Being(s) In Love 03 - A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate (11 page)

“Sometimes they pay for the ingredients and I volunteer my time.” No one except Theo’s parents had ever expressed concern for the cost of what he did. “I bake for… well, you know why I bake.”

Zeki pushed the cup at him. “I know.” His smile softened at the edges, and his eyes dipped down again. Theo wanted to touch his eyelashes but kept motionless as Zeki finally gestured at the tray in his hands. “Those smell fantastic. Is that chocolate?” He hummed and made a show of drawing a deep breath over the tray. He surprised Theo by meeting his eyes. “Did you…?”

The delicacy was unexpected after his directness the other day. Theo couldn’t tell what Zeki was asking—if Theo had made them for him or if he’d once again buried his feelings instead of addressing them. Both were sadly, undeniably true.

Theo had thought… he didn’t know what he’d thought in the last few minutes, but he couldn’t stay to see if Zeki liked what he’d done. One bite and Zeki would know everything Theo wanted, things Theo shouldn’t ask for. Maria was wrong. Theo clutched the tray tighter, but that was stupid. He’d clearly brought them here for someone to taste them.

He thrust the tray out until Zeki took it. “They’re new. Have Mr. Elliot sample them if you want. They’re brownies, or cake, I don’t know. They might be too much.” He took a shuddering breath.

“You had to invent something new?” Zeki was too smart, but his attention was on the brownies. He tore off the foil and stared at the caramel swirling over the top, caramel swirls, Theo abruptly remembered, in familiar shapes and symbols. He shot a look at the backs of Zeki’s hands and then glanced up in terror. Zeki was staring at him, his lips slightly parted.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Theo blurted. “It doesn’t. I know where we are. But they’re for you.” He should never have tried to pretend otherwise to his mate. “I should get back to my shift,” he added loudly, over his thundering heart.

He got as far as the door before Zeki stopped him. “Wait. Your latte.” He lowered his voice, but the whole coffee shop could still hear every word. The sounds echoed through Theo’s chest. “I made it especially for you.”

Theo turned. Shock and Zeki’s serious expression held him to the spot for a moment longer, and then he jerked into motion and went to the counter to take the drink.

“Let me know what you think,” Zeki added, apparently blind to Theo’s anxious confusion, “when you come back.”

Then he winked.

Theo walked into the door and spilled half the latte over his hand.

Chapter 5

T
HE
BROWNIES
,
if they
were
brownies and not dense little orgasmic squares, were amazing. Zeki left one for Mr. Elliot to sample and took the rest with him when his shift was over. Brownies were always good, but Zeki felt as if “brownies” was not an adequate description for the rich, fudgy cake Theo had brought him.

Zeki popped another piece in his mouth as he walked home, trying not to giggle maniacally at the people in the street. Theo Greenleaf had made these for him. Theo had invented something new for him. Zeki didn’t know the particulars, he’d never even attempted a cake from a premade mix, but he knew Theo had been surprised by his own creation and that he had made it with Zeki in mind.

Theo’s expression when he’d pulled away the foil to reveal the caramel patterns across the top had been all shock and mortification, at least until Zeki had accepted the tray. Zeki should have eaten one while Theo had still been in the coffee shop so Theo could have heard Zeki’s moans for himself.

Cocoa left the strongest impression, but it was not the only one melting on his tongue. There were so many flavors it should have been overwhelming, yet the mix of tastes and textures worked. They set Zeki’s face aflame and left him shaking with too much sugar and chocolate. Theo Greenleaf had made these unusual brownies as if he had a very specific craving.

For Zeki.

Zeki was honestly trying not to think that because he was biased by a childhood crush and the ton of chocolate in his system. Theo was allegedly ruined for anyone else because his mate had rejected him. There was nothing inherently special about Zeki, or, he should say, nothing that made him so unique that he’d be the one to finally attract Theo’s attention after he’d ignored everyone else in Wolf’s Paw.

And yet.

Zeki gave in and chortled gleefully around another mouthful of brownie as he crossed onto side streets. A few blocks away were the rows of respectable homes built several decades ago. Family homes, constructed on a slightly larger scale than most human homes. Theo had grown up in that part of town, although his famous “aunt” Ramona had a property out in the woods, bordering the state park. Zeki and his dad had an apartment two blocks from Main Street, over a storefront that had once been a travel agency.

His dad wasn’t home. Restaurants weren’t nine to five and demanded a lot, especially during tourist season and holidays. Nonetheless Zeki had halfheartedly considered finding his own place. It wasn’t worth the effort. He was going to leave town soon, and he was supposed to be saving money for whatever he decided to do, in addition to paying off his student loans. But it felt strange to sleep in his childhood bedroom and lounge around in an apartment that was essentially his father’s space.

Weres wouldn’t feel that way, at least, not the North American weres Zeki was used to. Culturally, they saw nothing wrong with kids staying at home indefinitely. Families, whatever their size, often stayed close, with everyone contributing. That was probably the reason Wolf’s Paw had successfully banded together to overcome problems so many times through the years; they saw themselves as a large family.

Zeki would have made himself the black sheep of that family, but he was fairly sure wolves ate sheep, and he’d never been a part of their family anyway. He’d thought that was the same for his father, except he could see signs around the apartment that his dad sometimes had guests over, coworkers, maybe, friends, possibly even a girlfriend. Yet his dad had still left a place for Zeki to come back to and hadn’t said a word yet about Zeki’s future career.

It was… very werewolf of him.

Zeki let himself into the apartment and went to the kitchen to put a single brownie on a plate for his dad. His dad would enjoy picking apart the different flavors, but that was as generous as Zeki felt capable of being, to be honest. The rest were all for Zeki. He was going to make himself sick eating this much, but he tore off another piece with his fingers and smiled as he savored it.

