Come Out Swinging (Reach for the Moon Book 2), Sam Hall [leveled readers .TXT] 📗

fucking Christ…” she growled, then snatched the pile up with her drink and walked over to the dining table. We sat down opposite her and waited. “So I’m guessing you’ve got questions. When did you work out you were gay? Where did the girls come from?”

That wasn’t what I was gonna ask, but I stayed quiet and listened.

“The answer is your cousin. I’m not sure if you remember Frank Hahn from high school?” I nodded, but only a very vague face came to mind. “He’s the girls’ father. He didn’t knot for me, knew I wasn’t his true mate, but we liked each other well enough and as no one else was putting themselves forward… We got together, passed the other off as our mates, built this place. It seemed like a good life, a nice life until…”

I watched her take a long drink from her can.

“Like, I’d noticed girls before. At the time, I told myself fixating on how soft a girl’s hair was or how well a dress fitted her was just all part of a mad passion for fashion. We don’t exactly have many lesbian role models here in a rural town. Gay women were butches in boiler suits in my mind. I couldn’t imagine them breathing in a girl’s perfume as she passed, feeling the heat from the leg of the girl sitting next to you in class through the material of your uniform.” She shrugged abruptly. “Obviously, not knowing who I really was led to me readily accepting a situation that most wolves would never tolerate. We settled down, had the kids, and then your cousin sent out the call.”

“She’s a nix,” I said.

“She’s like a fucking forest fire is what she is. Hit me like a damn freight train.” Her eyes slid to her brother. “Something I’m starting to think you know something about. What’s your interest in this?” she asked Aidan.

“You know,” he shot back.

Cheryl shook her head slowly. “Fuck, so the Spehrs got both of us? Mum’d say this was all part of a reckoning.”

“What? Why?”

Both of them turned to look at me, and their bond became a lot clearer. Cheryl’s hair was a much darker blonde, perhaps due to the haircut, but their odd, amber eyes stared at me.

“You’re a nix. Why didn’t every single guy in town go completely bug nuts for you when you sent out your call?” she asked. I just sat there, not knowing what to say. I didn’t know how many guys were single, nor how many were vying for my hand. It’d all been kinda messy. “A lot did, but not all of them.”

She shook her head.

“My mum was the one who convinced me settling for Frank was fine. She’d know, wouldn’t she?” Her eyes burned into mine as she spoke the words. “My dad should’ve been your dad, or one of them anyway. He competed for your mum’s hand, she told him she loved him and…” I knew what was coming. Of course I did. I was the end result. “And she chose to mate with your dad instead, leaving mine to pick up the pieces of his life.”

Her eyes dropped to the table, tracing circles in the condensation left from her drink with her finger.

“That’s what fucking Spehrs do. We all have our fated mates, but they might be in another town, state, country. We may never find them. Mum was in her late twenties by then, thinking she was left on the shelf, so she settled for a man who would always love someone else. Just like I settled for Frank. Then your cousin… She walked into my office looking like…heaven. My mouth went dry, my heart raced so fast, I was scared it would just stop dead, and all I could see was her. My mate…” She shook her head. “I can hardly remember how the conversation went, but she just smiled and pressed her business card into my hand, her personal number circled especially, and I felt the warmth of her fingers on my skin for hours afterwards.”

Her eyes snapped up to meet mine.

“If you’re wondering what happened? We fucked. Me and all the rest of her harem. Who that is cycles in and out because she won’t make a choice, will she? If she does, it’s real. She’s a gay woman in a polyamorous relationship in a town that cannot, will not understand. She’ll put the final nail in the coffin of your aunt’s dreams and be…free.”

“She has mates. I saw the marks myself,” I croaked out, my throat feeling like sand.

“Yeah, the ones who are content to keep everything on the down low, just like she wants. But what do you actually want to know? About your cousin’s love life or…?”

“I didn’t know about any of this,” I said. “Not about Mum or Selma or… I’m sure you think I’m some sort of idiot, but everything was carefully scripted to appear as it was supposed to. It was only when I chose Mason…” My jaw tightened as my memory of that day reemerged, though it didn’t hit me as hard, which was a surprise. “It was then I worked out everything wasn’t quite as simple. I left to get away, but someone dragged me back by killing my dad. That’s what I want to know. Who killed him, who… Evidence points to Selma.” Cheryl’s eyebrows shot up. “Or Nance.”

She nodded slowly, then took another long drink of her can, taking her brother’s when she emptied it.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Are you? Thinking you can get on her good side doing some sleuthing? I warned you about this, about all the shit Dad put on you.”

“Cheryl…”

“No good will come of it. We want them so much more than they want us. The power imbalance, it doesn’t make for good relationships. Dad wanted you to avoid what he was cursed with—Mum… But you don’t need to get caught up in this.”

“Cheryl…”

“There’s no happiness to be gained from messing with the