Page 30 of True North
“Omigosh, I’msosorry!” She clapped one hand to her face. “I’m so bad at this.”
A youngish guy across the table leaned toward them and said, “Hannah, we’retryingto plan abarbecue.”
Everyone in earshot laughed, even Hannah, so Misha decided it was a joke he didn’t understand. Hannah balled up a cocktail napkin and threw it across the table, neatly beaning the guy on the shoulder. “Shut up, Caleb! I’m being nice to the new guy.”
“Oh, isthatwhat you call it,” the same guy said.
“Children,” said a third person, an older woman with cropped gray hair, in an extremely dry tone of voice. Everyone laughed again. There were too many eyes on Misha, curious glances from all up and down the table, and he couldn’t help feeling that the laughter was somehow about him, directed at him.
“Hey.” The young guy—Caleb—braced his elbows on the table and raised his eyebrows at Misha. “You’re Russian, right?”
Ugh. “Yeah, Russian.”
Slowly and carefully, speaking each syllable like he was tasting it and wasn’t sure he liked the flavor, Caleb said, “Ochen priyatna.” Pleased to meet you.
Misha couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face. In Russian, he said, “You speak a little Russian? That’s awesome.”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Caleb said, laughing. “Sorry, I don’t actually know any Russian, I just looked up how to say that when Lenny said you’d be joining us tonight.”
That explained the lack of a detailed introduction, then: Lenny had already spread the word around. “You say good,” Misha said, touched that Caleb had made the effort.
“Suck-up,” Hannah muttered beside him.
Misha knew what that meant from watching American sitcoms, but he wasn’t sure why Caleb would want to suck up to him. None of these people knew anything about him beyond what JT had presumably told them, and JT knew almost nothing beyond a few simple facts. As far as these shifters knew, Misha was just some weird bear who’d been avoiding them for months.
And yet everyone nearby was smiling at him, watching the interaction with Caleb with approval. There were good people in the world; JT was proof of that. Maybe these shifters were good people, too.
Misha gazed down at his beer. He didn’t want to let these small kindnesses pass unacknowledged or unanswered, but he also didn’t have any idea what to say next.
The older woman stepped in to save him from himself. “Misha, we’re having a cookout this weekend.” She raised her voice to be heard over the other voices at the table. “On Sunday. I’m deciding.”
“But I havetennis,” called someone from farther down the table, only to be drowned out by a chorus of boos.
Lenny raised his pint glass in the air, drawing everyone’s attention. When all the side conversations had died down, he said, “Sunday!”
“Oh,fine,” said the same person who had objected about tennis.
The older woman looked at Misha from across the table, her eyebrows raised. “So? Are you going to come?”
Misha swallowed. Would a cookout be better than this meeting, or worse? He turned to look at JT sitting at the bar. JT was watching him, beer in hand, and Misha owed it to him, didn’t he? To at least try.
“Yeah, all right,” he said to the woman, and to everyone else watching him, waiting to hear what he would say. “I come.”
Fourteen
Misha stayed in bed too long the morning after the shifter meeting. He woke when JT got up but pretended he was still sleeping, all through JT brushing his teeth and getting dressed and making his usual morning rustling-around noises. Even when the smells of coffee and breakfast wafted up the stairs, he didn’t move from his nest of blankets. He just didn’t feel like getting up yet.
JT’s footsteps came up the stairs and down the hallway. Misha considered pretending he was still asleep, but in the end, he rolled onto his side to face the music.
JT stopped short in the doorway when he saw Misha was awake. He leaned against the jamb and folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t want breakfast?”
Misha carefully slid his eyes away from JT’s bare shoulders. His habit of roaming around the house wearing nothing but sweatpants wasn’t great for Misha’s blood pressure. “I am come down now.”
Something about JT’s posture softened slightly. “You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” Misha sighed. “But like, tire? Or…” He didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling. Attending the meeting had exhausted him deeply. He felt the same way he had when he first started staying with JT, as if some viscous substance ran through his veins in place of blood, and the effort to pump it through his body took all the energy he could muster. He wanted to lie down on the floor for at least a day. Maybe two.
“It was a lot for you, huh. Meeting those other shifters.”