She’d had her pick of mates from the best packs and never let anyone forget it. Of all my aunts, Lurlene and Braylene were the most “involved.” They didn’t like how I dressed, how I spoke, how I refused their constant advice. (I much preferred Aunt Paulene and her endless carbs.)
When I was younger, I’d learned how to quietly fade into background of the pack, easy enough to do when everybody else was so damn loud. My parents were lucky I was a good kid who was more interested in my schoolwork than the bad choices available to me as a teenager in a rural area. But once I graduated, it was if I popped back up on the pack’s radar and they started questioning what I was going to do with my life, when I was going to settle down, get serious about my role in the pack. My aunts and uncles, for the most part, weren’t content with my plans for community college and a job I enjoyed.
In general, werewolf attitudes towards social justice may have evolved over the last century or so, but it took much longer for my relatives to adjust to the idea that I might want something more from life than marriage to a big strong male who could provide for me and the children I would bear for him.
When I didn’t immediately change this attitude, they’d taken to ambushing me with makeovers and “sons of friends” visiting from nearby territories. I tensed, scanning the trailer for the sight or scent of an unknown male.
When I didn’t see a stranger, or a set of hot rollers , I relaxed ever so slightly and smiled, like I didn’t have a care in the world.
I hadn’t done anything wrong tonight, not even by werewolf standards. Okay, sure, I was about to lie…but that hadn’t happened yet. My whole life was spent dancing on the edge of this sort of subtle distinction. “I was out with some friends from school.”
“What friends? You haven’t talked about friends in months,” Daddy scoffed, rising from his seat. Like most McClaine men, he was huge, well over six feet tall and still fairly muscled for a man in his early fifties. Deep, unhappy lines bracketed his mouth, the roadmap of his unsatisfying life. My mother sat, quietly working through a crossword puzzle book, as if her husband wasn’t hollering to wake up the whole pack just a few feet from her face. I’d watched over the years as she’d perfected her little bubble of concentration, impervious to noise or tension or the verbal barbs from my aunts. Unfortunately, the bubble had also hardened against her daughter’s discontent a long time ago.
“Where were you?” Daddy demanded.
“I was at the library with friends,” I told him.
He burst out laughing. “What the hell would you be doing at the library on a Friday night?”
“Reading?” I suggested.
“A girl your age should be on a date,” Aunt Braylene said, shelling peas into an old stoneware bowl. “What happened with that Scottie? Darla’s boy? I gave him your phone number. Or do you kids just talk over the texting now?”
I clamped my lips together to keep my expression neutral. I’d agreed to one date with Scottie Briggs. He’d been so handsy, I’d barely escaped the movie theatre without popcorn butter-flavored handprints on my ass. I would not subject myself or my jeans to that again.
A headache started to bloom behind my eyes.
“It didn’t work out,” I said vaguely.
“You know, when I was your age, girls didn’t hide in their rooms behind computer screens. If you want to catch a man, you’re going to have to work for it,” Braylene told me.
I shrugged. “I’m good. Really.”
Lurlene looked sincerely offended. “You need to think about your future. You know, your daddy isn’t gonna put a roof over your head forever.”
I had a lot of opinions on this topic. I’d been willing to move out for years. I’d even tried a few times, only to cancel my plans when my parents claimed it would somehow make their position in the pack even worse. So, my secret savings account grew right along with my frustrations. Daddy glared at me hard enough not to bring those opinions up.
“Why don’t you come on over to my place tomorrow? We can freshen up your hairstyle a little bit, make you over,” Braylene pressed, with a significant look towards Mama and her dishwater blond hair. “You were lucky enough to get the McClaine coloring, honey,