Green - a werewolf story

15. The Bridge

It was bigger than she'd thought. Majestic, even.

"It's pretty nice for a bridge," Green said. "Not sure it was worth the drive, though."

"It's amazing," Vanessa breathed, looking out over the Golden Gate Bridge.

They were sitting on a wooden bench in a sunny parking lot with a view over the bay. She could stay there all day, watching the sea and the sky with the bridge binding the two together.

Green glanced at her and shifted closer. She felt him relax the moment his shoulder touched hers. It irked her how immediate his reaction was to being close to me, but her own response to his touch was worse. She didn't even have to touch him to want to curl into his body and let him hold her.

Being near Green was both addictive and soothing. She was loathe to admit it, but he was the reason she'd slept better last night than she'd done in years.

"Why are you so fascinated by it anyway?" Green asked.

"My aunt used to talk about San Francisco," Vanessa said, smiling. It was impossible to not smile when thinking of Aunt Amy.

"Was she from here?"

"No, no. She was from..." Vanessa stopped herself before she could finish the sentence. He wasn't her friend, no matter how wonderful he smelled or how her body felt around him. She needed to remember that. "It doesn't matter. She'd been here to study. When I was little she used to tell me stories about her time there."

"Did she study here?" Green asked, reaching out to touch her hand. Tiny sparks traveled from where he touched her up through her arms. The sensation distracted her from the view.

"No, she came here in the sixties. With flowers in her hair," Vanessa remembered her aunt used to say.

"Sixties?" Green repeated. "But how can she be your aunt if she's so much older than you?"

"Hrrm? Oh, she was my great aunt, but she never let me call her that. Made her feel old. She'd have preferred me to just call her Amy, but I liked to remind myself that we were related and not only pack."

Amy's story had given her hope that she could change things for herself. Her aunt had traveled, had moved around and they were blood. There had to be something of her in Vanessa as well.

"So you were in a pack?" Green asked, startling her.

For a moment she'd forgotten he was there. She pulled her hand from this. It was impossible to think when she was touching him.

"Technically," Vanessa said and stood up. "Let's head into the city."

"Where is your pack?" Green asked, following her around the bench.

"They're not my pack anymore," Vanessa said.

"Your former pack."

"It doesn't matter," she said and started walking back to the car.

"Of course it matters!" Green insisted, grabbing her hand. "Why are you out on the roads all by yourself? Why did they throw you out?"

"I'm not by myself," Vanessa said. "I've got you, remember? Much good it's done me."

"Did you do something bad?" Green asked, ignoring her taunt.

"Me? Never," she said and unlocked the car.

The parking lot had been nearly empty when they pulled up, but it was starting to fill up with people on the way to the city who wanted a rest and a view of the bay before they headed over to the more central parts of the city. Most of them were tourists like she and Green. She saw a family of five bring out a picnic table from their motorhome.