Imprinted Hearts

Chapter 3: Family and Peppermint

The day was coming to a close as Ethan, Harper, and Big Joe cleaned up the restaurant and locked up for the evening. They closed early on Sundays, and Ethan loved getting home before dark. It meant he could cat nap in the sun some more; the warmth it brought this time of year. Ethan and Harper walked home together, living in a trailer park close to the restaurant.

"Marla's going to give you shit for shifting in the middle of your work shift," Harper said.

"Marla can suck it," Ethan said bravely. Harper laughed.

"Don't let her hear you say that," he warned with a grin. "She'll drag you through the streets by the ear straight to your dad and demand you be taught how to speak to your elders."

Ethan shuddered. "I hate it when you're right. Old ass alpha getting into everyone's business."

"You know, if her kids heard you say that, they'd whoop your ass too," Harper laughed again.

"Stupid line of alphas," replied Ethan under his breath.

Harper snorted. "You're just pushing your luck today."

"I was pushing my luck when Big Joe made me eat before shifting. My tail was coming out and everything," Ethan said. "I about didn't make it to the woods."

"Ooh, you're definitely going to hear about that. They can see the backwoods from the trailer park. If you slipped up and shifted before you disappeared into the underbrush-"

"I didn't," Ethan sighed irritably, looking up at the sky as he rolled his eyes so hard they hurt.

"I'm just sayin'," Harper defended, holding up his hands. "If you were stripping before you got to the woods, Marla's going to have something to say about it."

"Damn it," Ethan muttered. Just as they were walking down the lane, trailers on either side, Marla was standing on her porch, corralling a bunch of the neighborhood kids into submission. She looked up at them as they were coming down the street and whistled loudly to get their attention. The kids around their feet fell silent and watched Ethan and Harper come up the road towards them.

"Saw you strippin' down today," Marla called. "Headed towards the woods. You been watching that blood sugar, boy?"

Marla was a dark-haired woman with high cheekbones that could cut you if you looked at them too hard. Her hair was always pulled back in a tight braid and sometimes wound up in a bun on the back of her neck, pinned into place in a perfect spiraling rose. How she kept it in such perfect condition with all the running around she did without a mountain of hair spray to hold it in place was beyond Ethan. He had trouble getting his own to stay in a ponytail at work. The band would always slip. But it was required to pull back his hair because it fell past his shoulders and that was a food law violation to let it fall free.

That and he didn't want grease in it.

"Yes ma'am," Ethan said. "Big Joe wouldn't let me go without food. You know him."

"Good," Marla nodded. "How's that girl comin' along for ya?" She gave him a stern look, but Ethan could see the laughter in her eyes.

"Still there," Ethan said pointedly, not liking the irony she was clearly laughing at.

She'd always been against his running around because she was certain one day he'd imprint and didn't need to be running up a list of broken hearts to make his life miserable once he found the right person. He wasn't sure which he was more irritated at: the fact that Marla was proven right, that it drained him of wanting to run around, or the fact Hope was in a relationship and starting a family of her own and thus he didn't have access to his supposed 'soulmate'.