Moonstruck

𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓻𝓽𝓮𝓮𝓷 | First Kiss

It was the summer before Mateo joined the Sanguine Pack, shortly after he'd turned fifteen, that he fell in love for the first time. Even now, locked up and bloodied in a dark cell two years later, he still remembered how it had all started.

It didn't start when Mateo slipped on his barista apron—dark maroon with the cafe's name, "Rouge's," plastered in white across the front—and stepped behind the counter. It didn't start when he met his new coworker, a lanky, pinched-looking blond boy with stormy gray eyes and a serious demeanor. It didn't even start when he introduced himself— "Hi! I'm Mateo, Mateo Fernandez. What's your name? How're you doing? Is it your first day working here?" —and the boy only shrugged and muttered, "Good."

It started when they were cleaning up after the cafe had closed for the day. Hearing a sharp gasp of pain from a few tables over, Mateo looked up to see something small and silver fall to the floor from the boy's burnt, blistering hand with a strident clatter. A woman's bracelet, left behind by one of the customers—an inevitable occupational hazard for any werewolf living in human-dominated territory. Possibly an ill-intended act of microaggression against such werewolves, possibly an accident with no ill intent at all, but certainly not something anyone could do anything about in the current sociopolitical climate of the town of Garnet.

"Are you okay?" Mateo slipped off his apron and, gingerly, used it to pick up the bracelet and place it on the counter. Then he grabbed the first-aid kit stowed beneath the coffee bar and rushed to where the boy still stood, clutching his burnt hand and grimacing in pain. "Here, let me see that—"

The boy flinched when Mateo reached out to touch him. Up close, Mateo saw that his left eye was ringed with a faint swollen purple. What he had taken to be overly pronounced eyebags was actually a black eye. Instantly, Mateo stepped back and tried for a small smile of reassurance. "Don't worry, I'm just going to put some ice on it—"

The boy shuffled past him to the sink, turned on the faucet, and stuck his hand into the stream of cool water.

"Or... you could do that, too," Mateo muttered. Then, taking out a roll of gauze wrap and offering it to the boy, he said aloud, "Would you like me to help you bandage it?"

"I can do it myself." The boy took the gauze from Mateo and made a valiant effort of wrapping it around his burnt left hand, one-handed. It was evident he was left-handed and rather inept at wrapping bandages—with his non-dominant hand, no less—to boot. He sighed and looked up at Mateo with an air of great reluctance. "I lied—I can't."

Slowly, as if trying not to startle a skittish animal, Mateo took the gauze and wrapped it around the boy's hand. As soon as he'd finished, the boy jerked his hand out of his grasp with a mumbled, "Thanks."

Mateo smiled again—this time, wider. "I didn't quite catch your name."

"Seth."

"Seth... Reagan?" The Alpha's nephew and protege, the Beta's wayward son. Unknown whereabouts. Mateo's mind whirled. "Seth Reagan," he repeated, thunderstruck. "Wow. So you're a werewolf."

"Well-spotted."

"I'm a werewolf, too."

"I figured."

Mateo paused, wondering what he should say next. Maybe it would behoove him to ask Seth for sparring tips. Or ask him for details about the social hierarchy of the Pack. Or recommendations for readings on Sanguine politics and economics. Or an autograph.

Instead, what Mateo settled on was, "So... you left the Sanguine Pack, right? I read about it in the paper. You're one of the candidates for the future Alpha, right? So why'd you leave?"