Noah unzips the tent and climbs inside, carrying two large pizza boxes and a six-pack of beers. It smells greasy and delicious. His hair is damp, but it’s not raining here.
“Where did you go?” I ask out of curiosity.
“New York. Obviously,” he says right before stuffing a huge slice of pepperoni pizza into his mouth.
“This is why you’re my favourite cousin,” I reply before doing the same.
We demolish both pizzas and the six-pack of beers before settling in for the night. The temperature's dropped quite a bit, so I shift and lie across the width of the tent so Noah can use me as a pillow and for additional warmth.
The breeze outside whistles through the trees like a song for all the insects that are still wide awake. It’s so quiet I can hear my own heart beating. Beside me, Noah breathes evenly, but right asI’m about to nod off, he speaks quietly into the near-silent tent. “I think my birth mum might be a witch.”
I can’t reply, so I let out a huff of air so he knows I’m listening. If he’s chosen to tell me this while I’m shifted, it’s probably because he doesn’t want a reply anyway.
“I’ll probably regret searchin’ for her, but that’s why I’m visiting the coven in Oregon. I love Orla, but she won’t be around forever, and Rowan would rather pretend I don’t exist. He has his new family now. Given I’m a bit of an arsehole, she probably is as well. But maybe I got that from Rowan? I think I just want to know why? Was I such an awful baby that she couldn’t deal with me longer than a week?”
I let out a low whine because my chest physically aches at the fact he thinks this way. That any little baby could possibly do anything to deserve being abandoned. I want to shift and reassure him, but I know he doesn’t want that. As if to confirm my thoughts, he adds in a whisper, “Please don’t talk to me about this tomorrow. Night, Sammy.”
It's a while before I'm able to fall asleep after that, but Noah appears to nod off quickly. Maybe he needed to get those thoughts off his chest.
Losing Mum was by far the most painful and heartbreaking experience of my life, but there hasn’t been a single day that I didn’t know with absolute certainty I was loved by both my parents. Even on the days when the three of us terrorised them until they yelled, we always went to sleep at night with a kiss on the forehead and ‘I love you’ whispered in the dark.
Noah’s words almost make me grateful for the giant hole in my chest. Because for the first sixteen years of my life, my mum loved me so encompassingly that I had so much to lose.
Every time I connect to Wi-Fi on this trip, my phone blows up with messages from my da and siblings. Sometimes, I feel suffocated by them, but now it occurs to me that Noah rarelyturns his phone on at all. And maybe that’s because he knows it won’t light up.
I go to sleep feeling desperately sad, and for once, it isn’t about what I’ve lost. I make a silent promise to Noah, my prickly cousin who’s also my best friend. A promise to make sure he always knows he has more than just Orla, who loves him unconditionally.
Chapter Six
Cannon Beach, OR
Asmall bell above the door jingles as I step over the threshold of the little wooden shack. It smells of damp neoprene and sea salt inside.
“Just a minute,” a man’s voice calls out from the back.
“No worries.” The wooden floorboards creak under my feet as I step further inside. Wetsuits and rash vests for sale fill racks to my left, and behind the counter is a wall covered with Polaroids of various people standing next to surfboards on the beach.
“Sorry about that—oh.”
“You…oh!” I reply, taken by surprise in more ways than one. The guy before me is completely gorgeous. Devastatingly so. Like a walking stereotype of a hot American surfer. His wavy shoulder-length blonde hair, sun-tanned skin, sparkling dark brown eyes, and perfect smile almost distract me from his scent. Almost.
He’s a shifter. A beta; he smells woodsy with notes of orange blossom.
“I’m Ethan, it’s nice to meet you.” He beams at me, and it’s kind of startling. His smile's so wide and genuine that it causeshis eyes to crinkle in the corners in a way that makes my stomach swoop.
“Sam. That’s me. Erm… is anyone else here? Or can we…?”Very coherent, Sam. Quite the wordsmith.
“Hi, Sam. It’s just me, we’re good. You’re a long way from home.”
“Yeah. I’m travellin’ for a few months. I didn’t scent a pack in this territory?”
“You’re good; there’s no claim to this patch. My pack’s territory is further north than here, but I took over the surf shop from my dad, and he was human—didn’t live with the pack. And I’m not sure why I’m telling you my life story… sorry. I don’t meet a lot of shifters outside my pack.” He looks sheepishly up at me through thick, pale eyelashes, and my tongue feels too heavy in my mouth to talk.
“You here to surf?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Hopin’ to. I read online that you do surf lessons? I’ve never done it before.”
“Oh, rad! Yeah, it’s quieting down now, so I can take you out. Weather isn’t great for it today, but tomorrow?”
