Howl (Monster Boyfriends #1)

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

RAEGAN

I ’ve been hiding my panic since Patrick’s threat as he was dragged off by Sheriff Simmons. As much as I wanted to confront Jamie directly about the odd warning, I found myself getting distracted by Jamie’s distress.

‘You know what he is, don’t you?’

Something has been off about him lately, like there’s a demon he’s fighting that resides just below his skin. I want so badly to reach out and help him in any way I can, but Jamie clearly doesn’t want to address it. Instead, he’s focusing all of his energy on me. Clearly we’re very similar in that regard.

After leaving the clinic, I tried to return to work, but Ethan told me to go home because of the influx of customers coming into the store just to ask about the incident. So instead, I gathered my courage and headed for the coffee shop, but talking with Jamie didn’t make me feel any better.

Our interaction only made me more confused. Ever since that first incident with Patrick, being around Jamie feels like standing too close to a hot stove. It’s a confusing feeling, because the warmth draws me in with a false sense of comfort, but I know if I step too close I’ll just get burned. I have to remind myself that this odd attraction I’ve been feeling is only temporary. Soon this upheaval of normal life will pass, and Jamie and I will go back to the way things were.

But as I’m leaving Double Double, I notice it’s becoming harder to breathe. It’s like Patrick’s hands are still locked around my throat and I can’t escape them. I feel a wave of nausea come over me as I reach the corner of 4th and Main, so I close my eyes and take a deep breath, but when I open them again the brightness of the sun sends a sharp pain behind my sockets. It’s like a spotlight shining on my panic. I walk quickly around the back of the library as vehicles circle the roundabout to my right.

Once I find my car, I slip inside, twist the key, yank the gear shift into drive, and pull out hastily, running a stop sign.

My breaths come a little easier inside my small sedan than out on the street, but I need to be in my safe place: in my bed and under the covers, door shut and windows closed. It’s only eleven A.M. and it already feels like the longest day of my life. I just want to escape the outside world and seek refuge where no one can see me—where no one can ask me if I’m okay, because I’m not.

I speed past the pharmacy and my old high school, and in less than five minutes I’ve made it to my apartment. I rush up the stairs and head inside, quickly locking the door behind me.

I’m home.

This fact alone should relieve the aching pressure in my chest, but it doesn’t. It’s not enough. So I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and close myself in my bedroom. I click my bedside lamp on and close the blackout curtains. The subtle, warm light feels better than the harsh sunlight, but I’m not safe yet. I kick off my shoes and pull the covers back so I can climb into bed, but then I hear a scratch at the door and a concerned meow from the other side.

“Sorry, Cleetus.” I crack the door to let him in, leaving it slightly ajar in case he needs to get out again.

I get in bed fully clothed and pull the blankets to my chest, leaving the weighted blanket over my legs. Cleetus immediately jumps onto the bed and starts pawing at the fluffy material of my duvet. When he’s done making biscuits, he curls atop my feet and settles.

I close my eyes and breathe. This time it works.

I am safe. I am secure, I tell myself. All of my worries are outside, and I’m in here where they can’t get me.

I remember the first time something like this happened. It was my senior year and time was running out to apply to colleges. There aren’t many higher education options close to Shadow Hills, and the idea of having to move far from home was too stressful to think about. My mother tried to convince me that it only seemed scary because I’d never been anywhere outside of my hometown before, but once I did, it would be exciting. As much as I wanted to believe her, I couldn’t. She never really understood my anxiety and the havoc it sometimes wrought on my mental health. She’s never really understood me .

I ended up locking myself in my room and putting off filling out applications until it was too late. I didn’t end up going to college. Instead, I stayed in Shadow Hills and started working. I don’t regret it, but sometimes I do wonder how different my life would have been if I’d decided to leave.

I hear a ping from my cell phone and see an unread text. It’s most likely Jamie, asking if I made it home alright, so I reach to send a quick reply. But the name on the screen surprises me. It’s not my mother, or Patrick, but my friend Joanna.

MONDAY 11:13 A.M. Hey girl, I heard about what happened today. I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?

We haven’t spoken in a couple months—not since she stopped working at Bound and Buried. That’s where we first met. At the time, she was an assistant manager, and I was just a part time clerk. My first day working at the store was our first shift together, and she could see I was uncomfortable dealing with customers. She went out of her way to make me feel more at ease.

As great as she was at leading others and dealing with the occasional customer frustration, eventually she decided to take a leap and quit to run a dog rescue full time, so I was given her position. I admire her heart and commitment to her passion. Not to mention she’s one of the nicest people on the planet, yet can still call you on your bullshit.

Her upbeat attitude and constant sarcasm always used to brighten my mood. We grew pretty close while working together, but we haven’t hung out since she left the bookstore. The fact that she took the time to check in on me means so much, it actually makes me feel bad about not reaching out sooner.

I shoot her a quick reply, thanking her for her concern and letting her know I’m alright. Before putting my phone away, I send another text, asking if she would want to hang out soon.

Switching the ringer off, I settle back into bed. With the feel of my weighted blanket holding me down, and Cleetus’s warm body against mine, I am finally able to relax. I stay like this until I fall asleep.

Because my phone is on silent, I don’t hear when Jamie calls at noon, or the ten times after that.

I wake up to a warm hand against my cheek, but it doesn’t startle me. I know it’s Jamie just from his touch—the calluses on his palm from lifting weights and the path his thumb takes as it draws circles against my skin.

