Shifted #Wattys2016

XXXIV

Maxine

"Someone watched me last night." I said as I sat down at the bar at the diner.

Felix leaned on the counter. "Watching you?"

I nodded. "Yeah. A wolf. Was it one of you guys?"

Felix shook his head. "I don't think so, unless it was Ronnie. What did it look like?" A bell rang in the window and Felix took the food and set it down in front of someone else at the counter. He came back to me.

I shrugged. "I don't know. It was dark."

Felix nodded. "I'll ask Emmett what he knows." He looked at the clock on the wall. "Let me finish up work here and we can go somewhere else, okay?"

I nodded.

I was sitting on the hot concrete, my legs dangling in the water. Felix was wading in the water a few feet in front of me.

"Are you sure you don't want to learn how to swim?"

I shook my head. "I'm sure."

Felix sighed and dipped his head under the water. "Well, suit yourself. I say that you should at least know how to doggy paddle."

Felix smiled and swam over to the edge and pulled himself up.

A leaned back, squinting at his back.

"I didn't know you had a tattoo."

"You didn't?"

I looked at it. The tattoo was of all the phases of the moon, starting with full moons at each end of his spine. At the center was the outline of a moon. Each moon was detailed, with craters and shading and everything.

"How didn't you know I had a tattoo?"

I shrugged. "I guess I don't look at your back all too often."

"Do you approve?"

"It's a little cliché, but it could be worse." I smiled and stood up, grabbing my towel off of the plastic chair and drying off my legs.

Felix rubbed the towel on his head, leaving his hair messy, but a little sexy. I grabbed my backpack.

"Are you okay?"

Felix looked up, setting the towel on his shoulders. "Yeah. I'm fine. Feeling a little hypocritical, but I'm good."

"Why hypocritical?"

"I can't help feeling like this is how my friend felt when I left my old pack."

"Friend?"

"Jac."

I followed Felix out of the pool. "Oh. I get that."

Felix swallowed hard. "Let's just get you back to Julie."

My cell phone rang, startling me. My phone hasn't rang in weeks.

"Hello?" The number was from back home. I had to answer.

"Hello, is this Maxine Clarke?"

"This is she..."

"Hi, this is Dr. Webb from Chicago Mercy. Your mother came in this afternoon with second degree burns along her right arm. We took care of her, and she is doing fine now. But she's been asking for you. Nonstop."

"Wait, what? How'd she burn her arm?"

"She won't tell us. We think it was from cook ware but we can't be sure."

"Just release her."

"She refuses to sign anything until she sees you. When can you come?"

I sighed. "I'm in Kansas right now with my grandmother. She can't drive me and I can't ask her to buy me a plane ticket. I have no idea. I don't even know how long of a drive it is."

"Ma'am, I still need an answer."

I sighed. "I'll try to be there tomorrow. If not, the next day."

"Okay. I'll tell your mother."

"Okay." I hung up.