she was four years younger than me, but we’d practically grown up on the same porch. Her fingers were almost always stained with paint or ink, her clothes looked like a thrift shop had exploded in the best possible way, and her workspace constantly overflowed with half-finished canvases. She was a genuinely talented artist with a deep flair for the unusual, specializing in dark, whimsical illustrations and custom painted jackets that she sold online to a surprisingly large following.
Unlike Trevor, who abandoned a new hobby every three weeks, Patty stayed strictly in her lane. She knew exactly what she was good at and honed her craft with serious discipline. But behind all the eccentric flair, she was super sweet and fiercely loyal. In fact, she was easily one of my favorite people in the entire pack.
She nodded at Trevor. “If you’re making custom key chains, I need three miniature easels for my craft booth next month.”
“That’s woodworking, Patty,” Trevor said. “Hudson does wood. I do resin and vibes.”
Patty rolled her eyes, her expression softening into a warm smile as she looked over at me. “Can you believe the disrespect I endure in my own family?”
“Unforgivable,” I said, stepping past her and giving her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I’ll look at the easels later.”
“You’re the best, Hud,” she called after me.
“Hudson?” Trevor said.
I looked back.
“Thanks.” He inclined his head at Mason’s pocket, though I knew that wasn’t the only thing he meant.
I nodded. “Can’t wait to see that key chain. Now, get back to work.”
Outside, the afternoon had warmed enough that the road shimmered faintly in the distance. I checked my phone while walking.
Three texts.
Two from Aunt Karen. One from a Carpenter uncle asking whether I had jumper cables.
I did.
When I finally crossed the yard toward home, the sun had begun lowering behind the ridge. My forearm itched beneath Caldwell’s bandage, and I had spent most of the day solving problems that had not existed when I woke up.
That was normal.
People called me because I answered. Because I usually knew what to do or knew someone who did. I had jumper cables, first-aid supplies, bottled water, extra phone chargers, and two sizes of children’s shoes in my truck. I had almost everyone’s spare keys. My contact list included every pack member, three council representatives, two wildlife officers, a mechanic, a veterinarian who knew about shifters, and a plumber who didn’t ask questions when he saw claw marks on broken pipes.
I took pride in it, because there were worse things than being useful.
Long ago, I’d sworn to myself that nobody would ever look around for help and find an empty chair where I was supposed to be sitting. I knew what it felt like when the person who was supposed to hold up the world walked away because it got too heavy.
I lived in the in-law suite attached to my mother’s house. It had its own entrance, kitchen, bedroom, and narrow porch, though the connecting door into the main house remained unlocked most of the time. It gave me privacy without requiring Mom to accept that I might someday live farther than twenty feet away.
She claimed the arrangement was temporary.
It had been temporary for several years.
I stopped in my place long enough to drop off my wallet, wash dirt from my hands, and change my shirt. The smell coming through the shared wall made my stomach growl before I entered the kitchen.
Julie was cooking. That meant butter, herbs, something roasting, and enough food to feed anyone who might wander in without warning.
Weekend dinners rarely had a fixed guest list. Anyone could appear. Cousins regularly brought their dates over. Grandma Ruth carried over side dishes nobody had requested. Grandpa Alfonse arrived when the food was on the table, guided by instincts developed across a century of meals.
The kitchen was wonderfully crowded, and I took a moment to take in the scene. Pots simmered on the stove, sending all sorts of delicious scents into the air. Soft music filtered from the speaker near the window, and all three of my little stepbrothers were focused on their own projects.
Jason sat at the table, wrapping his hands for martial arts practice despite having been told countless times that dinner came first. Byron was reading, one foot hooked around the leg of his chair. Caldwell was drawing at the island, his tongue caught between his teeth in concentration.
Mom stood near the sink chopping vegetables with enough focus to make each piece nearly identical.
Julie turned from the oven. She wore a pink dress printed with tiny white flowers. Yellow hoop earrings swung from her earlobes at the movement, and her pink lipstick had somehow survived an entire afternoon of cooking. Her blonde hair had been pinned into a high ponytail with a ribbon. She looked ready to attend a garden party, which was her preferred aesthetic for nearly every domestic activity.
She was the femmiest femme to ever femme. That’s why some people thought she was an odd match for Mom, our fiercely protective alpha, but they complemented each other well and had a deep respect for one another.
“There he is,” Julie said. “Our exhausted woodland hero.”
I waved a hand in the air dismissively. “I climbed one tree.”
“You rescued a child.” She wiped her hands on a floral towel and held one fist toward me.
Without hesitation, I tapped my fist to hers, turned my hand, caught her fingers, then finished with the small shoulder bump she had insisted on adding years earlier.
We’d developed the handshake when I was fifteen and deeply uncomfortable with maternal affection that might be witnessed by my friends. Julie had suggested we invent something less emotionally threatening than a hug. Neither of us acknowledged that the finished sequence was more elaborate and drew significantly more attention.
Jason stopped wrapping his hand long enough to watch us. “That gets worse every time,” he said.
Julie placed a hand over her heart. “Jealousy is ugly on you.”
“I’m not jealous. You can have your own handshake. I would rather shift in public when greeting family members.”
Mom looked up from the cutting board. “Don’t even joke about that.”
Jason returned to his wrapping. “I know.”
I leaned toward Julie and kissed her cheek. “What are you making?”
“Rosemary chicken, whipped potatoes, salad, and rolls.”
“Are the rolls homemade?”
She looked offended. “What do you think?”
“I think the last time you said they were homemade, you meant someone made them in a factory, and you warmed them at home.”
Byron lowered his book. “That sounds like a flat-out lie to me.”
“It was a joke,” Julie said, playfully pointing a knife at her sixteen-year-old son.
Mom slid the chopped vegetables into a bowl. “How bad was Levi?”
“He was scared, but he’s fine now.”
“He should be grounded,” Mom said.
“That’s a bit severe. He just climbed a tree.”
Mom didn’t relent. “He climbed above the ladder line after being told not to.”
Caldwell pushed his drawing across the island toward me. It showed several figures standing beneath a tree, and one person standing on a ladder. The person on the ladder had shoulders wide enough to require architectural support.
“Is that me?”
Caldwell nodded.
“I look powerful.”
He smiled.
Jason leaned over. “You look rectangular to me.”
Caldwell pulled the paper back.
I pointed at Jason. “He’s jealous.”
“Of being rectangular?”
I shook my head. “Of outstanding art.”
Julie placed a tray of rolls on the counter, then squeezed Caldwell’s shoulder. He relaxed at her touch. Caldwell adored all of us, but he loved in cautious increments, offering pieces of himself only when and where he knew they would be treated gently.
“Karen called,” Mom said.
“Yeah, she called me too.”
“She’s right.”
“I know, Mom.”
The admission made both of us uncomfortable.
Julie glanced between us. “Should I be worried?”
“The county may reduce development buffers around Millstone,” I explained. “They want to allow commercial construction near the western boundary.”
Julie’s delicate features instantly tightened, her gentle demeanor becoming cold, protective alertness. Julie’s softness had never meant passivity. Anyone who mistook one for the other usually learned quickly. “That could expose the lower running trails.”
“And damage the wetlands,” Mom added. “I’m calling the council tonight.”
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