The weight of unknown expectation pressed on me, squeezing my chest and cracking my ribs.
“Not long enough.” Craig’s lips twisted as he smirked down at me. “And just a heads up, the unspoken rule around here is that outside of Real Boy classes, we don’t generally ask each other about our pasts. You want to volunteer, great. Nothing wrong with that.”
I flushed. Chance had told me that. “Sorry.”
Craig shrugged. “You’re fine with me. I have no issues telling you or anyone else to fuck off and mind their own business. Just thought I should make sure you knew.”
I nodded, fighting the urge to run back to the townhouse and lock myself in my room. My first full day, and even avoiding people for most of it, I’d still managed to embarrass myself. But this wasn’t the first time Craig had mentioned Real Boys. “What do you mean by ‘Real Boy’ classes?”
“I’m talking about this morning, right? Where they try to get us to open our puppetry wooden hearts and embrace the ooshy-gooshy bloody messy feelings of being real? Haven’t you seen Pinocchio?”
“Of course. I grew up in Ukraine, not a mountain monastery.”
“You don’t need to grow up in a hermitage to be isolated. But yeah. Doesn’t Pinocchio seem fitting for us?”
“I haven’t seen it in a long time.”
“Wikipedia it.” Craig opened the administrative building’s back door. He didn’t hold it open for me, like the Novaks, alpha or omega, had insisted. He swung it wide enough for me to catch and marched in as if nothing in the world would move aside for him.
I admired his attitude. He didn’t shrink from everything like I wanted to. He acted as if the world should shrink from him.
He led the way to the cafeteria. While people looked at him with interest—how could they not? He stood out like a summer flower in the middle of winter—no one spoke to him. Or me.
Which I was fine with. The smell of the room was overwhelmingly omega, which was a relief, but I couldn’t count the different types of shifter scents hitting my nose, especially when combined with the aroma of food.
I curled my shoulders forward, doing my best not to hide behind Craig, but definitely using him as a shield.
The choices for food were limited. Three different kinds of pizza, six different dressings for the salad, canned fruit medley, and the choice of brownies or cookies for desert.
Craig piled his plate with nearly an entire pizza, two brownies, and two cookies, and no one said anything. Were we just… allowed to take however much we wanted?
I was more conservative, grabbing the first two slices in front of me, a scoop of salad with some kind of vinaigrette, and one brownie. I skipped the suspicious-looking fruit cocktail. Then I followed Craig to an empty table in the back of the room, practically hidden by a large fake bush, one of several scattered throughout the room.
“That all you going to eat?” Craig set his tray down. Without waiting for an answer, he added, “I’m gonna grab a drink. You want anything? Soda? Coffee? Tea?”
My mind frazzled at being asked to make yet another decision, even one so minor. “Water?”
Craig plopped two large cups down on the table a few minutes later. I’d practically inhaled my pizza already and was working my way through the salad.
“You know, you can go back for seconds.”
“I can?” Salad sprayed across my plate in my excitement. I hadn’t gone hungry in months, but somehow, the fear hadn’t yet left me.
Craig either didn’t notice my disgusting awkwardness, or he pretended not to notice. “It’s an all-you-can-eat, man. Go for it.”
I shoveled the rest of the salad in and hurried to get more. One of the workers was putting out a new pan of pizza. As I reached for the spatula, she said, “Oh, honey, you need to get you a new plate.”
I froze, my heart racing. Yet another social rule I was unaware of?
She pointed to the front of the buffet line. “Health code. You need to grab a new plate every time.”
I saw the sign now. I started to set my dirty plate down, but that seemed rude. As the room narrowed in on me, my heart ran faster and faster. This shouldn’t have been so hard. I just needed to find where I was supposed to put the dirty plate and do it. It wasn’t difficult. This shouldn’t be a problem. And yet here I was, having difficulty breathing, difficulty seeing.
“Honey? Honey.”
I looked toward the voice. Was she talking to me? The woman had come out around the buffet. How long had I been standing still? Her eyes locked on mine. She smiled reassuringly and took the plate from my clenched hands. “I’ll handle this. You go on and get a fresh plate, okay? Take a deep breath. You’re safe here. Another deep breath, honey. My name’s Alicia. What’s yours?”
My name? It took me a moment to remember it. “Wyatt.”
“Nice to meet you, Wyatt. How old are you?”
That came faster. “Eighteen.”
“Was it cloudy when you came in to dinner, Wyatt?”
I shook my head, trying to recall what the weather had been like fifteen minutes ago. “Um… maybe? Yes. A little.”
“Forecast says we’re supposed to get rain tonight. Those storms sure do blow in quick. I don’t mind the rain at night, when I’m all tucked in my bed at home all cozy-like. Maybe get a hot mug of tea going. Are you feeling better, Wyatt? You sound like you’re breathing a bit better.”
Surprisingly, I was. I released a long breath, and Alicia smiled.
“That’s right, honey. Now don’t you worry about this plate. You go ahead and get you some more pizza, okay?”
She bustled off before I had to figure out how to respond. Feeling a little daring, I grabbed five pieces of pizza this time, still half worrying someone was going to yell at me.
But no one did, and by the time I got back to my seat, Craig had stuck his headphones back on. I was able to settle in to my own little space and focus on eating without worrying about anything else.
I was on my third plate when Craig slid off his headphones. “I think the popcorn smell will be mostly gone by now. I’m thinking about heading back. Do you want me to wait for you?”
Gulping down my half-chewed mouthful, I shook my head. “I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”
Craig raised an eyebrow. “Is it going to take you more than five minutes to eat the rest of your pizza? I can sit around here and listen to music, or I can sit around in my room. Whatever.”
What was the right answer? Did Craig want me to say yes or no? Of course I’d prefer to walk back with someone…
But I needed to learn to be independent. “You go ahead. I might eat a little more.” That was a lie, but it was a small one.
“Cool.” Craig ignored his dishes and pulled his headphones back up. “Catch you later.”
I lingered over my last slice of pizza; I didn’t want to show up at the house two minutes after Craig. He’d know I’d been lying, and he’d probably think I was trying to avoid him. Even though I wasn’t. I was just…
I was a mess. That was the truth of it.
Honestly, I was too full to fit in another bite, but Alicia’s comment about a hot cup of tea sounded pleasant. I gathered up both Craig’s and my dishes and set them on the dirty dish belt, waving shyly at Alicia, who gave me a big welcoming grin. Choosing a bag of tea spent another minute or two. I’d never made my own cup of tea before, so following the instructions was a nice distraction.