Page 7 of True North
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JT did some internet research about feral shifters. Some of them were just happier in their animal forms and genuinely loved living in the woods and didn’t have any desire to participate in human society. Some were mentally ill or had substance abuse problems. JT didn’t know for sure, obviously, but he didn’t think Misha fell into either of those categories. He thought Misha probably belonged to the third group: people who were running away from something.
His Google searches turned up a number of stories from people dealing with similar situations with feral shifters. These people mostly seemed to think of themselves as Good Samaritans in a way JT couldn’t really relate to. They wanted to do a good deed and help someone who needed it, but there was an undercurrent—and maybe JT was being uncharitable—of self-congratulation, as if they wanted other people to agree how good-hearted and kind they were. While JT would be pleased if he could help Misha in some long-term way, he was mostly just curious. He wanted to know what Misha’s deal was. And he also wanted Misha to stay out of his fucking trash. He would leave snacks out all summer if that kept Misha out of the garbage cans.
He didn’t see Misha for a few days, but the Tupperware kept getting emptied, and his security footage showed that it was Misha doing the emptying. At first he was relieved, because this was basically the best-case scenario: leave food out, good bear behavior, no further entanglements. As the days went on, though, he felt increasingly guilty. Misha clearly needed help, and JT wasn’t hard-hearted enough to leave him to molder away in the woods. If Misha would come back and eat with him again, maybe JT could get some information out of him or see what aid Misha might accept.
He came home one afternoon after lunch with some friends in town and found a muddy paw print on his deck, the right size and shape to be a bear paw. It had rained earlier, so the print was fresh. JT did a loop of the house but didn’t see any other signs of Misha. Well, maybe he’d come back.
He hung out at the kitchen table for a while, keeping an eye on the window that overlooked the jetty. The TV was still set to whatever Tyler had been watching the last time he came over, which at the moment seemed to be a Bruce Willis movie, or at least Bruce Willis was in it, holding a gun and looking grimy and mad. JT half watched whichever of the millionDie Hardmovies it was and half caught up with the messages in the team’s group chat about an upcoming wedding. Nothing moved in the yard except a couple of squirrels.
He nearly had a heart attack when a huge, furry face suddenly popped up in front of the window.
“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed, loudly enough that Misha’s ears twitched even through the glass. Misha dropped back away out of sight.
By the time JT recovered his composure enough to step through the sliding doors onto the deck, Misha was in human form. He had dressed in some of the clothes JT had left out for him, a pair of sweatpants that sagged at the waist and a T-shirt that hung on him like a sack. The shirt was on backward, but he’d tried. He hunched his shoulders as his eyes met JT’s, and he dropped the cardboard box and shifted his weight from one foot to another.
“Hey, it’s okay,” JT said. “You scared the shit out of me, that’s all. Are you hungry? I had lunch already, but I can get you something to eat.”
Misha eyed him and said nothing, but he did shuffle another step closer.
JT was really beginning to think he didn’t speak any English. “We can have an early dinner,” JT said, and mimed holding a plate and eating from it with a fork. “If you’re hungry.”
Misha scratched his belly, his hand lifting the hem of his shirt to display a wedge of pale, dirty skin. “Pizza,” he said.
“Pizza,” JT repeated. “That’s what you want to eat?” He had a frozen pizza stash in his fridge for when Kendall came over because she wouldn’t eat anything that involved vegetables. If that was what Misha wanted, he could sacrifice one for the cause.
“Pizza,” Misha said, and grinned.
“All right,” JT said. “Pizza it is.”
But then it turned out that Misha didn’t want to go inside the house.
“I have to cook it,” JT explained. “I don’t just have fresh pizza lying around. The oven has to heat up, and then it takes time to bake the pizza. You should really come inside.”
Even after that totally reasonable explanation, Misha wouldn’t step across the threshold. He sat down at the picnic table and looked at JT with his eyebrows raised as if he expected JT to manifest the pizza from thin air and serve it to him, piping hot and maybe paired with a beer.
“Suit yourself,” JT said. The guy was either extremely rude or didn’t understand a word JT was saying. At this point, JT was ninety-five percent sure it was the latter. He went inside to turn on the oven and get the pizza out of the freezer. He craned his neck to look through the sliding doors. Misha hadn’t moved from his spot at the table and was gazing up into the branches overhead, maybe looking at the squirrel that liked to perch in that tree and shriek endlessly.
JT loaded the dishwasher and tidied up in the kitchen while he waited for the pizza to bake. He wasn’t a neat freak, but his mom had always expected them to help out around the house, and by now it was pretty ingrained to spend a few minutes wiping down the counters while he waited for water to boil or the timer to go off. The guys on his team made fun of him for it, but at least he wasn’t a helpless jackass reliant on a girlfriend or housekeeper. Some of the younger guys had nothing in their refrigerators but ketchup and beer, and that was no way to live.
He glanced outside again before he took the pizza from the oven. Misha was still sitting and waiting. JT gave the pizza a few minutes to cool before he cut it and transferred the slices onto plates. When he went outside with a plate in each hand, Misha’s face lit up into a wide, eager smile. Even skinny and filthy, he was kind of cute.
That wasnotwhat JT should be thinking about his charity project.
Did thinking of Misha as a charity project make him an asshole? Probably.
“Pizza,” Misha said as JT set one of the plates down in front of him, and dug in immediately.
“It’s probably still too hot,” JT said, “you might want to—never mind,” because Misha had taken a huge bite and then winced, no doubt from the sauce and cheese burning the roof of his mouth. But he took another bite immediately, so it couldn’t have caused him too much distress.
JT had eaten only a few hours ago, and pizza wasn’t exactly in line with his goals for clean summer living. It smelled great, though, and after he took the first bite, he knew he was going to eat both of the small slices he’d served himself. He’d given most of the pizza to Misha, who looked like he needed it, and he was glad he’d portioned things out that way when he saw how quickly Misha was eating, cramming the pizza in his mouth and barely taking the time to chew before he swallowed.
“There’s more where that came from,” JT said. “I’m not going to take it away from you if you eat too slow.”
Misha’s eyebrows drew together as he stuffed a giant wad of crust into his mouth.
“You don’t have a clue what I’m saying, do you,” JT said.