Life is quiet and comfortable for Gael. Abel has moved in to his house, school is going great and he has his little solid friend group.
But as the population of wolves grows from one to four, Gael has to figure out how to navigate them looking to hi...
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As much as I felt threatened by River, I also wanted to be close to him. Spend time with him. There was a draw. A rivalry and a brotherhood of sorts. He wasn't studying but got a job at Cal's brothers' garage. He knew his way around cars and the guys were more than happy to have another mechanic.
There was something about visiting the garage that still made me wanna crawl out of my skin. It was these spaces that were so inherently straight and uber-male, and it always brought me right back to school where they'd call me by my name, but in a lighter tone, making it sound like the girl's name. Or they'd call me "Gaily". Ask me where my skirts were.
It's not like I was ever questioning my gender. I was pretty happy with it all, but I hated how I couldn't participate the way I wanted. It was dumb looking back on it now, so juvenile, but that cut deep. And it still messed with my head now when I was mustering up the courage to go inside.
"Gael?" Cal had appeared by the entrance, arching a brow at me.
"Hey!" I said and ruffled through my bag. "I uh was just looking for something."
"Uh huh, you coming in?"
I nodded and followed. Music was playing from a greasy Bluetooth speaker, there were posters of women in bathing suits on the wall and some signs with quotes on them. Most of them relating to beer. And then there were a few with kittens on them? I didn't know what that was about.
"Hey Gael!" Cooper said and almost bounced over to us. He was just as greasy as the rest of the shop. "You here for River? Making sure we're treating your friend well? We are, by the way. He's being treated well."
"That's good to hear. I wasn't expecting you guys to not treat him well."
"Connor is a hard-ass," River said and popped up his head from the big hole in the floor, which I had been told was a called a "pit". "Cooper is too, but Connor is worse."
Cal snorted. "I told you."
River smiled sarcastically back. "Yeah, and I didn't believe you, so now you get to be all smug, don't you."
Cal smiled back genuinely. "I do."
"Are you off soon?" I asked, shoving my hands in the pockets on my hoodie.
"I'm off now, technically, but I do wanna finish what I've started here with these breaks. Wait for me?"
"Sure, I'll wait. And get violently ill from the toxic masculinity," I muttered to myself, but Cal heard me and snorted.
"Hey, I got them to hang a pride flag, didn't I?" she said and nodded towards the hilariously big flag hanging under the ceiling.
"Yeah."
"And the trans flag." She pointed towards the back wall. The blue, white and pink flag was also hilariously big. I wondered if Cooper had gone online and just picked the biggest ones he could find.
