Page 37 of Same Difference
It smelled like him here still. He wore cologne. Delta had never got up the courage to tell him, but she really liked that smell. It had turned out to be a comfort to her, in the before.
He waited by the door for her to move the heavy plank out of the way and swing it open. The latch had failed long ago, so on the inside, she had to hook a wire from the door handle to a nail on the wall beside it.
He stayed just outside the door frame and leaned forward, scanning the inside.
“Give me a second. I have a couple of lanterns.”
“Has Liam talked about when they’re getting the electricity turned on up here?” he asked somberly.
She clicked the button of the lantern, and it flared to life. She adjusted the power up until it lit the room. “Luckily for me, my ex-boyfriend chopped a bunch of wood for me, so I can do it like they did it in the old days. By firelight.”
“Ex boyfriend,” he repeated, leaning his arms on the door frame. “You mean ex mate.” A long, low snarl rattled his throat, and Nathan shook his head hard and disappeared out the door and into the night.
Delta stood there frozen and confused for the full minute until he returned.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m going a little crazy right now.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and his chest heaved with his breath.
“Are you going to Change?”
“Not in your territory. Neither one of us needs that.”
Delta swallowed hard and studied his face in the gold lantern light. His eyes lifted to hers, and they were a glowing shade of yellow in this strange lighting. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Delta,” he said softly. “Just so you know. My wolf would never go after you. I just don’t need the humiliation.”
“I…I don’t understand. Why would you be humiliated if you Changed? I’ve seen your wolf before.”
“Yeah, but that was then.” He shifted his weight to his other leg and cocked his head. “Things are different now.”
She nodded, pretending to understand. “Um, do you know how to start fires?”
His gaze dashed to the wood stove and back to her. “You don’t know how?”
“I could figure it out,” she said, her cheeks heating. “Never mind. I can get it. I’ll just look it up on the internet.”
“I wasn’t judging. Just honestly asking. If you don’t camp a lot, you wouldn’t know how.”
“I did camp a lot.”
He frowned and leaned on the frame again. “When you were a kid or something?”
She nodded. “With my dad and some of his friends.”
He frowned down at a hole in the floor in front of him. “I didn’t know that about you.”
“Not to be mean, but I don’t think you know much about me at all. I wanted to tell you everything, but you didn’t ask much.”
He chewed the side of his lip and nodded slowly at her. That warm yellow light reflected eerily in his gold eyes. He looked like he was from another world.
“I’ve been thinking a lot,” he said.
“Dangerous hobby,” she quipped.
He chuckled. “I do remember you asking me questions. I just didn’t know how to hear them or care to answer back when it happened. You asked a lot in the beginning.”
“You got frustrated quickly,” she said.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the wood stove.
