At First Sight: A Timber Wolves Companion (3 page)

I’ve attended a grand total of six schools in my high school career, but Lake County High had the most oppressive cell phone policy of all of them. The first time you were caught with one in a classroom it was taken away and given back to your parent or guardian at the end of the week. The second time? The school kept it until the end of the year. I’m sure a lot of kids risked it knowing their folks would buy them a new one. Some kids probably got caught on purpose just so they would have an excuse to get whatever the newest shiny gadget Steve Jobs’s team had wheeled out. I, however, didn’t have parents and couldn’t afford a new phone. If this one got taken away I was screwed, and Liam knew it.

I waited until the teacher began doing a dramatic dance interpretation of a sonnet or something before I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Hiding it between my leg and the chair, I clicked on the text messages.

“What is the situation?”

“Tell me you’re not being stupid.”

“Why aren’t you answering me?”

For a complete know-it-all, Liam could be exceptionally stupid.

“In class,”
I sent back, praying the teacher didn’t look my way as I fumbled with the keys.

Liam’s response was almost immediate.
“Check in the moment you get out,”
came through at almost the same second the bomb alert/dismissal bell sounded. Calling my brother every name that didn’t insult my mother, I grabbed my phone and headed towards the hallway, which was a cell phone safe zone.

“Checking in.”

“And…?”

“And Scout is beautiful, smart, and beautiful. I’m going to make her fall in love with me.”

“Oh good. It’s the Alex Cole Comedy Hour.”

“You’ll be my best man at the wedding, right?”

“Gotta work. Stay. Away. From. The. Hagans.”

Each word got its own period. Guess that was to help with my comprehension since he didn’t think I heard him the first million times.

I tucked my phone in my pocket and followed the horde towards the center of the building where various unappetizing food smells jelled into one giant nauseating stench.

The absolute worst part about the first day at a new school is lunch. You don’t know how the lines work or what foods might cause you to spend the rest of the day getting intimate with the restroom. Sometimes you strike up a conversation with someone in line and therefore have a place to sit, but that’s almost worse than the times you have to find a place of your own. Too many times those line chatterers are the exact kind of person you don’t want to spend the only non-educational thirty minutes of your day with. Luckily, Lake County was the type of school where the students had all known each other since Kindergarten. Social circles were formed and then set in cement sometime around fifth grade, and it was almost impossible to nudge your way into one of the pre-established groups. No one so much as looked my direction as I waited patiently in line for a soybean burger and cold fries, which meant I had to deal with the normal new kid humiliation of standing in the middle of the cafeteria with my tray in hand, searching for a place to sit.

“Oh thank God!” A soft, feminine arm looped around mine. “I was beginning to think there was no hope for this lunch period,” Ashley said. “But now, look! Voila! Worst lunch period has officially become the best lunch period ever.” I didn’t really have anything to say to that, but it was okay. Ashley didn’t need a conversation partner so much as an audience. “Look, there is a booth free over in the corner. Let’s snag it up before one of these squirmy little freshmen try to take it.”

She jerked me along, and I followed, not because I really wanted to sit with her, but because I could see who was sitting at a nearby table.

Harper “Scout” Donovan Someday-To-Be Cole.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t gawk at her because all of my concentration was needed to navigate the lunchroom. Ashley wasn’t lying, the freshmen were squirmy, and there had to be at least a million of them. They moved in clumps, knuckles white around their trays as they wandered aimlessly down the aisles, often stopping abruptly for no good reason or without any warning. Ashley’s insistence on hanging onto my arm didn’t really help the situation.

We made it to our booth with minimal injuries, and Ashley quickly slid into one of the seats. Since it was the one with the best view of Scout, I slid in beside her. “You don’t mind me sitting here, do you?” I asked, even though I didn’t really care one way or the other.

“Works for me!” She practically glowed. “I like to get close.
Really
close,” she said with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle. I made the mistake of looking down, and once again her boobs seemed to have a life of their own.

I stuffed a few fries into my mouth to save myself from having to comment on that and swept my gaze over to Scout’s table. When I first spotted her, she had been sitting with Talley. Now, Talley was still there, but she wasn’t the only one. A guy was sitting entirely too close, smiling at her with entirely too much familiarity.

