Page 30 of Next Door Midlife Alpha
“Not yet. Where are the kids?”
“Upstairs watching a movie.”
“Good.” Stacey gave up her barstool and staggered to the fridge. She wasn’t drunk; she hadn’t even had a drop of alcohol—yet. It certainly wouldn’t help the dizziness that made her wobble as she walked, and it wouldn’t clear the fog in her head, but she was going to try it anyway. Reaching into the back of the fridge, she pulled out the bottle of pinot noir she’d picked up on her last run to the grocery store. At that moment, Stacey had thought it sounded like a nice treat to unwind with at the end of the day. This was not the night she’d imagined for it, but she certainly needed it. “What I have to say isn’t anything for their ears yet. You have to promise me you won’t say anything to them, Mom.”
“All right.” Carol pulled down two wine glasses and put them on the bar. “From the way you’re talking, I guess I’d better fortify myself against the news. Pour.”
Stacey popped the cork with a surprising amount of ease, considering how hard her hands were shaking. She looked down into the dark red liquid. “I think I must’ve hit my head even harder than I realized back at the old house. I honestly think I’m losing my shit.” Lifting her hand, she reached under her hair and ran her fingers along her scalp until she found the jagged scar and the spiky section of hair that hadn’t yet grown back all the way.
Her mother smacked her hand against the edge of the counter. “For Pete’s sake! Tell me. At this point, I doubt any reality can be worse than what you’re making me imagine!”
“All right. I’m sorry. It’s just hard.” Stacey took a deep sip and began. There was no good place to start, so she just charged forward. “I just had a long talk with Dylan.”
“Mmm.” Carol wagged her eyebrows again.
“No, not like that.” She traced the subtle pattern of the laminate countertop as she explained what she’d seen on Will’s boat. “I knew it was crazy. Bears on boats? That’s like some cheap B movie. But I figured there had to be some reasonable explanation, so I talked to Dylan about it. He told me that I really did see bears—and that he was one of them.He’s a shifter, just like his whole family. I don’t understand it, but I saw it. Apparently, they’re not the only ones, either. He said there are shifters all over the place.”
She devolved into a ramble as she tried remembering everything Dylan had told her. Stacey was fully aware that she was regurgitating it in bits and pieces without much organization, but it couldn’t be helped. She talked about Will and Elijah and how everything her son had thought he’d seen had been real. She told Carol about how they had to keep their secret because there was no telling how the population at large might react, although the reaction was fairly guaranteed to be a bad one.
“Either I’m going crazy, or Dylan is, or there’s some mass hallucination caused by something in the water.” Stacey paused to catch her breath, and as she did, she realized something was wrong beyond the fact that bears were living next door.
Carol sat next to her on a barstool. Her wine glass rested on the counter as it had ever since Stacey had filled it. She’d propped her chin on her hand and was listening thoughtfully as Stacey spoke. It was just what someone might expect from their mother, but it wasn’t what Stacey had come to expect fromhermother. “What’s the matter?”
“What do you mean?” Carol asked softly.
“This isn’t you,” Stacey explained. A spark of fear had lived inside her ever since Dylan had confirmed that her delirium was reality. “You’re quirky and quick-witted, and you usually interject with something you think is funny even if it’s not appropriate. But you’re not saying anything.”
“First of all, thank you for the compliment.” Carol smiled and crossed her legs. She removed her hand from her chin and delicately lifted her wine glass to her lips.
“You think I’ve lost my mind,” Stacey concluded. It was expected, really. Dylan was so worried about her keeping his secret, but what he didn’t understand was that no one would believe her anyway.
“No.” Carol shook her head. “I don’t think either you or Dylan are losing your minds. As a matter of fact, I dated a shifter in my younger days.”
Stacey’s mouth fell open.
“Really,” her mother urged.
“Okay. We’vealllost our minds, then.”
“He was sexy and fun and a bit wild. It was just a fling at first, but what I thought might be a bit of amusement for a weekend turned into a week, and then a month, and then a few months. It wasn’t untilwe started to get a lot more serious that he revealed his true self to me, a regal lion.”
Stacey took a gulp of wine. And then another.
Carol smiled and slapped the counter. “Let me tell you, I already knew he was an animal in bed, but then I found out why! It’s not just any woman who gets a chance to be with a man like that. Whew! What hot nights those were!”
“How come you never told me this?” Stacey felt so many emotions rushing through her that she could barely untangle them. Was this all actually happening, or was it a very complex and very real nightmare?
“It’s not like you would’ve believed me,” Carol replied casually. “You would’ve told me I was nuts, just as you expected me to tell you now. Besides, you already know they can’t reveal their identity to just anyone.”
Stacey pressed a hand against her forehead. “This is wild. How could I not know this?”
“These folks have become masterful at hiding in plain sight. They’ve had to in order to survive. You’ve probably passed dozens of them on the street and not even known it.”
Considering that she lived right next door to oneand didn’t even know it, Stacey figured this was probably true. “So what happened with you and the lion guy? From what you’re saying, you must’ve meant a lot to each other if he told you.”
Her mother smiled. “It was a wonderful relationship, but it simply wasn’t meant to be. Thomas met his fated mate. Did Dylan happen to say anything about those when he let you in on all this?”
“No. What do you mean?” There was even more to this shifter world than she’d imagined, and her mother, of all people, was more educated than she was!
