Bearly Hanging On (The Jamesburg Shifters #6)(45)

"You're talking," he replied. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I'm also naked. Most guys would... anyway. So there you go, there's the first, and by far the least dramatic part of my life. Your turn." Jamie grabbed her pile of clothes off the ground and shuffled into the skirt, and the shirt, but chose to forget about the panties, which were very stretched on the waistband, though she couldn't remember how they got that way.

"Any day now, cowboy," Jamie urged, leaning back against the cave wall and crossing her arms in front of her breasts.

Ryan let out a deeply heaved sigh. "We moved around a lot. My parents were - or my dad, really, he was kind of draconian, really—"

"Wait, like an actual one?"

"Dragon?" Ryan laughed. "No, just a dick. At least, that's what I thought at the time. I've figured out he was the exact opposite. He and my mom moved around a lot, and had a bunch of money, but never really acted like it. We lived in shitty apartments, trailers on the outskirts of town, places like that." He stopped talking for long enough that Jamie thought he needed some encouragement.

"But why? If he had money, then why—?"

"Because they were places he could pay for in cash," Ryan cut her off. His voice got a little more strained and tight. "He was a thief. But not the normal kind. Not the knocking over liquor stores for a hundred bucks kind of guy."

Jamie's eyes were about as wide as they could get.

"Stole diamonds. Broke into vaults - but never banks, because no one ever gets away with that - privately held safe deposit boxes, that kind of thing. He only stole things that he, in his own way, had decided were wrong." Ryan waved his hand, "Anyway, that's my dad. We don't need to go into details about his moral compass because trust me, it makes no sense to follow up the phrase 'he was a thief' with 'he only did good things' but that's what I'd have to do."

"Huh," Jamie said flatly. "And here you are, breaking into grocery stores to feed old people. Sorry, that was insensitive."

Ryan laughed anyway. "Maybe, but it's the truth. Anyway, we moved around, there wasn't any stability to speak of. Wherever Dad had some wild heist planned, there we were. He never did get caught, but then again, he never did much of anything he wanted to do. He had all these big dreams," Ryan shook his head, obviously remembering something painful and distant.

"If I'm being honest, I've tried to forget all that. I get myself into bad places when I don't."

Sensing his growing discomfort, Jamie took over for a minute. "My parents weren't rich, but also weren't anywhere near that interesting. Except for the whole turning into bats thing. Yours were both bears?"

"Bear shifters, yeah." He laughed. "Human women can carry wolf cubs, but bears? That might be a little much."

Jamie smiled too, relieved for the moment of reprieve from emotional intensity. "I've seen some tiny shifters push out some damn big bears, my friend," she said. "You'd be surprised what kind of stretching can go on down there."

Ryan clenched his eyes shut, and put his hand over the top of them. "Yeah, I can imagine. In the few years I've been around here, I've seen all kinds of shit that would make a bear eat out of a Whataburger trashcan."

"You mean you don't all do that? One of my friends, you might have met him - Ash Morgan? The big guy? Bear on the police force? Anyway, he was chasing his mate-to-be, though she didn't know it yet, around the forest and she dumped a garbage can over trying to trip him."

"Oh God," Ryan said, "don't tell me the punchline to this."

"That trashcan was full of slightly-old barbecue, and my buddy can't say no to ribs."

"Okay, ribs? That I can understand. Sticky, sweet, mustard sauce? I'd eat that out of the trash."

"Ew!" Jamie recoiled. "I can't believe you'd say something like that." She let a moment pass with Ryan turning increasingly deep shades of crimson before she finished. "Mustard sauce? Where are you from? Give me vinegar or give me death," she said. "Actually, when I eat it, it's pretty much death anyway, but vinegar tastes the best."

"So," Ryan circled a question. "You can eat? Like eat eat?"

With a snort, Jamie pursed her lips. "I've got a mouth, don't I? It's," she screwed up her face, looking for the right description. "Imagine a real intense case of lactose intolerance. That's more or less what happens. It's worth it sometimes, especially for pumpkin pie."

Jamie felt her fangs grow a little, and felt that antiseptic saliva begin to run. "Er, anyway," she said with a smile, "pie, pumpkins, Thanksgiving, oh right. Back to my parents. They weren't rich, but they had enough to buy a decent place and put food on the table, so to speak."

"Brothers? Sisters?" Ryan asked.

"Nope. You?"

“Brother and a sister both. But we were all pretty far apart in age. Never was terribly close to them.”

"Great, we're both entitled little shits.” Jamie cracked a smile. “That's what they say, right? Anyway, my parents were just normal. Well, Jamesburg normal anyway."

Ryan shifted his weight, splaying his huge legs out in front of himself. Jamie found herself drawn toward him until she was sitting in his lap, skirt drawn up, straddling his lap.