My wolf strained beneath my skin.

“Who is that?” I asked Ashley. It was only proper to know a guy’s name before you killed him.

Ashley stopped talking just long enough to search for who had caught my attention. “The guy wolfing down the Doritos?” I nodded my confirmation. “That’s Jase. Everyone around here thinks he’s like a rock star or something just because he’s like some sort of basketball prodigy or whatever, but he’s a total jerk.” She curled her lip, and I was pretty sure that was actual hatred shining in her eyes.

“You guys used to date?” I guessed.

“What? Me and Jase? Oh, hells no. Jase will date anyone with tits just long enough to get what he wants, and then drops them like a celebrity mom drops her baby weight.”

They sounded like a match made in heaven.

After looking at Scout’s table with enough venom to make a cobra jealous, she added, “I respect myself too much to even consider dating Jase.”

If I was a betting man, I would put a large amount of money on Ashley actually being bitter that the guy who would “date anyone with tits” wouldn’t date her, especially since she obviously put a lot of effort into her own set. Still, I was going to side with my new friend on this one. I didn’t like Jase. Just by looking at him you could tell he was popular, arrogant, and…

A Shifter.

This time the whisper in my head was accompanied by recognition. I had seen this guy before. A few days ago, Liam and I saw him at The Strip. I didn’t get a good look at him, but I had caught his scent. And now, even with the millions of cafeteria and student related smells hanging in the air, I caught it again. Every hair on my body stood at attention, and I had to work to keep a growl from escaping my throat. My entire body shook with the desire to Challenge the coyote who was sitting too close to my Scout. I was actually considering it when she turned around. Her eyes locked onto mine and all thoughts of Jase vanished.

Calm yourself, Cole,
I told myself.
He’s just another obstacle to overcome. And you will overcome it. She belongs with you. It’s destiny, and no one can escape their destiny
.

I took a deep breath and turned my attention to Ashley, knowing if I didn’t distract myself and kept seeing her with him, I would forget my most recent words of wisdom and do something stupid.

***

“Please tell me you have at least some intelligence and writing ability.” Meg looked at me very intently. Her entire essence seemed as tightly coiled as her hair, which was in a very severe librarian-worthy knot atop her head. Someone should mention to her the correlation between an overdone Type A personality and a short lifespan.

“My mama said the kids in the normal classes would be mean, but I told her I was just as smart as the next kid as long as they don’t make me do math. Or read. Or breathe through my nose.”

“Oh my God, Meg! You were just mean to a special kid!” The girl who introduced herself as Joi-with-an-i was the exact opposite of Meg. This one more closely resembled a squirrel on caffeine. “You can’t be mean to special kids. That’s just wrong!”

Meg rolled her eyes. “He’s not special, Joi. He’s sarcastic.”

Joi gave my hand a little pat. “It’s okay. I think you’re special.” It took me a second, but I finally saw the glint in her eye. Joi might have been a bit energetic, and probably just naive enough that her whole gullible act was believable, but she was purposefully antagonizing Meg. I decided rather quickly that I liked her, although not quite as much as I liked the girl who was sitting down next to me.

“We just keep running into each other,” I said, unable to keep a giant grin from stretching across my face. It was all different kinds of not smooth, but it was the closest I had been to her since she practically ran over me - and then away from me - after our math class. This close I could sort out the different layers of her scent and hear the way her heart kicked up at my words.

Things were definitely moving in the right direction.

“Yes, it seems karma is intent on us spending some time together,” she said. “Obviously, I did something horrid in my previous life.”

“Or maybe you’re my reward for being so good.” Not that I had ever truly been good enough to deserve her, but who was I to argue with destiny?

Scout looked very intently at her notebook, doing a rather good job of ignoring me. Since that wouldn’t help with my let-Scout-get-to-know-you plan, I pressed on. “So, I was going to sit by you at lunch, but your boyfriend beat me to it.”
And I managed to not beat him, so please give me a reward. Perhaps a smile. Or a kiss. Or lots of kisses.

“Who? My what?” A little line of confusion formed between her eyebrows. “Do you mean Jase?”

