them. Hunt them. There’d be time for that later.
Ox said, “I was thinking.”
“About?”
He shrugged. “Everything. And nothing, I suppose.”
I sighed. “Werewolf Jesus like always, then.”
He chuckled. “Something like that. Can I tell you what I’m thinking about?”
“Yeah, man. Of course.”
He said, “I’m thinking about this life of ours.”
“What about it?”
“It’s beautiful. It stings. It’s astonishing. It hurts. And I often wonder what the point of it all is. Do you know what I decided?”
I shook my head slowly.
“This,” he said, taking my hand. “You. Me. The pack. This place. The people of Green Creek. That’s the point, I think. We love because we can. We live because we’ve fought too hard to ever stop. And here we are, you and me. Together. In a moment, we’ll go inside and join the others. We’ll eat. We’ll laugh. We’ll tell stories about our day, inconsequential things that mean little to anyone but us. That’s the point, I think.”
I nodded, unable to speak through the lump in my throat.
He looked at the blue house. “Once upon a time, my mother sat at the table in the kitchen of that house, papers spread out before her. They were for a divorce, though I didn’t know it then. I watched as she signed her name over and over again. And when she finished, she looked up at me, and I remember thinking how bright she was. Like she’d been transformed. She said, ‘And that’s that.’ It was so profound, though I didn’t understand just how much. Not then. I do now. Three words. And that’s that. We danced, after. It was a good day.”
I squeezed his hand. “And that’s that.”
He grinned. “Exactly. I knew you’d get it.”
I looked at him. “What if something else comes?”
“Then we face it like we always have. Together. Come on. They’re waiting for us. It’s tradition.”
I followed him back inside the house.
Before I walked through the door, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I whirled around.
For a moment I thought I saw a white wolf in the trees.
But before I could call out to it, it was gone.
“And that’s that,” I whispered.
WE ATE UNTIL our bellies were full.
We laughed until we had tears in our eyes.
But most of all, we lived. And that was the point.
It was in the way that Gavin held my hand under the table while he talked with his brother about their work in the garage.
It was in the way Mark smiled his secret smile, gaze never far from Gordo.
It was in the way Rico said that Joshua would make an excellent wolf when he was old enough, and how Bambi said in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to pressure their son into anything.
It was in the way Chris and Tanner surprised absolutely no one when they announced they were going to move in together.
It was in the way Jessie waved her arms around wildly as she told us a story about the evils of her teenage students, accidentally hitting Dominique with the back of her hand.
It was in the way Robbie and Kelly held a whispered conversation that we all pretended we couldn’t hear.
It was in the way Joe groaned when I recounted the story of the french fry walrus yet again, because that shit never got old.
It was in the way Gavin and Mom were already making plans for the Thanksgiving menu, even though it was over a month away.
And it was in the way Ox sat, taking it all in with that Zen Alpha bullshit he did so well. He was quiet, watching each of us in turn as the table was cleared. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. We could all hear him anyway.
As the sky darkened, the moon bright in a growing field of stars, he rose from the table.
We all quieted as we looked to him.
He said, “Thank you. For everything. For letting me be here with all of you. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“What do we do now?” Joe asked him.
Ox closed his eyes. “Now? We run. Come. Let us see what we’ll see. I have a good feeling about it.”
He turned, stripping his shirt off over his head. Black hair sprouted up along his back and shoulders, muscle and bone beginning to grind.
The others followed suit, Jessie and Bambi trailing after them.
Gavin and I were the last.
I looked over at him as our wolves began to howl. “Ready?”
He kissed me on the cheek with a loud smack. “Ready.”
And