Page 20 of True North
He did a loop through the house, searching, and at last found Misha asleep on the couch in the den, wrapped in a throw blanket. It was a good day for a nap, gray and raining now despite the morning’s nice weather. JT watched from the doorway for a few moments, feeling creepy but not creepy enough to make him stop. Misha was curled on his side, nothing visible above the edge of the blanket but his shorn head. His mouth hung open slightly as he breathed in a slow, steady rhythm. Unexpected tenderness unspooled in JT’s chest at the sight of Misha’s comically oversized ears.
Knock it off, he told himself. Misha was his guest. He backed away and headed for the kitchen to see what he could feed Misha for dinner.
He was in the living room, sprawled out on the sofa as he watched the Blue Jays losing to the Yankees, when he heard soft footsteps coming down the hall. He craned his neck around to see Misha shuffling into the room, yawning and rubbing his hand over the curve of his skull.
“Hey,” JT said, smiling despite himself at Misha’s post-nap dishevelment. “Sleep well?”
Misha eyed him. “Sleep,” he repeated, and then smiled widely and said, “Yeah, sleep.”
That counted as communication, right? They were communicating. Things were going great. JT sat up and took his phone from his pocket, because sometimes it was better to make the safe play. He opened up the translation app and said, “I went to go see some of the local bear shifters today.”
Misha’s reaction, once the phone translated, was immediate and obvious. He physically shrank down, his shoulders drawing forward as he ducked his head, and he actually took a step backward, like he thought the shifters might behere, in JT’s house, and ready to—what? Swoop in and arrest him?
JT frowned and brought the phone to his mouth again. “They said they all get together twice a month if you’d like to join them. They seem really nice, I think,” and then he cut himself off mid-sentence because Misha was already shaking his head and reaching for the phone.
Fine. JT handed it over, and Misha said a few words, and then the phone said, “I would not like to.”
JT waited for an explanation. Misha stared at him and said nothing further.
“Why?” JT asked after several seconds had passed. From an interaction they’d had during breakfast, he knew Misha understood that word.
Misha shrugged, still stubbornly refusing to provide any additional information.
JT decided to let it go. He couldn’t keep pressing the issue even if he had wanted to, because Misha was still clutching his phone. “Fine. Want to watch some baseball?” He gestured at the TV.
Misha squinted at the screen. “It’s, uh,” he said, and mimed swinging a baseball bat.
“Yeah. Baseball.” JT’s dad was a huge Tigers fan, and JT had grown up watching games all summer and playing Little League. His dad had actually hoped he’d go into baseball instead of hockey, even though JT had unequivocally sucked at it. He was more of a Jays fan now after living in Toronto and tried to catch at least one game in person during training camp each year.
Misha wrinkled his nose, which made him look unfortunately cute. Message received: baseball sucked. He sat down in the recliner anyway and kicked his feet up, and looked at JT expectantly.
What was he waiting for? JT wasn’t going to change the channel. If Misha wanted to watch something else, he could go find a TV of his own. JT deliberately lay down again and turned his attention back to the screen.
Misha watched the game for about five minutes and then seemed to lose interest and instead began watching JT. JT could see him from the corner of his eye, sitting sideways in the recliner, his chin propped on his knee. JT tried to ignore the scrutiny, but Misha’s steady gaze made him nervous. He wasn’t used to being self-conscious in his own home, and suddenly he was hyper-aware of every aspect of his body: his arm folded beneath his head, his one foot planted on the floor, even the ragged sweatpants he had changed into when he got home. He wanted to shift positions, or better yet, go upstairs and watch TV in the privacy of his own bedroom, but he didn’t want to give Misha the satisfaction of knowing he’d made JT uncomfortable.
There was no reason for Misha to look at him like that. JT wasn’t doing anything interesting. He was just passing the time until he headed over to his parents’ house.
“Okay, fine,” he said, after maybe fifteen minutes of Misha’s silent, intense observation. “We can watch something else.” He picked up the remote from the coffee table and handed it over.
Misha beamed, clearly pleased to have gotten his way, and promptly started channel surfing. JT watched in resigned bemusement as Misha settled on a show about a large animal vet that JT recognized because his mom and sister watched it all the time. Misha made a satisfied noise and settled back in the recliner, ready to camp out for the duration.
Well, okay. If that was what he wanted. JT didn’tobjectto animal shows.
They passed the afternoon that way, watching TV in companionable silence as the rain came down outside. Misha fell asleep after a while, and JT could probably have gone back to watching baseball, but he didn’t want to change the channel and risk waking him. If Misha was on his second nap of the day, he obviously needed the sleep. It probably wasn’t all that comfortable to sleep in the woods.
Eventually, JT left Misha breathing quietly in the recliner and went into the kitchen to get things out for dinner. He was going to eat at his parents’, but he didn’t want to leave Misha to his own devices, which would probably involve shifting into bear form and going off to explore someone’s garbage cans. He had leftovers, and also plenty of stuff for sandwiches, assuming Misha liked sandwiches.
Misha came shuffling into the kitchen not long after, still sleepy-eyed from his nap. He took JT’s phone from his pocket and offered it up with a sheepish expression.
“Forgot you still had it,” JT told him, smiling. He made a mental note to dig an old phone out of the box of dead electronics in the hall closet and give it to Misha to use. That way, they wouldn’t have to constantly pass JT’s phone back and forth for translating.
He opened the translation app now and explained what was happening: he would leave soon, Misha could eat anything he wanted, and JT would be back around nine. Misha nodded as the phone spoke and then immediately opened the cabinet to take out a plate and began making himself a sandwich.
JT watched for a moment, feeling a little wrong-footed. Here he had felt guilty for leaving Misha on his own, but Misha seemed perfectly comfortable making himself at home in JT’s kitchen. He didn’t need JT to keep him company or even feed him. He had survived on his own for months. If JT had expected Misha to be grateful and dependent, things weren’t working out that way at all.
Which was for the best, he told himself as he drove to his parents’ house, trying to shake off his half-formed fantasies. He had stuff to do this summer, and if Misha were clinging and fearful, that would only be an inconvenience. He didn’t need Misha trailing him around the house like a duckling that had lost its mother.
He was distracted during dinner, thinking about Misha and the bear shifters and Misha’s English lessons. Tyler and Kendall were having some sort of half-joking argument about a movie they had seen over the weekend, and JT completely tuned them out in favor of focusing on his mom’s pot roast until Tyler said loudly, “Hey, Jonathan!”