No one had ever made Zeki anything like this—wonderful and personal and just for him. Theo was clearly embarrassed by his magic use, and yet he’d created these when thinking of Zeki, and then given them to him knowing Zeki would be able to taste his passionate longing. So much longing. So much passion.

People in town thought Theo’s emotions were dead. They were not.

Zeki wanted to eat him up. Every stammered word out of Theo’s mouth only made it worse. The things Zeki would do to his very own Teddy Baby would set this town to talking about something more interesting than their sheriff’s thwarted love life.

He should ask what Theo wanted. If this was about sex, then Zeki was willing. More than willing. Zeki would run across town to get his hands on Theo. Maybe that was all it was. After all, Theo knew Zeki was leaving soon. He shouldn’t be expecting more.

But he might. Theo’s history did not suggest casual, something to make Zeki regret his past, brief relationships. He’d never tried for something serious, too focused on getting better, getting away, coming back to Wolf’s Paw. If he’d dated someone long term and fallen in love, he might know how to react to a gift like this.

The latte hadn’t seemed enough, even though he’d made the best one he knew how to make. He was mostly happy to have responded at all. He’d found it difficult to think straight when Theo turned that stunned, soft look on him, much less ask what exactly Theo wanted from him. That startled, tender expression made him want to give Theo everything in his power to give, and then some, and that was hardly casual. It wasn’t exactly first date material either, but Zeki had no idea what else to do. Whatever he decided, the next move was up to him, according to the unwritten rules of Wolf’s Paw.

He stopped eating the brownies and washed his hands while he worried about it. He wasn’t going to leave Theo with a broken heart, no matter how much he wanted to touch him. The first broken heart had evidently been bad enough, and not only for Theo. Zeki had spent several nights staring at the ceiling in the dark as he wondered who had broken Theo’s heart, and if they might return, and why, why in the hell had his dad never mentioned it in any of his letters or calls?

Zeki needed to ask his dad about that. How had his dad told him details about the town and yet hadn’t mentioned that Zeki’s very obvious crush had been inconsolably heartsick for years? His dad probably hadn’t wanted to bring up the subject, considering how dramatically Zeki had freaked out at the end of senior year whenever Theo had been mentioned.

Zeki sank down into a chair by the front window since he couldn’t scrub away the memory of his humiliation. Year after year he had wished Theo would show interest in him, and the moment Theo had, Zeki had been too full of rage and hurt to notice until it was too late.

It would be wrong to say most of the weres in Zeki’s class had hated him. Truthfully, most of the other students had been indifferent to him except for his supposed stink of magic. Only two of the kids in his class had bullied him, but Jason Hendricks and his lackey, Kevin Fuller, had made a full-time job of it. The majority of their torments had revolved around Zeki’s feelings for Theo, which of course they’d sniffed out. Zeki’s one, small relief had been that Theo had never seemed to know.

Now Zeki was back where he’d started, right down to the crush. He’d been nothing but focused for years, and now he was sitting in his dad’s living room, mooning over Theo and wondering what to do next with his life. He missed having focus. Focus was about thinking, not… this.

He had always intended to go off to college, whatever else happened. Not even Theo would have been able to stop him, although of course Zeki had imagined Theo asking him to stay about a thousand times. Naturally Jason and Kevin had picked up on that too—Zeki’s marriage-themed doodling on his notebooks had given him away—and approached him after school one day near the end of the school year.

That had been the first year they’d pushed the Spring Thaw back until long after the snows had melted. They’d wanted warmer weather to attract more tourists. The Spring Thaw was a festival to celebrate beginnings and taking chances, in addition to its sexual connotations, which was why Zeki had wanted to believe Jason and Kevin so much when they’d hinted Theo wanted to go with him. He’d known better, werewolves did not lie well, and those two had a history of asshole behavior, but he’d needed to think their werewolf senses had detected Theo’s secret interest in him. He’d wanted to believe it so much he’d blushed and his naïve, hopeful, human heart had started to beat faster.

Which was when they had started laughing.

Zeki had been used to weres politely ignoring his biological responses, not mocking him for them, and he’d never grown numb to those two teasing him for his stupid, out of control feelings. He’d already been primed to leave. They hadn’t needed to play one more trick on him, but they had anyway. Their final, end of the year joke had been the last straw.

He hadn’t cursed them. He’d managed enough control for that, which was saying something when talking about a humiliated, angry teenager. What Zeki had wanted more than anything else was for those two big, powerful werewolves to know he was scary too. He had power at his fingertips like they did. Untrained power, at the time, which meant unpredictable, another reason why he should never have done it, aside from general magical precepts and the human laws that forbade malicious spellcraft.

More than revenge, Zeki had wanted them to see the real him. The magic had built around him in the next second, and the two weres had fled before Zeki had registered the crackling sensation of lightning at his fingertips. A moment after that, he’d heard footsteps behind him.

Theo Greenleaf had been there when he turned around. Theo Greenleaf, staring at him with wide eyes, staring without blinking before he took a shaky step forward.

“You.” Theo was always so quiet in class; the strength in his voice had been a surprise. “It’s you.” He put his hands out as he approached Zeki, holding his palms up, as if Zeki had taken something from him and he had no idea how to get it back.

Zeki had abruptly realized he was bursting with a frightening amount of undirected magic, and froze. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He hadn’t even had any spells ready. But he’d curled his hands and lowered them to his sides and hoped the magic would disperse on its own.

If he’d stayed calm, it might have worked. But Theo had said his name. Theo had
known
his name. “Zeki.” His voice went soft again. “Is this who you really are?”