Duh, he’s an MC president.
She shook off those thoughts. This was about Cass, not her own fucked-up past that had her viewing everyone through blood-colored glasses.
“Lay it on me, sister. Tell me all your deepest, darkest secrets and fears, and I’ll just listen. I pinky promise not to try to change the way you see it, laugh at you, or try to fix it if you don’t want me to. What you feel is valid. Period, full stop.”
Isn’t that what every woman, regardless of age, wanted to hear?
With a sigh, Cass set her plate with a half-eaten piece of crust aside.
“You’re so going to break one of those promises.”
“Nope, I won’t. Have I ever done you dirty?”
“No, you haven’t, but it’s so bizarre, even I don’t believe it. I mean, I do, but I don’t at the same time. I mean, shit, I probably shouldn’t say anything.” Cass had stood up and paced back and forth, chewing her lip. It was an action Taylor recognized. She was seriously questioning herself, and that sucked.
“Sweetie.” Taylor reached up and grabbed her hand, stopping her back and forth, and pulled her back down to the sofa. “Spill. You obviously need to say it because it’s eating away at you.”
“So, first off, I know what being an MC president means. I’m not an idiot. I know Dad and my uncles have done things that are well …” She trailed off. “But this is next level.”
“Okay.” What was bothering her more than what she already apparently knew about?
With a deep breath, Cass just blurts it out. “My dad’s a shifter, a wolf to be exact,” she said in a rush.
They just sat there for God only knew how long. The hamster had fallen off the wheel, and her brain went silent. Finally, the little fucker jumped back on the wheel but was sluggish as hell.
“What now?”
“My dad is a Jacob. At least I think he is. Like ninety-nine-point nine percent sure.”
What could she say to that? Taylor thought she had at least a canned response to damn near anything to buy her time for a more thoughtful one, but this? Nope, she didn’t have fuck all ready to go formy dad sprouts fur.
Surely Cass was using a metaphor or analogy or a simile or whatever the fuck you call it when something is like another thing, so you say it is. Taylor was a blackjack dealer and dancer, not a fucking English major.
“Why do you think he’s like a wolf?”
“Notlikea wolf, is a wolf. Alexander told me that shifters really exist, and then things started add?—”
“Who’s Alexander?”
“He’s kinda my friend,” Cass said shyly. “We have advanced math together. One day he told me that his brother’s a shifter. He was in a car accident with his friend. His friend died, and that’s how he became one. He was telling me things about his brother, like how he acts and stuff. It got me to thinking, so I started snooping. I think not only is Dad a wolf, but so is Uncle Hunter, and I think Uncle Monster and Uncle Golden are too. Maybe all of them. Well, no, not all. Uncle Sleeper isn’t, and Uncle Bulldog is something else, but I don’t know what.”
Taylor just let her go until she couldn’t take it anymore. Still chanting in her head,don’t invalidate and don’t fix, but what the fuck was she supposed to do? Cass must be going through something to be laying all this out there. She clearly believed it by how freaked out she was, and that is what scared Taylor the most. She may have to break confidence with Cass and tell Prowler for Cass’s sake. It was the last thing she wanted to do.
“You don’t think this Alexander kid is just making shit up because he wants to impress you?”
Cass’s blush told her she was right, at least about Alexander liking her. “He does like me, and I like him, but that’s not it. Alexander isn’t supposed to say anything. He was really upset with himself when he did and begged me not to tell anyone.”
Okay, so she wasn’t going to get anywhere discrediting Alexander.
“Let’s put a pin in the fact you didn’t tell me you had a crush, which, ouch, by the way.” Taylor wanted to focus on Alexander and Cass’s first real crush, but she couldn’t.
“Why do you think your dad is a shifter? Because he shares some traits with Alexander’s brother who is supposedly a shifter?”
Taylor couldn’t believe she was having a conversation about shifters. She considered herself very open-minded. She believedthere was life on other planets, so why were shifters her sticking point?
Maybe because it makes a little too much sense.
Cass’s eyes held a little bit of defeat, and Taylor’s heart broke for her.