Chapter Text
Eight weeks old and already convinced they owned the world. Lee had expected puppies to be… dumb. Loud, yes. Chaotic, sure.
But the standard type of stupid you could redirect with a toy and a stern tone. These weren’t that.
These were wolf-dogs with half-human wiring, and it showed in the way they watched things. In the way they paused before committing to trouble, as if weighing the consequences and deciding they were worth it anyway.
The lake was one of those city-adjacent stretches of water that pretended it was wilderness if you looked at it from the right angle. Trees lined the path, their leaves already starting to go bronze and yellow at the edges. Tourists drifted along the shoreline with cameras, pointing at reflections like they’d invented sunlight.
The air smelled like damp earth and decaying leaves, sharp enough to feel clean. A breeze came off the water with teeth in it.
Lee had dressed like he was going to war with the weather, jacket zipped high, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders tight against the wind.
Omar had dressed like he was immune to the concept of cold, hoodie open at the throat, chain flashing when the light caught it, walking with a loose ease that made Lee want to shove him into the lake out of principle.
The pups were the only reason Lee didn’t consider bailing. Not because the outing was awful—he actually liked the lake—but because these were the first weeks where leaving the apartment didn’t feel like a tactical operation.
The puppies were big enough now to toddle with more confidence, their bodies thickening into something sturdier. Their fur had fluffed. Their eyes were open and far too intelligent. They moved like they had plans.
Lee kept his attention on them without meaning to, the way he always did now. Not counting them individually, not tracking every step, just… aware.
The leash in Omar’s hand. The faint scrabble of paws.
The way passersby smiled automatically and then hesitated, like their brains were trying to reconcile “cute puppies” with something in their posture that read as too alert.
“See?” Omar said, catching Lee’s glance. “They ain’t regular.”
“I noticed,” Lee muttered.
They’d barely made it to the water’s edge before Lee learned his second lesson: the pups didn’t respond like dogs; they responded like toddlers pretending they didn’t hear you.
Hela was the first to prove it. She’d slipped closer to the shoreline with the careful confidence of someone doing something forbidden on purpose.
Her little black and tan body looked almost comically sturdy on short, chunky legs, but her movements were precise. She didn’t lunge. She didn’t dart. She walked like she had business at the lake.
Lee’s stomach tightened. The water wasn’t violent, but it moved in little cold waves against the shore. He pictured her tumbling in and panicking.
“Hela,” Lee called, voice firm. “Come here.”
The puppy stopped. She turned her head slowly, deliberately, like she was letting him see she had heard him perfectly. Then she stomped one paw.
Not a scratch. Not a shuffle. A stomp. Full weight. A tiny, visible flare of attitude in the motion.
Lee stared.
Hela stomped again, as if emphasizing her point.
The people nearby didn’t even notice; they were too busy photographing leaves. Lee, however, felt personally disrespected.
“Did you just—” he started, then stopped because yes, she had.
Hela stood there at the edge of the water, chin tipped up, ears perked, eyes narrowed in a way that made her tan eyebrow markings look even more judgmental.
Lee pointed at her without thinking. “Get back here.”
Hela gave him a look like who are you talking to, then stomped a third time.
Lee’s jaw tightened. He could feel his own temper spark, that familiar irritation that always came when someone challenged him on purpose.
Omar, beside him, made a low amused sound. Not a laugh, more like a satisfied huff.
“Oh,” Omar said, voice warm with recognition. “That’s my mama's attitude right there.”
Lee didn’t look away from Hela. “Don’t try to make this sound cute.”
“I’m serious,” Omar went on, stepping a little closer to the shoreline but not raising his voice. He didn’t bark a command or loom over her. He just grounded his tone, low and steady, the way he did when the pups were fussing and he needed the room to quiet. “Come on, lil girl,” he said. “Quit actin’ brand new.”
Hela let out a squeaky little growl and stomped once more. Then, with the finality of someone who believed she had made her position perfectly clear, she turned back toward the water.
