Brothersong (Green Creek #4) - T.J. Klune Page 0,87
moving truck.
“Joe?” Mom asked. “What is it?”
But he ignored her. He was looking out the window at a diner, a place called the Oasis. I could see a woman inside. A waitress. She stood next to a table. Sitting at the table was a kid. He looked like he was my age, but bigger. His hair was dark. He was smiling at the woman. She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
“Joe?” Dad asked.
But Joe never looked away from the window.
Soon the kid from the diner would show up in the yard, my brother tugging on his hand, telling us of candy canes and pinecones. Of epic and awesome.
But that was later.
My father said, “Let’s go home.”
We drove on.
I saw it before we left the street. My father did too. I know he did.
The sign.
GORDO’S.
He didn’t say anything.
I didn’t either.
GREEN CREEK HADN’T CHANGED in the year I’d been gone. It looked as it always did. Oh, some of the stores looked as if they’d gotten a fresh coat of paint, and the awnings were new, but it was still the same town I’d left behind. Lights had been hung up on lampposts and garland placed along benches and signs.
And the people.
All of the people.
They heard us coming.
They appeared in the doorways.
On the salted sidewalks, the melting snow shoveled off the curbs.
They filled the streets.
Kelly slowed the truck to a halt before turning it off.
“Why are we stopping?” I whispered.
I felt him looking at me. “You know why. They’ve been waiting for you.”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
He said, “You can. I know you can. After everything, you deserve this. They’ll want to see you.” And then, remarkably, he laughed. “Mr. Mayor.”
I groaned. “Holy shit. I forgot about that. How the hell did that happen?”
“I have no idea,” Kelly said. “Everyone is going to yell at you.”
I looked at him. “They know?”
He nodded. “They do. They… they aren’t pack. But most understand what it means. Or at least the idea of it. They know you’re important to us. To this place.” His smile trembled. “To me.”
I reached over and wrapped my hand around his neck, pulling him close. He pressed his forehead against mine. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Never giving up on me.”
He breathed me in. “You’re my brother. I would never let you go. And you made me a promise once.”
“That I’d always come back to you.”
“And you did.” He laughed again. “You did.”
He climbed out of the truck. People swarmed him, all talking excitedly. They waved at us through the windshield, standing on their tiptoes, trying to see me. To see us.
I looked at Gavin. “All right?”
He shook his head. “Loud. All the noise. I don’t…. They don’t know me.”
“Not as you are now. But they remember the wolf always following me around.”
He scowled at me. “You die easy. Fall in hole or something and die.”
Because that was something that often happened. “We’re going to have to talk about everything. And it’s not going to be a one-sided conversation.”
He looked away.
“But not yet. Let’s get through this first, okay?”
He nodded stiffly.
And then I heard a howl.
My chest hitched. I knew that song. I knew it very well.
It echoed through the street. The people fell silent. They bowed their heads as if in reverence.
I looked out the door Kelly had left open.
The crowd parted.
There, standing in the middle of the street, was an Alpha.
He was as big as I remembered him, bigger than almost anything in the entire world. He wore a work shirt, his name stitched in two red letters on his chest. He told me once when he’d first been given a shirt like it that it made him feel like he had a place to belong. That he’d found his home.
Oil stained the tips of his fingers.
His dark hair was a little longer, ruffling in the quiet breeze.
He smiled, slow and sure.
I almost fell out of the truck trying to get to him, needing to feel him, needing to know he was real and to let him know that I had never forgotten him, had never forgotten any of them, and please, please, please let me still be in your pack, please let me still be your Beta, please let me stay.
The townspeople spoke in hushed whispers, reaching out to touch me on the arm, the shoulders. They didn’t touch my neck because they knew it wasn’t their place. But I only had eyes for him.