Page 19 of True North
“I haven’t really talked to him about it,” JT said. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had to tread carefully here, even though he didn’t understand why. “Just trying to send out some feelers. I’m happy to support him, but he might like a chance to earn some of his own money and interact with people who aren’t me.”
He watched both Lenny and Marie relax in a minor but visible way. A tension he hadn’t previously noticed left their bodies. Had they thought JT was trying to force Misha into working? If Misha was unhappy with anything JT did, he could just leave.
Lenny nodded and sat back in his chair. “That’s good. Sure, maybe he’d like some work. We’ll spread the word around. We’re happy to meet with him whenever he’s ready. Hell, he can meet every shifter in town all at once if he wants. Everyone gathers here two Monday nights a month, when the pub’s closed. The next time’s not this coming Monday but the one after. He’s welcome to join us.”
“Try to get him to come,” Marie said. “I think it would be good for him. If he was willing to move in with you, he’s clearly not terrified of all human contact.” She smiled. “Tell him we won’t bite.”
JT returned her smile. He liked both of them, even if they were suspicious of him. “I’ll do my best. Like I said, he told me he isn’t ready. I’m not sure what he’s worried about, though, or how long it might take him to be ready. But I’ll try.”
“Stay in touch,” Lenny said. “Anything you can think of that we could help with, text me. Shifters stick together. He’s not one of ours, but we’ll welcome him into the fold if he’d like to be.”
“That’s kind of you,” JT said, and they finished their drinks before he made his goodbyes and left.
* * *
Misha finished the pot of coffee—god, he had missed coffee—and thought about making another, but he was jittery enough already, and anyway he didn’t know how to operate the coffee machine, which had at least ten different buttons and looked like it wouldn’t be out of place on a spaceship. He would probably set JT’s house on fire if he tried. He finished off the melon JT had sliced up before he went to town and left the kitchen to do some investigating.
JT’s tour hadn’t satisfied his curiosity. He hadn’t seen the entirety of either floor of the house and he wanted to know what lay behind the half-open doors he had only peeked through. He was nosy by nature and had no shame about it, and no compunctions about poking around the house in JT’s absence. He wouldn’t look anywhere that seemed truly private, but if JT objected to him just wandering around a little, he shouldn’t have left Misha unattended with so many tantalizingly unexplored rooms.
He started downstairs. The house wasn’t huge, but it was bigger than anywhere Misha had ever lived, and he couldn’t imagine that JT used all of these rooms regularly. In addition to the rooms he’d seen previously, there was a sunroom at one end of the house with a screened-in porch attached to it, a powder room near the kitchen, and a formal dining room that appeared to serve primarily as a dumping ground for junk mail and empty cardboard boxes. A door in the hallway near the kitchen led down a staircase to a finished basement JT had set up as a home gym. The room was lined with mirrors and scattered with an assortment of workout equipment, most of which Misha couldn’t identify. He had never spent much time at the gym.
Back upstairs, he went into JT’s office to examine the framed photographs he’d noticed during the tour. Unlike the photos in JT’s bedroom, these were all group shots presumably of JT’s teammates, judging from the hockey uniforms. Misha picked up each picture in turn to squint at the faces in search of JT. In every picture, he found JT front and center. He really needed to look up the roster.
Well: he could. The computer was right there. He sat down in the chair and turned on the monitor. He clicked the black bear and his desktop loaded, and he spent a couple of minutes clicking around figuring out how to change the language settings. It took a little guesswork, but soon enough he had the computer speaking Russian to him, and he opened the browser and ran a quick search.
The information he was looking for wasn’t hard to find. In fact, it was the very first result that came up. He clicked through to look at the roster, and there it was: not just someone with JT’s name, but JT himself, with a small headshot smiling at Misha from the computer screen.
Misha’s eyes widened as he took in the information before him. JT wasn’t some marginally skilled warm body to fill out the roster. He was the team’s captain.
“Oh, shit,” Misha said aloud.
He didn’t know much about hockey, but he was a casual soccer fan, and in soccer, the captain was one of the more experienced or skilled players, someone who could be expected to serve as a leader. Assuming hockey was similar, JT was a pretty big deal, and most people who followed the sport probably knew who he was. He was without a doubt something of a celebrity in Toronto and would get recognized by fans and stopped for autographs.
Misha got up to look at the pictures again. Now that he knew what he was looking for, the C on JT’s jersey was obvious.
This information didn’t really change anything. He had already known JT was a hockey player and had money. It didn’t matter that JT was the captain, only it kind of did, at least in how Misha felt about the whole situation. JT was important. He was one of the top athletes in his sport. He wasn’t spending the entire summer sitting around fishing; he was training seriously and gearing up for the next season. That must be what he was doing when he left the house every day. And yet, he was still taking the time to try to help Misha.
Misha had never felt smaller or more insignificant. He left the house and walked down to the dock to sit with his feet dangling into the water, watching the waves lap gently against the shore. The sky was overcast and the air smelled like coming rain, but the lake was still beautiful, and the deep living green of the forest all along the shore, like embroidery along the edge of a handkerchief. He felt himself calming as he watched the water and the distant splash of a water bird, some distance north of JT’s dock, as it plunged into the waves for a fish. Misha’s universe could crumble and collapse and the water birds would keep on diving for fish and the trees would keep on dreaming their ancient, quiet dreams. He was comforted by the steady continuity of the world.
The clouds overhead thickened and at last, a light rain began to fall. Misha thought of shifting into bear form and roaming the forest for a while or heading north until he had gone too far to come back. But he was wearing JT’s clothes and didn’t want to steal them, and when he went inside, the house was warm and still smelled of coffee from breakfast, and he didn’t feel like undressing and going back out into the rain. He could leave tomorrow, or the next day. Whenever he felt like it.
He curled up on the couch in the den, wrapped in a blanket and watching through the window as the rain fell harder. Despite his dark thoughts, he didn’t truly want to leave. He liked JT, and he liked being here in JT’s house—for more than just the warm bed and the abundant food. He liked the way JT smiled at him.
He probably wasn’t making good decisions. This wouldn’t be the first time his yearnings had led him into trouble. He should leave before he did anything stupid or impulsive.
Too late. The memory of that morning’s awkwardness brought heat to his face. He had known that crawling into bed with JT was crossing a line and should have been prepared for JT’s reaction, but somehow he had still been embarrassed. JT had seemed to shake it off and had acted normal during breakfast, and hopefully, all would be forgotten as long as Misha didn’t do it again.
It had been so good, though, not to sleep alone. He had grown up in a small apartment with only one bedroom, which he and his siblings shared while their parents slept in the living room. When they were young, they all shared one big bed and slept in a warm, jumbled pile of limbs. Even as they got older, habit and lack of space meant he ended up sleeping most nights with his twin sister until well into their teenage years. Shifters liked the company.
He missed her. He missed all of them, his big, loving family. He should never have left home.
But he had, and he couldn’t go back in time and undo the choices he had made. He could only live with them and keep moving forward.
He sighed and flopped onto his back on the couch. Maybe he would take a quick nap before JT got home.
Ten
The house was quiet when JT got home. He put his keys on the hook by the side door and listened for any signs of Misha’s presence. None came. JT’s immediate thought was that Misha had left, fled into the woods without a goodbye, and JT wouldn’t ever see him again.