On Purpose

Chapter 10: Home Sweet Home

———James———

Friday, November 15th, 2019

Before, I was hoping the weeks leading up until the next break would fly by, but now I was cursing myself as I got exactly what I had wished for. Before I knew it, I was packing to return to my least favorite place on the planet. I sighed as I unceremoniously dumped half of my hamper into my bag, opting to shove everything down with force rather than fold anything. I honestly didn't need to pack much. Mom insisted that I leave a lot of my stuff at home, so I basically had two copies of anything important.

"It's not too late to back out," Anthony offered as he shouldered his duffel bag.

"I already promised Elise I was coming," I replied glumly as I stuffed Percy into my bag and forced the zipper shut. Anthony hummed in sympathy. We headed out silently as I was too down a mood to combat Anthony's usual taciturn nature.

"Drive safe, Cupcake," I called out of my car window with a half-hearted smile. Anthony nodded and waved before backing out and driving in the opposite direction from where I was headed. I sighed as I put on a playlist that was a lot cheerier than I felt and began the miserable trek to Cartersville in the swampy hell of central Florida.

—————

A couple of hours and several dozen disturbing billboards later, I was pulling into my permanently reserved parking spot at the Alpha Lodge in Cartersville. Rather than the tall, modern apartment building the Alpha family lived in in Mountain Springs, the Cartersville pack sported a large lodge styled like a log cabin. It stood two stories with a sprawling layout, as rooms had been added and tacked on as needed.

I sighed as I turned off my car and stepped into the muggy heat. As if on cue, my mother burst out the front door. She wore an apron carefully covered in just enough flour to be believable. It wouldn't have surprised me if she had put it on just for the spectacle of greeting me publicly.

"Welcome home, JJ!" she called as she pulled me into a hug. "It feels like I haven't seen you in a month of Sundays." Her artificial blonde curls tickled my face despite our significant height difference, and the scent of hairspray dominated my senses.

"Hey, Mom," I said as warmly as I could fake after hearing my childhood nickname.

"Come on, you're just in time for dinner," she said as she dragged me toward the house, her long acrylic nails digging into my arm. I hoped I could at least retreat to my room first, but it seemed that wasn't more than wishful thinking.

I suppressed a sigh as we walked up the stairs to the wraparound porch surrounding the lodge, passing a row of rocking chairs and wood carvings of various animals. Our pack was built on the edge of a nature preserve, similar to how Mountain Springs was with the national park. The main entrance of the Alpha Lodge took the appearance of a lobby and gift shop for the preserve, but the cashier was only a decoy for any humans who accidentally wandered through.

"Is that Jameson Junior I hear?" a deep voice called as soon as we crossed the threshold.

"Hey, Beau," I said as I faked another smile, although this one wasn't as difficult to do, despite him calling me something I hated even more than JJ. Beau was a tall, barrel-chested guy who had worked for my parents for most of my life. He was middle-aged, with silver starting to streak through his dark hair and well-defined laugh lines.

Beau had always treated me like a nephew, but he couldn't be trusted to keep a secret from my parents. I learned that the hard way when he caught me sneaking a bottle of wine out of the cellar when I was 16. It took a lot of planning on my part to figure out how to get around his nightly patrols. He meant well, though.