Lee stared at the narrow black line of her back, stunned by the sheer nerve packed into a body that barely cleared his ankle.
Eight weeks old. She had been alive for eight weeks, most of which she’d spent sleeping in a pile and learning how her own feet worked, and she already carried herself like Lee was staff who had constantly disappointed her.
His hands came out of his pockets.
“Hela.”
She stopped again.
That was what got him. She understood her name. She understood his tone. She knew exactly what she was being told to do. There was no confusion in the pointed swivel of one ear or the slow glance she gave him over her shoulder. She was simply refusing.
Lee started toward her, boots grinding over the damp grit of the path.
Hela watched him approach. Her weight shifted forward, not quite another step toward the lake, but enough to make the warning clear.
Try me.
Omar clicked his tongue beside him. “Baby, hold up.”
Lee turned his head just far enough to give him a look.
Omar lifted both hands, though the leash remained looped securely around one wrist.
“I got her.”
“You’ve been saying that since we left the apartment.”
“And everybody still here, ain’t they?”
That was technically true, which made it more irritating.
Lee folded his arms and stepped back half a pace. “Fine. Go get your mother’s attitude away from the water.”
Omar’s mouth twitched, but he seemed to sense that laughing would shorten his life. He crouched instead, bringing himself closer to Hela’s level without pulling on the leash.
“A’ight, lil girl,” he said. “You made your point.”
Hela held his gaze.
Omar’s face changed. The amusement didn’t disappear, but it settled under something firmer. His voice dropped low, carrying easily beneath the wind and the faint slap of water against the shore. “Come on now. Ain’t nobody keepin’ you from the lake forever. You just ain’t goin’ in today.”
Hela’s ears angled back.
Lee couldn’t hear whatever existed beneath the puppy’s small growls and stubborn posture.
Omar could. He saw the moment some silent complaint reached him in the way his eyebrows lifted.
“No,” Omar said. “I don’t care if it smell interestin'.”
Hela gave another little growl.
“Mhm. Water still gon’ be wet tomorrow.”
Lee’s irritation snagged on reluctant curiosity. He looked between them.
“What is she saying?”
Omar kept his attention on Hela. “She wanna know why we brought her all the way out here if she can’t go look.”
“She can look from somewhere she won’t drown.”
“That’s what I told her.”
Hela stamped her paw again.
Lee’s eyes narrowed. “Is she arguing with both of us?”
“Mostly you.”
“Of course she is.”
Omar rubbed his thumb across his lower lip, studying her. “She say you always stop her right when she get to the good stuff.”
Lee went still. There were several problems with that statement. The first was that Hela apparently possessed enough of an internal narrative to believe she had been repeatedly wronged. The second was that Omar had delivered the translation without a hint of irony. The third was that Lee could immediately think of at least five occasions from the past week that she might have been referring to.
The electrical cord.
The open cabinet.
The trash bag.
The dead leaf she’d tried to swallow whole.
His sock, still attached to his foot at the time.
“All the good parts have been dangerous,” Lee said.
Omar’s eyes unfocused for a moment as he listened, then he sucked his teeth. “She don’t agree.”
“She doesn’t have to agree. She’s a puppy.”
Hela’s squeaky growl rose in pitch.
Omar looked at Lee. “She took that personal.”
“Good.”
For a moment, nobody moved. The breeze stirred the fur along Hela’s back and sent bronze leaves scraping over the path. Behind her, the lake flashed silver beneath the weak autumn sun. She looked incredibly small against it, despite everything in her posture suggesting she considered herself capable of defeating the entire body of water if necessary.
Then Omar extended one hand toward her, palm up. “C’mon,” he said again, softer now. “We ain’t fightin’ you. Just come back over here.”
Hela looked at his hand.
She looked at Lee.
Lee held her stare. He refused to plead with something that had once fallen asleep face first in a food bowl.
