I then pulled out the little box of sandwich baggies and made up a good two dozen baggies of the stuff. I knew if I just started eating it, I would probably eat the whole bowl, and I at least wanted it to last a couple days. I have much better self-control when things are already portioned for me. And yes, I know, I’m allowed to eat more now, but this was more about making the gorplastso I could enjoy it, not about me restricting my food intake.
We hadn’t gone out for the hike Elliot had promised me the day before because it had poured all day, so we’d agreed to postpone until today. Elliot had needed to install some cabinets this morning, though, so he was out doing that, and I had gone shopping for sandwiches and dinner food.
Once the gorp was done, I pulled out two baggies and set them aside to go into a backpack that would carry snacks and water, then got to work making sandwiches. Ham and cheese for Elliot with tomato, mustard, and mayo, and turkey, onion, tomato, mustard, and pickles for me. I also pulled out a bag of Fritos and poured them into a bowl. I’d gotten an extra container of vegan sour cream so I could whip up an onion dip with it that I could actually eat.
I was just about done mixing it when I heard the approach of an engine—Elliot’s truck returning, I assumed. My assumption was confirmed when the door opened, and I heard the distinctive slight shuffle of Elliot’s feet on the carpet. He doesn’t really shuffle, not in that lazy or drunken kind of way you might imagine ‘shuffling’ to look like—there’s just a little bit of extra drag when he walks.
You’d never hear it with human ears, but I didn’t have those anymore. I’d noticed it the first time the day before—just a touch of friction between his bare or socked feet on the carpet or the tile. And then I couldn’t unhear it. Not in a bad way—not like when you notice a radio personality sucking in a breath or making those weird dry-wet mouth noises that completely ruins your experience of their show. This didn’t bother me—it was just very distinctively Elliot.
The fact that I was already that aware of his presence should have been a clear indication of just how much trouble I’d landed myself in, but I was still somewhat in denial. I knew I was falling for Elliot Crane, but I hadn’t yet realized just how hard and deep.
But at the moment, I was just enjoying the feeling of easy familiarity. It had taken me about forty-eight hours to feel less awkward—but our heart-to-heart after my freak-out in the kitchen had broken down some of the walls. I was less self-conscious about the fact that, yes, I was a brand-new shifter. Elliot understood, and he was careful around me without treating me like I was broken or made of glass. He seemed to understand when I needed him to be normal and when I needed kid gloves.
He’d been through it himself, of course. And I was willing to bet that I wasn’t the first new shifter he’d known. But even though Noah did this—helping new shifters and homeless shifters—for a living, Elliot seemed to understand what I needed better even than my own twin.
I wasn’t really sure how I felt about that. Or what it meant that some guy I didn’t really know understood me better than the man I’d known for literally every second of my life.
I wondered what that said aboutme.
I finished mixing the dip and put it on the table next to the Fritos and two plates with sandwiches. “Right on time,” I said out loud.
Elliot gave me one of those lopsided smiles. “Excellent.”
I hadn’t been hikingin a while, and the smells and sounds of the forest made me all but lightheaded, almost giddy. It felt like I could smell the worms in the earth, the grubs in the rotten logs, the unseen roots of mushrooms and moss. The literal salt of the earth, melting with dew and summer rain into the veins of the forest.
I’d already enjoyed the woods. Now I fuckinglovedit.
It felt like my lungs were clearing, breath by breath, the stagnant air of city and stress being breathed out as I drew in the green and beating life of nature.
God, I’d needed this.
“You’re getting high on the trees, aren’t you?” Elliot sounded amused, and I turned to look at him, my brain lost in the sounds and smells of the woods around us and struggling to put together sense from his words.
Then my neck flushed. “Yeah,” I admitted.
Elliot grinned at me, and I thought that maybe his teeth were a little sharper than they had been a few minutes ago. “It’s one of the best parts,” he said. “About being what we are.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I can see that. Smell it.”
“It’s even better in fur,” he said, hazel eyes glittering.
I felt a surge of adrenaline that was part excitement and part fear. I could control my urge to shift most of the time, but I’d never intentionally shifted from human to wolf. I knew that’s what Elliot was getting at.
“I—” I swallowed, lost in Elliot’s gaze.
“It’s not control until you can go both ways,” he told me softly, his voice so low it almost blended in with the sounds of wind and wild things around us. “You can keep yourself from shifting, but you aren’t controlling it until you can choose.”
I’d never felt like I wanted to shift—like I was about to, yes, but never that I wanted tochooseto experience the world as a wolf. Shifting was something that happened to me, not something I did. It was a fugue state, a break from consciousness and control, a black hole I fell into until the part of me that was still human—or human-like—dragged me back out.
“I’m scared,” I whispered.
Elliot nodded. “I know.” Just that. He didn’t try to cajole me or guilt me or convince me in any way. He didn’t tell me not tobe afraid, didn’t tell me I didn’t need to be afraid. He just told me that he knew. No judgment. No pity.
Not for a single moment had I ever wanted to shift. But out here, surrounded by the singing, buzzing woods, I wanted to know what it would be like to understand it as a part of it. To let myself feel and smell and hear and taste with the senses of a thing of nature.
Elliot watched me, waiting.
“I—”
