Old Habits

Tish: when in doubt, cupcakes

Tish

"You might be bossier than Stefa," Mike observed.

"I'm not bossy, I'm right," I told him. "No one in this house is taking care of themselves. Jackson looks like a kicked puppy, you're going through a whole thing, and Conor and Stefa are physically in rough shape. I'm pregnant, but I am mostly unscathed."

Mike looked down at me.

"I never understood why you kept the baby," he said. "Like, I think it's fine, whatever. You have a safe place to live, a pack that cares deeply. But if I had told hunter you back in that morgue that you would be carrying a werewolf child in a couple months, you would have shot me and then yourself."

I couldn't disagree. I placed a hand on my stomach and sighed. Mike took the spoon from me, turning the pork loin and adding the snap peas on top.

"I'm not sure about being a mother some days," I said. "But I'm ready for this kid. Conor's going to be such a good dad. It feels like I'm starting over, in a way. Tish before being turned thought of no one but herself. I have the whole pack to think about before myself. I have Conor and this kid. But it wouldn't be possible if I didn't have such a strong support from my pack."

"Do you have a name, yet?" Mike inquired. "Or names, since you don't know their gender."

"Clara Jean, if it's a girl," I said. "And I told Conor to come up with some names for a boy, but he is bewildered by the task. I think the last I had heard he liked Jonathan, but we're not naming a baby Jonathan. Jonathan the werewolf sounds like a tool."

Mike snorted. "Sure. I'm not sure Mike the vampire sounds any better."

I glanced at the bedroom door, hoping that Conor was actually sleeping. He was pretty good at playing possum, but I knew if I checked on him that I would wake him up.

Jackson and Stefa came back into the cabin just as the timer went off for the cupcakes. Mike pulled them out and set them on the table. Stefa got a butter knife, sliding it around the edge of a cupcake to pull out of the muffin tin.

"Get me a plate?" she asked Jackson.

Jackson did so, but all the while with a concerned look on his face, as if waiting for Stefa to have another meltdown. I didn't blame her based on what I had seen and she had said. But treating her as if she was going to fall apart at any time wasn't going to make her better.

Stefa pulled all the cupcakes and coerced Jackson into doing the dishes while Mike finished up the pork lo mein. I tiptoed to the bedroom door, hoping that Conor was asleep.

He was crashed on the bed, bare feet hanging off the end, his brown hair fanned out on the pillow and over his eyes. He had bruises along his arms and legs with a dark nasty cut where I assumed Stefa had bitten him on his left arm. It worried me a little that he didn't wake as I came in; he was usually a light sleeper.

But I let him sleep and I tiptoed out of the room. Stefa was mixing in the kitchen; making icing for the cupcakes. Mike handed me a plate of lo mein, and I took it to the table, sitting down. It was a little weird to eat with everyone watching, but not any less weird than the rest of my week had been.

"Is Conor asleep?" Stefa asked.

"Yeah. He's...much more injured than he told me. Hopefully he'll sleep and feel well enough to shift in the morning. I assume we're staying for a day or so."

"That's the plan," Jackson said. "But plans change, so who knows. We don't exactly have anywhere to be for a while. I know you two want to get home, of course. And I'd like to rescue Lacy from being at that farm."