“Too complicated to explain?” I said.
“No,” he said. “But it isn’t a story I tell often.”
“It was bad?” I said. “Hard to talk about? Because if you don’t want to—”
“No, it wasn’t, really. But as I said—it’s complicated.”
Now I had to hear it. I squirmed until I could look at his eyes. “What happened?”
“I forgot how much you like stories,” he said. “I caught it from my sister. I thought she was hurt, I was trying to help her. She shifted in my arms. I didn’t know about her, until then. Even when she bit me, I hardly knew what was happening. It was an accident, she didn’t mean it. But she panicked, and I was in the way.”
“Wow. That’s rough. She must have felt terrible.”
“Actually, when she shifted back to human and woke up, she yelled at me. Wanted to know why I couldn’t mind my own business and leave her alone. By then I was sick, so she yelled about making her take care of me.”
“Let me guess, older sister?”
“Yes,” he said with a laugh.
“It sounds familiar.”
“She was angry, but she was sorry, too, I think. She took care of me and helped me learn to live with this. Now we help each other keep our parents from finding out about it.”
At least I didn’t have that problem anymore. I’d never have to come up with another excuse about why I was missing a family gathering on a full moon night. “Your sister’s in Brazil?”
“Yes. You know what she does? She spies on companies doing illegal logging in the rain forest and reports to the environmental groups. Sometimes I think she’s a bit of a terrorist. Frightened loggers come out of the forest with stories about giant jaguars with glowing green eyes.”
“She sounds like an interesting person.”
“She is.”
We’d been there maybe an hour when I glanced at my watch. I shouldn’t even have brought it. But I did.
“Could we get back to town by four, do you think?” I said.
He put his hand on my knee. “Is there nothing I can do to convince you to stay a little longer?”
Oh, the agony. I put my hand on his and shook my head. “I’m sorry. Here you are, doing everything you can to sweep me off my feet, and I’m refusing to cooperate. I’m lucky you’re still trying.”
He grinned. “I love a challenge.”
He leaned over to me, putting his hands on either side of me, trapping me with his arms, and moving closer—slowly, giving me plenty of time to argue and escape before he kissed me.
I didn’t argue. Or escape.
I barreled into the Crescent at a quarter after four, convinced I was too late to find Fritz. Not that he’d ever speak to me again. I should have been happy with what he’d revealed last night on the show, but enough never was, was it?
My vision adjusted to the dimness of indoors. I watched Fritz’s usual table, expecting his hulking form to be there, once I’d differentiated it from the shadow. I focused, squinting hard, but the table was empty.
Jack stood, elbows propped on the bar, reading a magazine. I leaned on the bar in front of him, and he looked up and broke a wide smile. “Hey! I heard your show last night. That was cool.” “Thanks,” I said, distracted and not sounding terribly sincere. “I missed him, didn’t I? Fritz already left.”
“He didn’t show today.”
“But it’s past four. He’s never late. Does he not do weekends?”
“He never misses a day.”
A weight settled into my gut. “Do you think he’s okay? Do you have a phone number for him? Should I go check on him?”