He opened the door, the bell chiming as he entered, and he was still stroking the face of the watch as he approached the empty
counter.
* * * *
Derek heard the bell at the front door chime, and he hurriedly put the box of old game controllers he’d been searching through back on the shelf. “Be out in a minute!” he called, writing down the number of items in the box and their worth, according to the eBay page on his
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iPhone, and then taped it to the box before heading to the front of the
store.
There was a single man standing in the shop, leather jacket slung over his shoulder, looking up at the thirty-two-inch flat screen on the wall that had the week’s weather and a soccer game playing, on mute, of course.
Derek had never been a football or hockey type of guy. He loved
soccer.
“Sorry, that one’s not for sale,” Derek said, turning away from the screen before he got pulled into the game. “I have others if you’re interested.”
“No.” The man turned. “I’m―”
He stopped before he could say anything his. His face drained of
color when he looked at Derek.
It took Derek about a split second to realize who was standing in front of him, too, and when it clicked, he was sure he was just as pale as Mason.
He couldn’t help the hopeful smile that came next. “Mason?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“It is you. Holy God, you haven’t changed a bit.”
“You have,” Mason said.
Derek’s face went from cold to hot in less than a second. Right, he knew what Mason was referring to. The last time they’d seen each other, they were both about the same age. Derek was twenty, and Mason had just turned twenty-one.
He wouldn’t have known it to look at the other man. Mason had a
build that bodybuilders and personal trainers spent hours in the gym,
or hundreds of thousands of dollars, to get.
Derek had looked exactly as any geeky twenty-year-old should.
He’d been scrawny.
That had always made his memories of their time together all the better. The thought that a built guy like Mason would ever look twice at a stick figure like Derek had always been something nice to think
10 Marcy Jacks
about whenever he remembered the other man.
Mason smiled hesitantly and stepped forward. Only one step before he stopped. “What happened to you?”
“Late growth spurt, I guess,” Derek replied. “Work out three or four times a week though, for about an hour, and I don’t drink any protein shakes, so I’m pretty sure it was a growth spurt.”
Mason nodded, his eyes still glued to Derek’s body.
Derek liked the way he was being looked at. It was something he’d not quite gotten used to, and it was always flattering, considering he was the kid that got shoved into lockers in high school.
Now, although still smaller than Mason, he had the stomach and shoulders of a GQ model. He even had something of a beard growing out if he didn’t shave in the morning, which was a look he enjoyed, so he tended to skip shaving every two or three days.
He knew the orange T-shirt he wore was stretching over his abdomen, and he couldn’t help but be pleased as Mason stared.
“When did you get back into town?”
Had Mason come for him?
Mason blinked and seemed to come out of the trance that Derek’s
body had put him in. He shoved something into the pocket of his faded jeans and cleared his throat.
“Just now. On my way to see my brother.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Derek said, doing his best to hide his disappointment. “How is everyone doing?”
His choice of wording was done on purpose. He dared not ask how the pack was doing. No, he remembered how Mason didn’t much like talking openly about what he and his family all were.
Though the pack was situated just outside of Brampton, Derek didn’t keep in contact with any of them. Not even Mason’s older brother.
Oh, he saw them around once in a while whenever they did their odd jobs to bring in money, but they avoided him and he avoided them. He pretended not to know werewolves existed, and they
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pretended he didn’t know. It was better that way.
Sometimes he thought he was the only man in Brampton to figure it out. Everyone in town had their own superstition with wolves because they were always in the area and always seemed to be howling at night, but Derek had been especially interested in them. He’d been a geek, really.
He’d always known about the group of people who lived just outside of town, but most people thought it was just another group of houses. They avoided those houses and those people because of all the injuries and the occasional death that supposedly happened there.
He had been an incredibly curious geek.
He’d seen Mason for the first time, in an unguarded moment, in the woods just outside the property where the other houses and cottages were. Derek had thought him to be the most beautiful man he’d ever seen in his life.
He hadn’t meant to spy on them. He’d honestly just taken the day to go hiking. Then he’d watched the man shift, and he still thought he was beautiful.
Mason had sniffed him out, and after a brief chase, they’d stopped and spoken.
Talking with a real werewolf, who was naked, was the most amazing thing Derek had ever done in his short life. Maybe it was his obvious attraction to the other man that drew Mason to him in return.
Somehow they’d come together, and Mason had sworn him to secrecy from that day on.
Even after Mason had left town, Derek had kept his promise. Really, who was he going to tell?
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Mason said.
What? “You haven’t kept in touch?”
Mason’s face turned scarlet.
Shit. “Sorry,
