“Fair enough.” Alec straightened. “How’s Sera doing without her dad around? He’ll want an update when I meet them tonight.”
“Fine.” Beyond that, Julio held his tongue. He’d promised not to raise an alarm about the strange phone calls and hang-ups, and there was no quicker way to do that than to have Alec tell Franklin.
Alec watched him for a moment, an oddly speculative look in his eyes. “Keep an eye on her for him, would you? She’ll ask for help if her problems are supernatural, but she’s incapacitated by pride on the subject of money. He’s worried she’ll go without something she needs instead of getting some damn help.”
“Anna lives with her,” he reminded him. “She’d help out if she could, and say something if she couldn’t.”
“Fair enough.” But Alec didn’t look away. “You still seeing Callum?”
“Got another appointment in a couple of days.”
“And you’re doing okay?”
“Making it.” Talking to Callum barely helped, and talking to Alec would be useless. “Carmen’s waiting for you, right?”
Alec sighed. “She is. Take care of yourself, or she’ll come back here and make you.”
“I know. She always has.”
The door behind them shoved open, and Wesley appeared. “You taking off, Alec?”
“Yeah.” Alec held out his hand to Julio. “Maybe you should too, Wesley, before McNeely flattens you.”
He grinned. “Maybe it was supposed to happen this way. Maybe this is how it happens.”
“Or the poor guy was about to make his move and you just set him back a couple months,” Julio groused.
“We can hear you!” Giselle yelled from inside the office.
“Fucking shapeshifters.” Alec clasped Julio’s hand, then slapped Wesley on the back. “See you guys in a few weeks. Carmen wants a visit.”
“Travel safe,” Julio advised, “and give her a hug for me.”
“Will do.”
When he was gone, Wesley tilted his head. “He’s right. You should keep an eye on Sera.
She’s…” For the first time in Julio’s experience, Wesley seemed uncertain. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything, but I’ve got a feeling. That girl’s in for a rough road—maybe. Damned if I know.”
Too many questions—and too many loose ends from her past. “It’s on my to-do list already.”
“Hell, man. If spending time with a smoking-hot coyote is going to make you that miserable, deputize me. I’ll take good care of her. She looks like she’d make an excellent lucky charm.”
Julio gave in to the urge to punch the man on the arm. “You stay away from her, or her daddy’ll finish what those angry pit bosses started. Break all your bones.”
McNeely’s voice rose from the other room. “Are y’all gonna gossip like teenagers or get in here and play some damn poker?”
Julio punched Wesley again for good measure. “We’re going to play cards.”
Sera spread her course catalog on the table at Dixie John’s and nudged Lily’s sweet tea out of the way of the crisp pages. “I’m trying to decide what I should take alongside Food Safety and Sanitation. I still need a humanities class and a science. And I have to take English Comp.”
Lily leaned closer and peered at the pages. “Is this for summer or fall?”
“Fall. I think I need my summers off.” Which was mostly true. The break from full-time work and part-time classes would give her time to recharge, but it would also give her time to refill her bank account. College, it turned out, had a way of nickel-and-diming you to near bankruptcy, even part-time community college.
“I know what you mean.” Lily absently stirred her tea. “Humanities are always good because you can go for a logic class or a movie survey or something.”
“Movies would be fun.” Sera tugged the cap off her marker and circled one of the courses, amused at how willing she was to take Lily’s advice. A year ago, the idea of having lunch with her father’s girlfriend would have been unthinkable. In the aftermath of the explosion that had nearly killed Franklin, Sera had come home damaged and angry, ready to hate the too-young woman who had taken her mother’s place.
A tidy bit of hypocrisy, as Kat had pointed out. After all, Sera had run off to marry a man old enough to be her father.
But Lily was…Lily. Human, but comfortable in the supernatural world. Smart and funny, and willing to give Sera space. She’d never presumed to act like a mother or a replacement for one.
She’d just loved Sera’s father with a dedication and intensity that made it impossible to dislike her. For the first time in her life, Sera saw her dad happy.
It was like having a family again, and it made her feel guilty for ever having such uncharitable thoughts about Lily. Sera sipped her own tea and turned the page. “This would go so much faster if I went full-time.”
Lily shrugged. “You do what you have to do. Your father would pay your tuition and expenses in a heartbeat, but it’s not necessarily the best thing for you right now. He knows that.”
“Does he?” Sera asked, uncertain. “Honestly, Lily, sometimes I think he’s going to strain something, trying so hard not to push money at me. I know he cares, and he’s there if I need him…”
“He’s trying,” Lily amended. “Trust me, honey. If he wasn’t, no amount of argument would keep him from shoving his way into your business with his checkbook at the ready.”
“I know.” Lily had no doubt been at least partly responsible for her father’s restraint. “I needed to take care of myself, but maybe I took it too far.”
“If you’re ready to let him help out, just say the word.”
“I’ll think about it.” Sera drew a sweeping circle around an introductory science class and tried to keep her voice casual. “Do you talk to Julio much?”
“Carmen’s brother?” She shook her head. “Not often. Why?”
Doodling on the edge of the catalog became very important. “I saw him the other day, and he seemed…tense. I worry about him. He got tortured, and everyone acts like he should be able to shrug it off.”
“Not exactly. I mean, he’s seeing a therapist. He’s getting help.”
Sera pressed her lips together and concentrated on the swirls of black ink spreading over the class description for microbiology. “I still worry.”
“Hmm.” Lily closed the schedule booklet. “Are you worried because he’s not doing so well, or worried because you’d be thinking about him even if he was fine?”
She’d never deluded herself into believing her stupid little crush had been subtle, but she wasn’t about to admit to it, either. “I’m worried because I saw him right after it happened. I know how hurt he was. I felt it, Lily.”
“That was months ago, Sera.”
Had it been? She could still remember parts of it with stark clarity. Not the rescue—everyone else had been busy rescuing Kat. But Julio had charged away from them, half-mad from the adrenaline high Kat had forced him into with the brutal application of empathy.
Sera had been the one to soothe him. Her touch, her presence. She’d fumbled at first, tried too hard to do the right thing or say the right thing, and in the end all she’d needed to do was close her eyes and just…be.
She’d never forget Julio’s fingers rasping over her hair, or the way he’d pulled her close and inhaled her scent. Not sexual, not even sensual. Primal and raw, shapeshifter magic at its most basic. An alpha’s desperate rage and a submissive’s quiet trust.
“Sera?” Lily waved a hand in front of her face. “Have you tried asking Julio how he’s doing?”
Sera started, hating the heat that rushed to her cheeks. “No. I mean, I can ask how he’s doing, but he’s not going to answer me. He’s alpha, and I’m…” Young. Damaged. They all thought it, even if most of them didn’t say it. “Julio Mendoza isn’t going to confide in me.”