Page 22 of Just in Time
“Y’all are doing good work, you know.”
“What?” I asked. “Have we—”
She mimed zipping her lips and reached for the salt, shaking it liberally over her bowl of soup. “You’ll probably need salt…” She slid the shaker over to me and I accepted it, a million questions in my mind that I decided didn’t need to be asked.
She certainly seemed fine with us being here for someone who was coming into this blind.
I sighed heavily and took a spoonful of stew into my mouth. It was hot, which matched the temperature in the house, but it was good.
I hummed my appreciation and took another spoonful.
There was a bump at the front door and I rose, thinking it was Brody.
But it wasn’t.
A sweaty-faced teenager gangled into the room, his long limbs looking extra long when he tried to fold them all into the seat across from me.
He had long blonde hair that he pushed back from his face, grinning at Jolene/Sally and then at me.
“Who’s your friend, Momma?”
I smiled and reached for my napkin, holding out my hand to introduce myself. “I’m Lily.”
“I’m Arlo,” came his croaky reply.
If I had to wager money, I’d put it all on Arlo’s middle name being Jonathon. Because if he wasn’t the spitting image of Johnny the bartender, I’d eat Brody’s gloves.
Jolene pushed an empty bowl towards him, nodding up at the stove. “Go help yourself, Arlo, I ain’t gonna spoon-feed ya.”
There were so many feelings I had to unpack…
And literally zero time to unpack them.
It was weird how I could have control over something like time and still run out of it when I needed it most.
* * *
It was twilightby the time I’d heard from any of them. Brody ran up, silver wolf fur gleaming in the dusk-light, shifting back into his human form without even bothering to worry about the teenaged boy and other woman in the room. “Lil. I need you.” I was pretty sure he didn’t even recognize them for who they were.
I raised my eyebrows.
“No, like…Indyneeds you… c’mon…”
He turned to run out the door, but Sally/Jolene stopped him. “Indy needs her? What’s wrong with Indy?”
“Hopefully nothing, ma’am,” Brody said, his eyes moving back to me as I rose to my feet. His attention snapped right back to her face, though, his frown deepening as his mouth fell open. “Lil…” There was an urgency in his face that I recognized. This was something only I could fix.
“This is Indy’s mother, Sally and his younger brother, Arlo,” I said, nodding towards the two of them as they held out their hands.
Brody, to his credit, swallowed down whatever questions he had and turned back to me after the greeting. “Come on,” he said, extending his hand to me.
I took it, following him outside. “Am I supposed to run alongside you or…”
“Fuck. Right.” He fell down on all fours, shifting into a horse and whinnying. I knelt down and grabbed his jeans from the ground and tossed them over my shoulder. I climbed up on his back with some difficulty, wishing there was an easier way to travel with a shifter than bareback.
I dug in my heels slightly to let him know I was ready and we rode off into the woods.
I stayed low on his back, but he stuck mostly to a trail. It looked a little overgrown, but it was still very visible in the low light.
