I followed him to the living room and sat on the couch. He took a seat beside me, close enough that our knees bumped as he turned to me. “Do youwantto talk about it? Or would you rather I distract you?”
The thing that came out of my mouth was, “I didn’t have to beat anyone up.”Although it was close.
“Uh, was that something you were expecting to do?”
“Maybe?” I tried to explain without baring any of the few secrets we still kept. “Werewolf society has always been deeply homophobic. Not sure why. Maybe it was because we don’t have many kids and a queer wolf will never father one. Maybe it was because for so long, being queer was a human crime too. When we were hidden, a wolf getting arrested was a big, big problem.”
“How would the cops know he was a werewolf, though?”
“They might not, at least till recently once DNA became a thing. But a wolf in prison can’t afford to shift, and a wolf trapped in one form for year after year would become… unstable. A risk.”Better off dead.I didn’t say that part. “The packs were extremely allergic to risk.”
“Aren’t there a bunch of gay werewolves, though? I checked back into the news stories from when werewolves were discovered, and it seemed like some of the first ones were gay or bi.”
“Yeah. But that was, well, not coincidence, but part of a whole clusterfuck. They weren’t supposed to be the first wolves out, and weren’t exactly popular with any of the packs. It’s gotten better in the last decade, but you don’t erase generations of bigotry with ten years of grudging acceptance.”
“True. My parents have generations of Southern Baptist roots. Even my giving them a grandchild has only begun to make asmall dent in their disapproval, and didn’t matter at all for my grandpa.”
“So you know how I feel.” I pressed my knee against Kendrick’s, for his comfort and mine.
“Somewhat. Every family’s different. But yes, I know about coming out in the face of scathing disapproval and disappointment.”
“Fuck.” I slid an arm around him, distracted. “Your family should be super proud of you. Raising a kid alone and…” I realized I had no clue what he did for work. “And doing whatever job pays the rent here.” I hugged him.
“I’m just a bank teller. I was lucky Brad had money and I got the house.”
“It’s not about the money. You keep your kid happy and comfortable and fed and free to be awesome. You should be proud.”
He leaned into my hold. “You’re a hell of a nice guy for a werewolf. I imagined you wolves would be more like a biker gang.”
“Some of us are.” Even more of us used to be. The comparison was pretty apt. “But we’re a mix, like everyone else. I actually came out because one of our older guys was bullying our youngest member. I don’t think Charlie is gay, but he’s quiet and submissive.”
“A natural target for bullies, huh?”
“Right. The pack would protect him from outsiders, but within the pack, it’s not so fun for him. And when they pulled out the gay slurs, I stood up and asked if they wanted to take on a real gay man.”
Kendrick snorted. “I’d have paid money to see that. Unless they’re all as big as you?”
“Nope. I have five inches and maybe forty pounds on the worst guy, and I’ve beaten him in a fight before. I admit, looming over him until he backed down was satisfying as hell.”
“Uh.” I heard a little trepidation in Kendrick’s tone. “Do you fight a lot?”
“Not really.”Depending on how you define “a lot.”Most humans probably never got into the fights wolves did, but conflict was part of our nature. “Usually, a fight between packmates is just for fun, like a sport almost.” After a run in fur, revved up and egging each other on, two closely matched wolves might go at it, snapping and tussling until the lower-ranked showed his belly. Or if the guys were horsing around in skin on a boring afternoon, it might turn into a wrestling match. Just establishing that the pack structure hadn’t changed. Serious dominance fights were rare. “Most of the time, no one gets hurt.”
“That’s good.”
“Really, we’re pretty ordinary guys. I fix broken appliances. The pack has a house-flipping business. We have guys who are on a road crew for the city. We have a cop, a teacher, and a lawyer.”
“Does the school know the teacher’s a werewolf?”
I bit my lip because no, and I shouldn’t have mentioned that. I was already far too comfortable with this man.
Kendrick laid a hand on my forearm. “Hey, don’t worry. I’m not going to blab. I just wondered how much you still have to hide around people. Regular humans, I mean. The wolf coming-out stuff seemed pretty dramatic.”
That was an understatement. I sighed. “Well, thirteen years later, folks are settling down a bit. But it’s like hidebound elders and gay men, a work in progress.”
“And you have two strikes against you, werewolf and gay. Who do you vent to when the stress of that combination hits you?”
“Um.” No one, because until now, my pack didn’t know I was queer, and the few gay men I talked to didn’t know I was a wolf.
