The White Wolf (2020)

Chapter Sixteen

JAY

Dinner had gone by swiftly and relatively painlessly. By the time the meatloaf was pulled out of the oven, Jay and Rachael were laughing at Sydney's denial over being a workaholic, while trying to explain her admirations to be a well known journalistic writer for a big paper in the future.

When their infamous brother had entered the kitchen, there was a discernible tension in the sisters, but Jay pretended not to notice. He turned his attention to the stark black of his dyed hair which had caught Jay off guard since the sisters both had brilliantly golden blond hair. Still Jay greeted him and Aaron mumbled a hello, before Sydney linked an arm through his and Rachael carried on about Sydney's first time reading the school paper in middle school and how she wanted to know all the schools secrets.

This knowledge made Jay and his wolf internally smirk.

Between Rachael over sharing stories about Sydney, peppering some questions about himself, Aaron keeping quiet and watching his two siblings, and Sydney simply rolling her eyes, dinner was over quickly.

Jay had offered to help clean, but Rachael shoed Sydney and Jay away, instead beckoning Aaron to help her. Sydney was quick to pull him from the room and leave her brother and sister be.

Once up the stairs and headed towards what Jay assumed would be Sydney's room, Jay noticed the vast slew of pictures on seemingly every wall they passed. Pictures of the three siblings, their father, a couple of older folks which Jay could guess were their grandparents. But the noticeable void of their mother quickly became apparent.

"This way," Sydney voiced, pulling his obviously drifting attention.

He followed after her.

In her room he was surprised to see everything struck him as Sydney. Her full sized bed littered with pillows, a book shelf overflowing with books and small trinkets, a desk with camera equipment and open notebooks taking up most of the surface area, and there were a few pieces of framed art hung on the walls.

Sydney rushed to her desk chair and collected some clothes draped over it, shoving them into the closet before gesturing to the chair for him to sit.

"Ahh, so this is the life of photographer and journalist Sydney Watkins?" Jay stretched his arms over her desk and took inventory of what was spewed across it.

Her warm laugh signaled to Jay that she had moved and with the squeak of her bed, he turned to see her sitting cross legged on her white comforter.

"Yep, the early workings of brainstorming for the new few months of the newspaper. Some contact sheets for the photographers and writers of the yearbook."

Jay nodded and looked back to her desk. A pair of sticky notes stuck out to him, they weren't in her handwriting. He plucked up the two neon green notes.

'Take a breather Syd, you probably need one.'

'Hey, text me back. You probably are too busy with work and haven't done it in a while.'

Jay felt in his gut he already knew who these were from.

"Whatcha looking at?" Sydney probed when Jay hadn't said much.

'Tell her your concerns about the omega.'

Against his wolf's judgement he put the sticky notes back down and twisted the chair back around. "Nothing in particular. Say why don't you grab a notebook to interview me with, and we go get some ice cream?"

"Ice cream? You do know it's fall right? That means it's cold."

Jay shook his head, "Nope, never too cold for ice cream, plus it's not just any ice cream, it's Martin's."