Jumping back a bit (say an hour)…
Ben walked Sasha and Lauren back to the latter’s house. Lauren was propped up on his shoulders, giggling and pull his hair. Who kept insisting this was just like Ratatouille, and she could make Ben do whatever she wanted. Ben humored her a few times, but when Lauren tried to make him kiss Sasha he drew the line.
“That kid sure is something. How do you do it every week?” Ben asked after they dropped Lauren off since her mother was there (having just gotten off work).
“She’s not so bad. Then again you’re an only child so what do you know.”
“Is that a blessing or a curse?”
“Considering I grew up in a house with three older brothers, I’d say a blessing.” Sasha was the middle child in the family. And the only girl, aside from her mother. Growing up in a predominantly testosterone filled house had more downs than ups from her perspective.
“So, what do you want to do now?” Ben knew what he wanted to do, but being a gentleman asked Sasha first.
“I dunno, just walk for a while. Technically we can’t do anything while the sun’s up.” Sasha gestured to ball of light to her left.
“Okay.”
The pair walked back towards the woods, not saying a word to each other. Not because they didn’t want to talk. Rather they didn’t know what to say. Lauren’s had kept insisting they were boyfriend and girlfriend, mostly because she didn’t understand what that really meant.
It left both Ben and Sasha embarrassed for different reasons. But the one thing they did agree on, not out loud of course, was that they enjoyed each other’s company more than they were ready to admit. With everything that was going on with Eric, Cassie and Julie, Ben forgot about his own love life. Or the lack thereof. And Sasha hadn’t found any of her fellow werecats as engaging as Ben. They’d only spent the one night together, but it had been one helluva night. For multiple reasons.
“How’s Eric doing?” Sasha broke the silence once they were under the cover of trees. She felt more comfortable there than out in the open. Which was the tiger in her.
“Better than you’d think after the day he had.” Ben said. He’d caught a glimpse of Eric and Cassie leaving school arm-in-arm. And in that private moment, there was no doubt those two were completely infatuated with the other.
“And all the rumors…?”
“Well I’m not sure what you heard, but the ones I heard were mostly wrong.”
“You were there that night, mind telling me what happened? I’d like to hear the story from someone other than Megan.” Sasha asked, sitting down beside a tree.
Ben went down next to her, and told Sasha everything he could about the past Friday night, and then the weekend events. He even mentioned Claire, the normal who’d accidentally stumbled across Eric and Cassie while they were in wolf form.
“God, if I’d been a further west I might have ran into her.” Sasha thought. She’d found Claire’s campsite, thankfully without Claire. But Sasha counted her lucky stars they hadn’t met. Because her appearance would have only increased Claire’s panic and confusion.
“She seems to be doing alright now, at least from what I’ve heard from my moms and Nate. They ran into her the other night while walking home. He, Eric, Alex and Cassie that is.”
“She’s okay with everything then? After a bombshell like that, I can’t believe she’s taking everything as well as you say she is.”
“Apparently the transition has been made all the more easy with some wooing from Ryan Connor. The police officer who found her. According to Alex, Claire got this dreamy look when she was talking about him. And my moms mentioned that Ryan seemed pretty taken with her too.”
Taken to the point where he stuck his neck out for a girl who had previously been on the chopping block. But Ben didn’t mention that part. Technically he wasn’t supposed to know. But his mother’s voices carried, and he spent most of his nights listening to their conversations.
Sasha thought for a moment, and then started chuckling softly. Ben raised an eyebrow and asked her what was so funny.
“I dunno, maybe the fact that all these different people are getting together. The least likely combinations, or two people you wouldn’t expect to fall for the other. A cop and his arrestee, a shy teenager and a she-wolf, Arthur and Julie.”
“To be fair, Arthur and Julie aren’t a couple. At least not right now.” Ben pointed out.
“True. You know, I never thought Arthur would give Eric such a hard time about Julie. Since when did he start taking an interest in Julie?”
“Who knows. Maybe it just hit him over the head after a long time.” Ben said, a quick glance at Sasha making him blush.
The fast setting sun was letting light pout through the trees. Patterns were scattered across the ground, and over Ben and Sasha. A light breeze sent chills up both their spines, and they instinctively moved closer together. And then jumped back. Ben didn’t want to break away, he enjoyed just sitting there with Sasha.
“Just hit him over the head huh?” she echoed after another short silence.
“Well, ya. They might not be the same age, but they’re both mer. So they must have interacted with each other in the past. Maybe Arthur finally saw what he wanted in Julie.”
The thick air around the teenagers felt like it weighed about a hundred pounds. Ben took deep breathes to calm himself. He wasn’t just talking about Arthur, he was talking about himself too.