Page 7 of Foxed Up

Huh. If it made him that happy, maybe we should be saying "love you" more often.

Wallace Avery

I watered my plants, fixed myself supper, and sat down to read. But I couldn't bring myself to concentrate. My boyfriend had done all the hard work to fix it, and I felt antsy, guilty, and like it wasn'tenough.

I kept hopping up to do something, to get something, to trade books, or to check my phone. Because yeah, he was busy, but there was a possibility that Jon would have some free time to call, right? Maybe he'd want to pop over for sex, too.

Jon liked sex. It wasn't that he was avoiding me — I was almost certain of that. He just had a lot of responsibilities. At home. Where I wasn't allowed.

Well, I was meeting his son soon, so perhaps things would improve from there. I hoped so. I didn't know how long I could keep on being in last place in his life. That's where I felt like I was, even if it wasn't a reasonable way to feel. He certainly cared about me and had committed. So I needed to stop feeling that way. Somehow.

I sighed as I settled in for one more attempt at reading. Usually I could lose myself in a story, immerse myself in a good book, no matter what life circumstances surrounded me. Except when I was hunting for a killer. Then, nothing but Jon and sex and lots of it could put things out of my mind, even for a moment.

So far, I'd helped out on four murder cases and one case of a little girl getting abducted. The quick sniff-the-crime-scene-or-suspect-for-drugs routine was, by now, old hat, and not something I struggled with. Murders? They were harder… I hated the smell of death.

Okay. Enough of that topic!I put down my mystery and reached for a cookbook. I was starting to think I'd have to stop reading mysteries soon. The job was kind of spoiling them for me.

Maybe I'd make a cake. A huge-ass cake, and bring it in to work tomorrow.

I paused, debating. Would they…would they be willing to eat something I'd cooked? It's true I'm a good cook, and baker, and all-around kitchen fanatic, but some people would be grossed out to eat anything a shifter had made.

I kind of didn't want to know if the people I had to see every day for work were like that about it. On the other hand, nobody had to turn their noses up at it. They could just avoid it. I was pretty sure noteveryonefelt that way.

And if it was chocolate, for instance, a tender cake with fluffy, light frosting and perhaps shaved almonds on top…mm, I didn't think anyone could resist that.

I had a thing for chocolate, in case I haven't mentioned. A thing that involves "give it all to me, right the fuck now, and nobody gets hurt." I crave ridiculous amounts of chocolate, and it doesn't even have to be sweet. It can be bitter baking chocolate and I'll be a happy camper and eat it just as cheerfully as sweet stuff. I laugh at bitterness.

As I got up to fetch some pans, ingredients, and cookbooks (one for the best cake recipe and one for the best frosting recipe), I thought about the rabbit shifter I'd scared today. It was hard to imagine him calm enough to be indignant, but Jon wouldn't lie to me, right? He wouldn't say something just to make me feel better. In fact, with his blunt, say-it-like-it-is nature, he often did just the opposite. It wouldn't occur to him to lie about something like that, and he wouldn't even if it did.

I stared at my ingredients, the things I had enough of to bake with for enjoyment, to share with my coworkers. None of us were going hungry. That rabbit and his family might be, unless he could get his hardscrabble job back. Even then, perhaps.

Was there anything I could do about that? I thought, perhaps, there was.

I left the pans, flour, chocolate, and cookbooks where they were, but put the eggs back into the fridge. Then I grabbed my wallet and headed out. For a moment, after locking up, I paused to close my eyes and breathe the night air. It was cool, refreshing, and cleaner than during the day. I felt more alive. There's something about night air, especially during summer, and if you're a fox.

It was still early summer, the time of year when sweat trickles down your back and the sun beats down, but it's not relentless. There are cool mornings, pleasant evenings, and overcast days when it's not unbearable. But the sun is growing warmer, the days longer, and you know, you just know, the really bad part of summer is coming, the wear-sunglasses-if-you-want-to-be-able-to-see-against-the-glare days, the days you want to lie flat and pant, the days you can think of nothing but air conditioning and ice cream. The days when even air conditioning doesn't seem cool enough and you long for walk-in freezers in the bedroom. It was still pleasant summer for a bit yet, but all the same, I liked the night air best.

I went to the grocery store. It felt cool in there, almost oppressively chilly in my short-sleeved shirt, all the lights too bright, some of them buzzing and flickering over near the meat counter. I didn't need to go there today. My cart had a squeaky wheel, and I grimaced and tried to ignore it. The store was nearly empty, perhaps because it was Tuesday and after ten.

I wondered what Eli and Jon were up to. Bedtime stories? Brushing their teeth? Would I ever be a part of their domestic life? I wondered if Eli would ever accept me. If I would ever move up the rankings in Jon's life. Not to supplant his son — never that — but to not be in last place in his life, either. I'd love to come first in some way, if not in every way.

I put it all out of my mind and got moving. Right now I had some shopping to do.

I grabbed every fresh thing I could think of, all kinds of lettuces, carrots, and fruit. It might be a cliché, but prey-type shifters really do like fresh fruits and vegetables, which aren't always the most affordable things to buy. Well, I was a single man with a full-time, well-paying job. I could afford to fill a cart with good things for rabbits to eat.

To round out the cart, I headed further into the aisles and bought soups, spaghetti and sauce, crackers, oatmeal, cereal, milk and almond milk, since I didn't know what they might like, canned vegetables, bread, muffins, and two pies. By the time I was done, the cart was extremely full. I added some bars of baking chocolate to it, since it probably wasn't just me who liked it strong and bitter.

Then I checked out. The bill made me wince, but it wasn't much of a gift if it didn't cost me something, right?

The guy working the checkout was pretty nice, and helped me pack everything, chatting to me all the while. Then I loaded my car up (it didn't all fit in the trunk, I had to use the back seats as well), and headed down to the river.

I'd gotten the address from the captain; all that remained was to find it after dark. Before I found the address, I smelled the strong scent of rabbit. Despite myself, I felt my mouth beginning to water.

No. This wouldn't do. I couldn't just arrive on their doorstep and scare them all over again. It would feel like I was persecuting them, demanding forgiveness and not taking no for an answer. It had to cost me something, this gift, but it shouldn't cost them, too.

Finally I stopped the car not far from where Green lived, unloaded the groceries along the side of the road, and got back behind the wheel. My headlights showed the landscape eerie and misshapen, and I wanted to be home now, drinking cocoa and reading, or baking, or falling asleep. It had been a long day. I hoped my guilt was expunged now.

I called Jon.