How It Was by T. S. Joyce

Chapter Six

 

Nuke was careful to pull the donut shop door open as gently as he could. He’d learned at a very young age that his power would have broken every door that he ever touched, and shop owners didn’t change out broken glass doors without making a big stink. The less attention on him, the better.

“Holy balls, we’ve got a big one, girls.”

Nuke had been looking at Trina as she stood at the counter looking in the glass cases at the donuts lined up on red trays, but the older woman’s voice filled his head.

Three ladies in fancy green hats sat at a table in the corner, and all three were staring right at him.

Great.

“Mornin’ ladies,” he said, tipping an imaginary hat.

“Boy, I haven’t swooned since I was fifteen, don’t make me lose it now,” one called out.

“Yeah, she’ll throw another hip out,” her friend said, and then cackled.

Nuke chuckled and made his way to the counter beside Trina.

“I bet you have crushes on you wherever you go.” Trina’s lips were curved up into that smile he liked. Thank God. He hadn’t liked upsetting her in the truck.

“I get defensive,” he said low. “It’s not you.”

“You don’t trust me,” she said. “I don’t blame you, and good. Don’t trust me. I’m trouble.”

Whooo, there was truth in that admission. Why did that pique his interest more?

He clasped his hands behind his back and straightened up to look at the trays of donut holes lined up against the back wall. “Maybe I like trouble.” Especially if it was shifter-shaped trouble.

A man was ordering enough donuts to feed the small army of children he was explaining were having a slumber party at his house for his daughter’s birthday. It was such a normal conversation to listen to after their charged one in the truck.

What was Trina? If she wasn’t human, what kind of shifter was she? He’d pegged her wrong, and that was a first for him. But…just like he kept his monster a secret, she had every right to live her life looking like a human. Maybe she was a swan. Her submissive personality and curious nature would back that one. Or a rabbit perhaps. Something smaller. Probably not a predator shifter.

“You don’t smell like fur,” he pointed out, unable to help his curiosity.

“And neither do you,” she said with a wink.

Hmmm. Did she know what he was? Most of him hoped not, but a teeny tiny part of him hoped she did.

“I don’t smell like anything you would recognize or guess at,” she said quickly as the worker behind the counter approached them to take the order.

Trina started ordering, and now Nuke was staring at her pretty profile like a creeper. What the hell was she? Besides gorgeous, and plenty capable of getting under his skin with zero effort?

“Oh, and two of the chocolate frosted bear claws,” she finished up. “My friend looooves bears.”

Jerk. He hid a smile because she didn’t need to know how amusing her needling was.

He leaned into her and murmured, “I have to eat a lot.”

She nodded and without hesitation, she asked the friendly teen if they could have another dozen of the exact same ones and two orders of donut holes.

Huh. He liked that he didn’t have to explain the amount of food he needed to consume to make the monster drowsy. She didn’t even blink when the boy told her the total. Just pulled out two twenties and talked easily while he made her change.

She’d wanted to buy him breakfast, and okay. But he was going to pay her back, and he was going to have fun doing it. His kind didn’t keep debts. They paid them quick. She wouldn’t take money from him. He knew why she was buying him breakfast right now. It was because he’d brought her the chair to sleep on. Maybe her kind didn’t keep debts either.

God, what was she?

This was kind of fun.

She picked the table right next to the three green-hat ladies, of course, and grinned at him like she was daring him to sit somewhere else. Challenge accepted.

“Are you ladies having a good breakfast?” he asked, sure to keep his voice deep like women seemed to enjoy.

One of them started fanning herself and another shoved her glasses farther up her nose as she stared at his butt. The third just laughed at her friends.

“You two are a fine-looking couple,” the ogling one said. “Your children will be demigods.”

Children? Nope.

He took his seat across the table from Trina, and tried his best to ignore her pretty smile.

“I want two sets of twins. Maybe three,” she said. When he looked up at her, she laughed. “You should see your terrified face right now.” She did that cute thing where she was busy opening donuts and putting them on a plate, but kept randomly giggling, softer and softer until the laugh was only left in the lines beside her dancing eyes.

