the speculative looks the others were giving me now, even if tempered with more respect than before, had me worried. I could almost hear their thoughts, they were so obvious. They might have been hiding it behind shifting the talk to what they’d do for dinner tonight, maybe hitting the town for pizza, but I still caught the twinkle of interest and concern as each of the Weres snuck glances at me now and again.
Tonight definitely wasn’t the night to show the contract to Chaz—but the day’s events did raise some tough questions I wasn’t in any frame of mind to answer.
Would I consider becoming one of them and taking a place in the pack structure for real?
Chapter 13
We went to town for dinner. And by we, I mean the entire freaking pack. We all piled into about twenty cars and converged in a mob on one of the few restaurants scattered along the main street cutting through the town, taking up all the parking spaces for two or three blocks. The few people out and about tonight watched the strange, eclectic mix of people mingling together, a couple of young kids dashing between the adults, discussing whether to get pizza or check out the diner down the street.
Most of the votes swung for pizza, so that’s where we went. There weren’t nearly enough seats inside for so many of us, but we cheerfully harassed the poor kid behind the counter with enough orders to make his head spin. When he asked Dillon to repeat his order for the third time, Billy’s mom got fed up and wrote everything down on a piece of paper for him. The teen was grateful, though when someone mentioned separate tabs he turned an interesting shade of white under the fading summer tan. Obviously they didn’t get this many walk-ins very often or orders this big outside the tourist season. Maybe not even then.
It was even funnier when the kid realized we weren’t having some kind of wacky family reunion. He gaped when he spotted a pack tattoo and recognized it for what it was, eyes dilating and his pallor swiftly shifting into a flush of fear and embarrassment as he stammered out that it would take them a couple hours to get this many pizzas ready on such short notice. That would cut it close to sunset, but we’d manage. His relief at the lack of disappointed growls and sudden shapeshifts was so obvious, it was comical.
I was surprised the kid was so nervous considering the Cassidy family lived out here. Then again, maybe the Cassidys were more private with their business than the Sunstrikers. After all, we were visitors from the big city, and the tolerance for things with fur and fangs was generally a lot higher there than out in the boondocks. Not to mention the Sunstrikers currently outnumbered the townsfolk on the street.
They weren’t making an effort to hide what they were either. Many of them were in short sleeves, not bothering with jackets, showing off their pack tats on their upper arms. Some of the women had halter tops, and the few who hadn’t put their pack tattoo on their arms made sure they were visible on their shoulder blades. If the tattoos didn’t do it, the scruffiness and lack of warm clothing to combat the bitter October chill would have given them away.
With this many of them together in public, I doubted anyone would try anything more than jacking up prices or whispering empty threats when they thought the Weres were out of earshot. Still, it worried me a little when the kid rushed off into the kitchen area as soon as he got the last payment, hiding back there with the two cooks. A handful of Sunstrikers lingered outside having a smoke or talking on cell phones while the rest of us were crammed inside.
A couple of the girls casually mentioned they were going to window-shop while they waited for the pizza. As I was rubbing my sore shoulder, Kimberly lightly brushed my arm to get my attention. “Do you want to come with us?”
I hesitated before answering, taking stock of who was going. Paula was sulking, off in one of the booths by herself. The other girls were smiling and waving me over, hoping I would come with them. Oh, what the hell. I needed new underwear anyway.
“Sure, why not,” I said, hefting my purse up a little higher on my shoulder and giving Chaz’s hand