Cry Wolf (Big Bad Wolf #5) - Charlie Adhara Page 0,2

not looking. He didn’t know the soft, slow-moving man with a hint of ice cream in his gray mustache and half a dozen Ping-Pong balls glued to his T-shirt to represent butterfly eggs—the stage of the metamorphosis cycle Cayla had assigned him for their themed family costume. It was an unheard of display of playfulness. When Cooper was a kid, his mother already dying, Ed had sent him and his brother out in whatever they could find in the house and use without destroying. More than one year Dean had thrown a sheet they weren’t allowed to cut holes in over Cooper and left him to stumble around the neighborhood alone while Dean hung out with friends.

Now, Ed handed him a small cup of melting ice cream. “They didn’t have your favorite.”

Cooper blinked at the unexpected offering and tried to remember ever having a favorite flavor. He supposed he must have as a little boy. It was strange what you remembered and what you didn’t. Stranger still the things your parents held on to as critically important information, and what they let fall away as bygones, ghosts of the past.

“Too bad your Oliver couldn’t make it,” Ed said for possibly the eleventh time that hour.

“Dad,” Cooper sighed. “I told you he’s out of town. Maybe if you’d called ahead like a normal person instead of banging down the—”

Ed held up his hands in the universal I don’t want to fight but I’m also about to say something that’s going to piss you off gesture. “Did I say that? I just think it’d be nice for your family to get to know him before the big day.”

“Oh my god,” Cooper muttered under his breath, and shoved a spoon of melty vanilla ice cream into his mouth. Truthfully, he was grateful Park was currently visiting his own family’s estate. He should not have to be subjected to this forced bonding experience that Cooper was beginning to suspect hadn’t been Cayla’s idea at all.

Ed’s attitude toward Park was difficult to figure out. When they’d first met in the midst of a murder case last year, Ed had liked Park a lot. The revelation that he and Cooper were dating was equally positive and honestly went a long way toward soothing some age-old tensions between Cooper and his father.

The revelation that Park was a werewolf, that werewolves were indeed a thing at all, had been...a bit more challenging.

Maybe Cooper was a little to blame for that. He’d done his best to keep Park and Ed’s interactions to a minimum ever since the big revelation, running interference at Dean and Sophie’s wedding so that they could only interact at the most superficial level and only agreeing to a handful of short dinners in the last year. At all of them, he’d enlisted the help of Dean and Sophie as buffers. The two got along fine with Park and seemed to have just rolled with the existence of a supposedly mythical being.

But Ed had struggled. He wasn’t antagonistic at all. Rather, he was too interested, wanted to be too involved, wanted to show he cared too much.

It had gotten worse when Cooper told him he and Park were engaged. Now Ed typically brought Park up seven to eight times during a phone call. Was Park fully recovered from his gunshot wound? Had he bought the scar ointment Ed had suggested? Did he like the smell? Were they going to have a catered wedding? What kind of food did Park like? Did he have any allergies?

Basically, asking everything about Park except the things he most wanted to know. What was being a werewolf like? What did it mean for the son whose life was dedicated to them, one way or another?

In an effort to dissuade the questions, Cooper had started teasing rather than answering seriously.

Yes, Oliver’s very happy with the new house. Plus, once he’s done digging out the hibernation tunnels we’ll finally be able to shift the last of these pods out of the foyer, just in time for hatching season.

No, we can’t drive down tonight for dinner. Do you think Blood Moon rituals can just be rescheduled willy-nilly?

That didn’t seem to be working at all if this sudden, almost desperate trip to the zoo was any indication. The only flaw in Ed’s plan? Park wasn’t getting back to DC until tomorrow. Lucky bastard.

“There they are.” Ed waved at the rest of their crew. Dean was wrapped in translucent green cloth to represent some kind of