“Fine. Calm down.”
Halfway home he huffed in the seat next to me. “You gotta loosen up, Hazel. Any other girl your age would be out partying and having a good time. Maybe trying to meet a nice man.”
I clenched my teeth together and squeezed the steering wheel hard. It always came to this. Hazel, the warden. Hazel, the bummer. “I’m not most girls.” And I had the wounds to show for it. Inside and out.
After a few quiet minutes I felt a warm, heavy hand on my shoulder as I navigated the country roads home. “I know. You’re better than most girls. My Hazey.” His fingers gave a little squeeze before pulling away. “You’re the best.”
A little ball of emotion sat in the back of my throat and I swallowed it down into the pit of my stomach where it belonged. Where no one could see it. Where no one could sense it. And I covered it up with all the sarcasm and wit I could muster. “Damn right, I am. Who the hell else would come out here in the middle of the night to rescue your old ass?”
“Hah.” I couldn’t see him roll his eyes, but I knew he had. “I didn’t need no rescuing.”
His familiar Boston accent made me smile. Sixty years in the South and the man still pahked the cah. It was adorable like the rest of him. No wonder he got all the spicy ladies. My grandmother had been, too. Cancer took her from him before I was even born, but he regaled me with plenty of tales about how he met a Southern belle while vacationing that made him want to give up everything, even his hometown in the north.
My phone buzzed from the console and Pops looked down at it lighting up and I could feel his judgmental stare. “Kinda late to be getting texts, huh?”
It was kind of late and I knew exactly who it was and I could barely wait to get home and see what he had sent.
“Why the hell are you smiling?”
I glanced over at Pops and gave him an eye roll.
“Are you smiling over that text?” He made a move to pick up my phone, but I was quicker and snatched it up.
“Don’t you even think about it.” I pulled into the driveway to home. It was a modest two-bedroom duplex with an old, quiet married couple who rented the other side. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Who was that? A new boyfriend?”
I stared at him before answering, “Pops, you know I don’t do boyfriends.”
He raised his eyebrows. “A girlfriend, then.”
I laughed. “Definitely not.”
“You’re not gonna tell me anything?” He whined as we made our way into the house.
“When have I ever told you about my hookups?” Sure, he was my best friend, but there was no way in hell I was sharing that with him.
“Never,” he answered, turning the light on in his room. “But you looked really excited out there, so I thought maybe this one was serious.”
“Come on, you know I don’t do serious.” I pulled down the sheets for him and made sure his CPAP machine was hooked up and ready while he slipped out of his clothes and into some pajamas.
He came out of the bathroom and climbed into bed. “It’s okay if you want to be serious, ya know?”
I gave him a look. One that said I did not like where this line of conversation was heading. And I didn’t want any part of it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Stop playing stupid.”
“Fine. I know.” Leaning down, I grabbed his prosthetic middle toe from between his others and placed it on the nightstand next to him. He lost it to diabetes a few years ago and had the prosthesis so that his other toes wouldn’t become deformed and grow over his others.
“Give me your hearing aids.”
He pulled them out of his ears and gave them to me and I set them in their case.
“I just don’t want you to feel like I’m holding you back, Hazel. You shouldn’t be here worried about an old eighty-three-year-old man. You should be living your life. Going to college. Meeting boys. Or girls.” He waved his hands. “Whatever your preference.”
I giggled at that. “Teeth,” I said, holding out a little blue container with water in it. He slipped his teeth from his mouth and plunked them into the container and I put the lid on it and set it down before pulling the covers over him.
He grabbed my hand over the cover. I stared at it. He had a cross tattooed on his ring finger. I’d never asked him why. My pops had always been covered in tattoos. He had them on his biceps and calves and back and even his fingers. He told me once when I was a little girl he’d gotten them in the military, but to me those tattoos were as much a part of him as his baby blue eyes. I’d never thought to question what they meant.
“I’m sorry I dragged you out tonight. I was bored and selfish and when Jeb called…well, I was stupid.”
I pursed my lips. “You were stupid, but I still love you.” I said it loud enough for him to hear without his hearing aids.
I tried to pull my hand away, but he held tight and kept me in place. “Ya know it’s okay to live a little, kid? It’s okay if whoever is texting is someone you really like. It’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to do other things besides work and take care of me. I worry about you.”
His blue eyes shined with unshed tears and that stupid lump was back in my throat. I was going to murder him. Why was he doing this to me? I swallowed and it went down a lot harder this time. I let out a long breath and closed my eyes, trying to block out all the emotion I didn’t want to feel. I liked when me and Pops played practical jokes on each other or laughed at Amor’s silly underwear and romance novels. This. This moment just made me so unbearably uncomfortable.
So I did the only thing I could do. “That’s it! I’m telling Amor you snuck out tonight, you asshole.”
I pulled my hand away and walked toward the door and turned the light switch off as I watched him start putting on the mask for his CPAP machine.
“You’re lucky I can’t hear the shit you’re saying, Hazel Indigo Jones!” he yelled as I exited the room.
I laughed at the use of my horrendous middle name. I only knew of one other person who sported a worse one. “Still telling Amor!” I shouted back.
“I can’t hear you!” I heard as I shut his door to a small crack, so I could listen for him.
It was 4:00 a.m. and I should have been wiped out. I was on a summer break from football, but all college football players knew you didn’t really get a summer break. Our time off consisted of two workouts a day and maybe a summer school class or two to stay on target. I had elected to take three classes this summer, but with a major in sports medicine and playing football, I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. I had to get my classes in when I could. Unlike a lot of the guys on my team, I didn’t dream of a life as a famous NFL player. I loved the game of football for sure, but I knew I wasn’t good enough to go pro.
I checked my phone nervously. I’d been waiting on a message from her all night. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t messaged me back. I was Gray Wolfe. Defender of Hadrian’s Wall. A badass human-wolf hybrid that could defeat anyone and couldn’t be resisted. Well, that was what I was in the video game, Hadrian’s Wall. The video game I’d made a super cool fake persona on so I could finally get my sister’s best friend, Hazel Jones, to really give me a chance. It was a poor choice for sure. Did I feel bad about it? Yes. Would I have done it again? Yes.