“What time is it?” I ask hoarsely.

I don’t open my eyes, but I imagine he’s frowning. “It’s five thirty. Have you been asleep this whole time?”

The last time I looked at the clock it said eleven fifteen.

I roll over and see he’s right. I slept almost seven hours.

As I rub my eyes and stretch, extending my legs now that Cleetus is no longer at the foot of the bed, I remember flashes of another dream I had about Jamie. This time he wasn’t a giant but a dog. Or maybe a wolf. It was just the two of us, me sitting on a bench in front of the water at the park and wolf-Jamie curled at my feet like Cleetus. I took him for a walk around the walking trail, but he kept pulling at his leash and almost getting away from me.

I brush it off as just another odd way my brain is trying to sort out my stress, but then Jamie’s face comes into view.

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, my bedside lamp illuminating the left side of his face while the other is shadowed. He leans in closer and moves his unbandaged hand to my forehead as if to check for a temperature.

“I’m okay,” I tell him. I’ve been saying that a lot lately, still pretending to make everyone worry less. I shift to a sitting position and lean back against the headboard, keeping the covers pulled over my torso.

I’ve never had such a severe panic attack in front of Jamie before. He’s seen me approach that line, but I’ve never crossed it with him around. When my anxiety is at an all-time high, I have to go somewhere small. My room has always been my safe place. It was at my parents house, and it is now, here in my tiny apartment. It’s why I’ve never complained about the size. I prefer it this way. The closed-in space is like an embrace.

One of the reasons I’ve never accepted Jamie’s offer to move in with him is because I worry about his condo being too big. It seems silly, but it’s a genuine fear. In the midst of an anxiety attack, I would never be able to go downstairs to get water, or even walk down the hall to go to the bathroom. Here, I have everything just a few steps away. The guest room is fine when I’m staying for the weekend, but if I moved in, it would take a while for that space to feel completely safe. To feel like mine .

Jamie is watching me carefully as I sort through my current thoughts. He knows I’m spiraling, but I have to explain why I’m in bed or else he’s going to think something is seriously wrong.

“Are you sure?” he asks, still needing confirmation that I’m not sick with the flu or something.

I nod. “I just get like this sometimes,” I try to explain. “It’s not a big deal.”

Jamie narrows his eyes and removes his hand. “Uh huh,” he says, disbelieving. “Try again.”

My head falls back with a thump against the headboard and I sigh. “It’s an anxiety thing. This thing with Patrick is stressing me out. I don’t like what he's doing to our relationship.” The admission slips out accidentally, but I keep going. “It’s like he’s putting an unnecessary strain on our friendship,” I continue, purposely changing the word and hoping Jamie won’t notice. “I can’t help but worry. You’ve been…different. I feel like you’re keeping something from me.”

Though it’s true that Jamie’s domineering and aggressive nature has been shocking, I have to admit to myself that it’s also been intriguing. Something has changed between us, and the only factor I keep coming back to is Patrick, yet I haven’t quite put my finger on it.

Jamie’s expression changes to something like guilt. He pulls back and clears his throat. “Raegan, listen,” he begins, but Cleetus startles us both by jumping up onto the bed between us. He must have heard us talking and come to investigate.

“Hi, baby boy,” I mew, scratching his cheeks and under his chin. He purrs happily and rubs his face against mine.

Jamie stands up, and Cleetus turns to face him like a guard dog. Jamie holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m just going to get your mother some fresh water. At ease, soldier.” He takes my still full water bottle and leaves my room. He’s probably going to dump more ice cubes in it. He knows I like my water to be cold.

Cleetus turns back to face me and I give him a reassuring kiss on the forehead. “I’m okay, honey. I promise.” He seems to accept this because he leaps from the bed over to my bookshelf and lounges along the top shelf to casually keep an eye on things.

Jamie comes back a minute later with a clinking water bottle and a pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwich from the fridge. I take the snack and unwrap it.

Instead of sitting on the edge like he did before, he plops down beside me on the other side of the bed. He toes off his boots and tucks his socked-feet under my weighted blanket then pulls another sandwich out of the front pocket of his hoodie.

“I forgot how heavy this thing is,” he says, referencing the blanket. “How do you not feel like you’re suffocating under there?”

It’s hard to explain to other people how much being bundled up like a burrito makes me happy, but Jamie knows me well enough that I at least don’t have to start from scratch. “It’s comforting. Like I’m being held.”

A look of understanding washes over his face and I know he gets it. That’s the thing about Jamie. Even when there are new things he doesn’t know about me, once he discovers them, they just click into place.

He never asks why. Only, what can I do?

Then his face falls. He hangs his head but I can see the grimace that takes shape. “I made you feel this way, didn’t I?” he asks.

“How you acted didn’t scare me,” I promise, just as I did this morning at his kitchen island. That conversation feels like it happened days ago. “I just feel like you’re keeping something from me. I don’t want us to have secrets between us.”

He stares at me in anguish, and I just know he has something he wants to say, but he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses me lightly on the forehead.

“Nothing has changed, Rae. I swear it. It’s you and me. You’re still my best friend.”

I desperately want his words to reassure me, but I can’t ignore his dismissal of my concern. Something bigger is going on here, and I need to know what it is.

Being his friend means the world to me, and it used to be all I needed, but because of everything that’s happened, I’m wondering for the first time what it would feel like to have more.