Of course I meant Jase. Jase the dates-anyone-with-tits basketball-hero Shifter. She was too good for him. I would make sure she realized it.

“You and Jase have lunch together?” Joi’s big-eyed disbelief wasn’t put on this time. “But I thought there had been a royal decree that the Donovan Twins weren’t allowed within 500 feet of each other on school grounds since the Ms. Tubbs incident.”

The Ms. Tubbs incident?

Twins?

“Twins?” I repeated, out loud this time for everyone’s benefit.

Scout cocked her head to the right, sending a wave of hair over her shoulder. The florescent lights shone across it, making it look like it was made of glass. “Jase is my brother.”

“No, he’s not.” Of this I was absolutely certain.

“Oh, we just call them twins,” Joi said. “Jase’s mom married Scout’s dad when they were babies. They don’t look anything alike,”
no kidding
, “and Jase is technically a couple months older,”
and a Shifter
, “but they act like twins.”

“Five weeks to the day,” Scout said, correcting Joi’s math.

Liam’s random insistence on staying away from the Hagans finally made sense. Jase was the Shifter he ran into the other day, and Scout was “the strange girl”. Something that felt exactly like jealousy stabbed me in the gut. Liam had already seen Scout. Met her.
Talked
to her. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. My hand immediately went to worry a piece of paper I always kept tucked into my pocket.

“Do you have any siblings, Alex?”

I had zoned out and missed the last bits of conversation, but the sound of Meg saying my name brought me back.

“Yeah, I’ve got a brother.” A brother who got to know Scout in the real world first.

“Older or younger?” Meg quizzed.

Scout was listening intently. Was it because she wanted to know more about me, or because we were talking about Liam?

No. I wasn’t going to think like that. I was going to do exactly what I said I was going to do. I was going to let her get to know me, and use every single ounce of charm I possessed to make her like me. I could do that.

It’s destiny
, my mother’s voice whispered through my head, and my hand once again went to the worn letter in my pocket.

“He’s two years, ten months, and four days older.” I spoke directly to Scout, and because I was trying my hardest, I threw in a wink. Judging by the splash of pink across her cheeks, it worked.

“And your parents?” Meg asked. “Do you live with both of them? A single parent? A parent and a step-parent?”

“None of the above. They’re dead.” If you say it real fast you run a smaller risk of tripping over the words or, worst case scenario, getting all choked up like some soft-hearted girl. “Liam is my guardian.”

I worried that Meg, who I was going to rename The Pit Bull for her ferocious focus, would continue down that same line of questioning, but instead she asked, “Where did you live before coming to Timber? That isn’t a Kentucky accent.”

“What do y’all mean, it ain’t no Kentucky accent?” I was laying it on thick, which garnered a smile from Joi and a predictable glare from Scout. “I reckon I picked up a nice one living up in Libby, Montana.” Who knows. I might have if I’d ever actually visited Libby, Montana.

“Libby, Montana?” Meg’s face pinched up. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a little north of here.”

From what I could gather, most of the people in this class had worked on the school paper before, and therefore the teacher saw no need for actual instruction. Or it could be that she forgot her Alzheimer’s medicine and didn’t know she was supposed to be teaching something. Whatever the case, we did nothing but sit and talk for the entire period, which was exactly the miracle from heaven I needed. Without yet another boring lecture on academic responsibility and grading scales, Scout was forced to converse with me. It took me all of five minutes to realize she was just as smart and funny as I always knew she would be. If I hadn’t been in love with her before, I would have fallen the moment she gave an in-depth and item-by-item description of everything she kept in her zombie survival kit. How could I help it? The girl not only knew what a Kukri Machete was, but she owned one and knew how to use it. Female perfection.

She tried to dodge me once class was out, but I wasn’t having it. I was going to have to go eighteen hours without being near her. I needed every second I could get to have an ample amount of material to obsess over until then. Not only that, but I wanted to properly meet her brother now that I knew he wasn’t trying to hook up with her. It was obvious the two of them were close, and with any luck I could kill two birds with one friendship. He could help me get close to Scout, and I could get his pack to cooperate with Liam. It was pretty much a win-win situation, which Liam would realize once he finished yelling at me for not following his orders.