Old Habits

Tish: a night out

Tish

Conor didn't talk much about my being pregnant. I wondered sometimes if he had disagreed with me and didn't want to voice it, but then I'd wake up in the morning with Conor's arms curled protectively around me and I never worried what he thought then.

I wondered if he noticed how different he was now. He was rapidly catching up to Susie Lynn in their classes, reading aloud to me every night from his books. Keith and I were teaching him how to drive, but he only felt comfortable driving the minivan, not the truck with standard transmission. And he hated driving with anyone but Keith or myself in the car.

Still, my odd werewolf boyfriend was more human than ever and I worried with every passing day that the hunters would come back for him. Knowing I was walking blackmail material didn't help matters.

"You're frowning again," Conor mentioned, bumping my shoulder with his.

We were piled into the truck a little comically; but when the whole pack went somewhere, it was always a little crowded. The others were much larger than we were, so Conor, Susie Lynn, and I always got stuck in the back of the truck. Susie grinned, watching the budding countryside pass.

"I'm just thinking," I told him. "I can't help it that my resting face frowns."

"Better than my resting confusion face," he joked.

"That's usually because you are confused," I teased.

"You know," Susie Lynn mentioned as casually as she ever did. "My softball team will have tournaments soon. Maybe some of the pack could come to the games?"

"Maybe," Mel said. "I want to make sure that we can handle crowds of cranky humans. I'm not worried about you, Susie dear. But I've been in stands before. I wanted to punch people before I had supernatural strength."

"But we could get hotdogs," Katie said, clapping her hands with delight. "With relish on them."

"Ew," Brian grumbled.

"We could eat hotdogs at home with relish, Katie," I pointed out.

"I'm mean, we can eat most things at home. But it's more fun when it's out in the world. I've always seen people eat hotdogs at ball games. It's just a thing."

"They eat them with mustard and ketchup, not nasty relish," Brian complained.

"Well, I like relish."

"What position do you think you'll play, Susie?" Conor inquired.

He had gone online to watch some clips of softball. Susie had played before, but he wanted to understand the game better. YouTube was far more hilarious with Conor trying to find answers to various questions he had, and softball was no exception. We found more softball fails than we did explanations.

Susie sighed. "I want to pitch, but my coach knows the older girls so they get all the chances," she said. "I don't think I'm fast enough to be on first base but I'm worried that my coach is going to make me catcher."

"Isn't catcher important?" Conor inquired.

"Well, yeah. But I'd rather pitch."

"You can practice pitching to me," Conor offered. "I'm sure I can be a terrible batter."

"You'll get better," I rolled my eyes. "And then so good no one wants to play with you. I've seen how this works."

He let out a dramatic sigh. "It's not my fault that you are terrible at Monopoly."

We pulled up to Carol and Steve's new house. They were waiting on the porch for us as we scrambled out of the truck. The others in the minivan hopped out. I watched Mel look around at the neighboring houses, as if worried we were going to get caught here. Surely the hunters hadn't sent anyone to spy on the pack full time.

"Hello!" Carol said. "Susie, I think you've grown since I've seen you."

"Grandma Carol, it's only been a week," Susie laughed.

"Well I know that Tish certainly has grown since I've seen her," Carol noted.

"I'm going to be waddling soon," I agreed.

"Do you know what you're having?"

"A wolf. Probably."

Conor and I grinned at each other. Carol shook her head. I had gone to appointments and checkups but both Conor and I had agreed we didn't want to know the sex of our baby; it bothered everyone else, and that itself was amusing.

The porch had originally had a step that Ralph couldn't go up in the wheelchair, and Keith had stayed for a couple days to build a ramp for him. They had painted it to match the rest of the porch and Ralph rolled up just fine.

Carol's home was exactly as I had imagined it. Doilies on the couches, a shelf of fancy teacups in the entryway. Small quilts on the wall. We had only moved all the boxes into the garage; Carol and Steve had said they wanted to unpack on their own.

"We made pulled pork; I have it all set up in the kitchen to make your own sandwiches," Carol said. "Please make yourselves at home. But stay out of the cookies until after dinner. I'm watching you, Brian."

"Grandma Carol," Brian complained.

Katie giggled and bounced into the kitchen to get started. I let the others go ahead of me and of course, Conor stayed behind with me.

"How'd unpacking go?" I asked.

Carol shook her head. "I should have listened to Steve and downsized when I had the chance back home. Then unpacking wouldn't have taken so long."

"I told you," Steve said mildly.

"Do you need anything?" Mel asked. "I see that Keith did a good job with the ramp."

"No, we're good for now. I'd like to build out the back porch, but I want to get a little settled first. Steve thinks we should get a pool."

"A pool could be fun," I mentioned.

Conor pulled me away and towards the assembly line of pulled pork sandwiches. He grabbed two plates, handing me one before making his own two sandwiches. Now that I was paying attention, I did notice that Conor ate more than even Keith or Brian. He was good about being quiet about it, never making it a big deal. Both Brian and Keith were divas if they had to go without eating for a couple hours. But I was glad Conor was putting on weight.

The dining room table wasn't big enough for us, so we spilled out into the living room. I sat next to Daria and we ogled the various antiques that Mel would never trust the pack around, if they were in her home. We would have to be on our best behavior here.

"So what's your next major project?" Steve asked. "Your greenhouse is done, and you said you'd finished with the cabins. It's still early spring."

"We're going to have to expand the garden and then build some more fence for these goats and sheep we say we're getting but have no place for," Ralph said. "Sheep are going to be a weird addition, especially since we're wolves. But Brian loves knitting, so what are we to do?"

"I do love knitting," Brian grinned, a little sheepishly. "Now that I've figured it out, I really want to knit a sweater. And then I'll be warm all winter."

"Better make that two then because Katie's going to steal your sweater," Daria laughed.

"And we have some projects at the cabins," Mel agreed. "I keep hoping we'll win that grant for solar panels, but we'll have to see. Casey did an excellent job with the proposal. I'm hopeful."

"If not, we could always get a big hamster wheel," Keith joked.

"Don't kid, I have thought about it," Mel told him. "Instead of a gasoline powered generator. It would probably be quite effective."

I rested my head against Conor's warm shoulder, wishing I had more to contribute to the farm. I didn't have any other skills besides killing; the hunters hadn't required anything else of me. I had thought about finding some online classes, but I never managed to sign up. I knew that the hunters would return to our lives one way or another. Conor and I would have to do what we could when that happened.

And then, it would be good I was skilled at killing.