She devoured a whole chocolate covered one before she spoke again. “Donuts are my comfort food.”

“Oh yeah? Why?” he asked.

“I was raised in a small town. I mean, one stop-light in the town, everyone knew everyone, small town living. We didn’t have a lot of stores in our downtown, but there was this little donut shop that only fit maybe three people at a time. Tiiiiny store, but it made Piccolo Street smell divine. That was the hangout. There were tables outside on the sidewalk, and hanging baskets of purple flowers in the spring and summer. Momma Mae’s Donuts. My dad used to take me and my little sister there early in the mornings or after school before he brought us back home to start our homework.”

Hmmm, so she was able to go to public school, which said she didn’t struggle controlling her animal. Weresquirrel?

“Anyway,” she continued. “That was our special spot for so long. Now every time I pass a donut store, I think of the happy times with my dad and sister.”

“Where was your mom?”

“Oh, she was at home working. She worked a lot. Ran her own boutique, so Dad kinda took over the school stuff with me and my sister.”

“What’s your sister’s name?”

“Tory.” Her eyes darted to her half-eaten bear claw and her tone went all soft, and something else. Sad?

“I’m sorry. Did you lose her?” he asked, the bite of food turning to coal in his mouth.

“No. No, she’s still alive. We’re very close. My parents were a bit of a mess, and I think being on our own so much bonded me and Tory more. Plus, it’s hard to find people like us.”

“How hard?” Yep, he was fishing for info.

She inhaled deeply and rested her chin on her interlocked hands. “Impossible,” she answered simply.

Oh shit. “You’re the last?”

“Me and Tory are.” She cracked a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Are you the last too?”

He froze. No, no, no, he didn’t want to talk about himself. He just wanted to absorb every tidbit of information from her without revealing anything of himself. God, it was tempting with her. Tempting to share the burden that was always so heavy on his shoulders, but it would only get her hurt.

“Everyone who has ever known about me has died, Trina. No more digging.”

“Hmm. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist.”

He didn’t understand.

Trina canted her head, and her smile reached her eyes again as she said, “I like digging.”

He chuckled. He couldn’t help it. The woman was sassy, and had much more of a backbone than he’d originally thought. She wasn’t a mouse, like he’d assumed.

“Yes. I’m the last.”

“Then I have a proposal.”

“Oh God,” he muttered, leaning back in his chair. “What’s the proposal?”

“Since we are both misfits, we should be best friends. So someday, when I’m off running my own life and doing amazing things, and I have one of those days where I am frustrated that I can’t find anyone who understands me, I can call you. And I can be like ‘hey, best friend, how is your day?’ and you’ll say, ‘sometimes it’s lonely being the only one of me left,’ and I’ll nod and take a selfie of me making a silly face, and I’ll send it to you, and you’ll crack a smile and send a silly selfie back, and then me and you will know we are alone in some ways, but in some ways we are not, and we will feel better.”

His old, dead heart was trying to glub-glub to life right now. She was doing something to him. Something bad, maybe. Something that shouldn’t be happening because he had a job, and it was a big one. An important one. He was supposed to stay steady and protect the world from himself. But right now? Looking into Trina’s pretty green eyes, swimming in that gorgeous smile that lingered just at the corners of her lips, he felt like he was perhaps feeling too much.

She stuck her hand out, over their pile of donuts, for a shake. “Best friends?”

Trina was baiting him. She was having fun. He could tell by the tension that had left her, and the challenge in her eyes and the easy laughs when she could tell he was uncomfortable. She didn’t think he would shake her hand and accept. She really didn’t.

Before he could change his mind, he reached across and clasped her hand as gently as he could. He held it for three seconds just to watch the smile fade to shock in her face, and then something blossomed in her gaze. Something warm. Something hopeful. Her cheeks were turning pink, and she seemed trapped in his gaze. He could do that to people, but usually he didn’t want to. With Trina though? Trapping her sounded fun.

“Friends,” he murmured, and then released her hand.