Pack Mentality

Chapter 10

Seth should have known better. Once you got Becky talking, it was hard to make her stop. Her questions might have been tentative at first, but then she got going and started asking things Seth hadn't even considered until he had been shifting for a few years already. Eventually her mind turned to the sex-based questions, but she stopped just shy of asking any. The water in the tub was almost cold by the time her curiosity—or at least her eyelids—started to dip, so Seth waited until her eyes were closed to step quietly out of the tub and put on his robe. Becky was already half-asleep leaning against the tub and probably would have stayed there until she slipped and crashed to the floor, but he scooped her up gently and carried her into the bedroom.

"Not tired," Becky protested, though she fell just short of letting her eyes drift shut. "I have more questions to ask. . . ."

"And I'll still be here tomorrow," Seth promised. He set her down on his bed and pulled up the blankets, and though she kept insisting she wasn't tired the entire time, it didn't even take a minute for her to fall asleep. As quietly as he could, Seth grabbed a pair of shorts and went back to the bathroom to dry off, loosening his hair from the bun so it wouldn't be an utter disaster in the morning. Taking his phone as an afterthought, he crept out of the room and shut the door behind him. The bed was big enough to sleep two people without having them touch, but he found it hard not to touch Becky at the best of times, let alone when the dregs of wolf energy were still rattling around his bones. There was a chaise longue in his bedroom as well, but he didn't trust himself not to fall off it in the middle of the night and startle her.

He walked past Dean's preferred room and the other spare bedrooms, any one of which would have suited him just fine for a night, and after detouring to the kitchen for some snacks, he went down to his gaming room. There were always spare blankets in there; if he was hosting a gaming tournament, Xavier liked to sleep in the gaming room for good luck. Unlike Becky, though, Seth found he couldn't sleep right away. He wasn't exactly wound up, but he had been mentally preparing for screams and denials and accusations, and now he had to do something with all the defensive energy he had built up. Playing some video games seemed like the perfect antidote. He kept the volume low so he wouldn't wake Roman or Becky, and lost himself in his favourite game until his vision started to blur a bit. Then he spread one blanket out over the extra-large couch and shut off the console and the lights before stretching out himself.

"What the fuck?" Roman's startled voice woke Seth out of a deep, dreamless sleep, and he struggled to sit up. Roman was standing just inside the doorway, spilled water dripping from his hand and the glass in it. "Seth, bro, what the hell? Why are you sleeping in here? Did Becky get so mad she kicked you out of the entire floor?"

"Nah, man." Seth tossed his mussed hair out his face and kicked the blanket out of his way so he could stand. "Becks took it pretty well, I think. I hope. She asked a lot of questions, anyway, but she was tired, so I just tucked her in my bed and came down here to play video games until I got tired." His yawn almost cracked his jaw and he stretched his arms far above his head. "I didn't want there to be any misconceptions, you know?"

Roman nodded, sidestepping the small puddle of water soaking into the carpet to grab some popcorn from the bowl Seth left on the coffee table. "What? It's practically a vegetable."

Seth shook his head. "You're starting to sound like Dean, man."

Roman laughed and leaned in to give Seth a quick hug. "If you don't mind me kicking around your kitchen, I'll make something for breakfast and get coffee going. You can wake up Becky." Then he raised an eyebrow. "Not like that. You should make sure she's seriously fine with the whole werewolf thing before you guys get too involved again."

"Okay, Dad." As soon as Seth said it, he grabbed his phone, half surprised Hunter hadn't called already to ask how Becky had taken the reveal. There were no missed calls, but Hunter had sent a quick text: Let me know how things went when you have a minute. Nice and vague, just in case Seth had chickened out at the last minute or Becky had happened to see it before Seth did.