Hela’s nose lifted. She gave one last put upon huff and turned away from the shoreline. Her return was not surrender. Lee knew that by the exaggerated care she took with each step, head high, tail stiff, moving as though coming back had been her idea from the beginning. She walked directly past Omar’s waiting hand and stopped beside Lee’s boot. Then she sat on his foot.
Lee looked down.
Hela faced the lake with her back pressed to his shin, apparently satisfied that she had reclaimed the final word.
Omar stayed crouched for a second, shoulders beginning to shake. He covered his mouth with his hand, but the laugh came through anyway, low, helpless, and far too pleased.
Lee slowly turned his head toward him.
Omar cleared his throat and stood. “She came back.”
“She’s sitting on me.”
“Means she listen and found a compromise.”
“This isn’t a compromise.”
Hela leaned more of her chunky weight against Lee’s ankle.
Omar glanced down at her. His smile softened into something warm enough to take some of the bite out of Lee’s annoyance.
“She love you.”
“She has a hostile way of showing it.”
“That run in the family.”
Lee gave him a long stare.
Omar looked toward the lake, mouth still curved, suddenly fascinated by a flock of birds moving above the opposite shore.
Lee could have argued. Instead, he returned his hands to his pockets and let Hela stay where she was. Her small body was warm against his boot despite the cold coming off the water.
A few feet away, the rest of the pups had found a shallow drift of fallen leaves gathered against the edge of the path. They moved through it with the grave concentration of explorers crossing unfamiliar terrain, short legs lifting too high and landing with soft, papery crunches.
The leaves swallowed their paws almost to the ankle in places. Every step sent brittle oak and maple fragments skittering over the dirt, bronze and yellow spinning loose behind them.
Lee watched without turning his head completely.
He didn’t need to track each one. He knew where they were from the sound alone now: the scratching little rhythm of paws, the rustle of leaves disturbed, the occasional breathy grunt of effort.
His awareness stretched around them in a loose perimeter, automatic and constant. He could look at the lake and still know when one of them wandered half a pace too far from the others.
It was irritating how natural that had become.
Moe emerged from the leaves with a curled brown leaf stuck briefly to his back. He shook once, dislodging it, then paused.
His eyes found Hela.
Lee saw the decision happen.
There was no puppy blur, no accidental collision. Moe looked at his sister, looked at the side of her head, and apparently concluded that her ear had become the most compelling object in the entire park.
He waddled over with complete purpose.
Hela remained seated on Lee’s boot, facing the water and radiating attitude.
Moe opened his mouth and chomped down on her ear.
The sound Hela made was so outraged it scarcely sounded canine. A sharp, squeaky bark burst out of her, high enough to make a nearby pair of tourists glance over.
She shot to her feet and spun around.
Moe released her immediately, but he didn’t retreat far. He stood there with his mouth slightly open, ears tilted forward, looking less guilty than interested in what might happen next.
Hela stomped.
Hard.
One tiny paw struck the packed dirt with enough force to scatter a dry leaf.
Moe blinked at her.
Hela barked again, even sharper this time, then stomped once more as if the first had not conveyed the severity of his offense.
Omar made a sound through his nose.
Lee cut his eyes toward him.
Omar had the good sense not to laugh outright. His lips were pressed together, cheeks tightening with the effort, but his amusement was all over his face.
“Don’t,” Lee said.
“I ain’t said nothin’.”
“You’re about to.”
“I’m listenin’.”
“To what?”
Omar’s gaze shifted between the puppies. “Hela tellin’ him she gon’ kill him.”
Lee looked down at the two small bodies facing each other near his boots.
Hela’s posture was rigid, ears forward and tail stiff with affront. Moe looked entirely unconcerned by the threat. If anything, he seemed encouraged by having produced such a strong reaction.
“He doesn’t believe her,” Lee said.
“Nah.” Omar’s mouth finally broke into a grin. “He think she loud.”
Hela stomped again.
Moe leaned forward and tried for the same ear.
Hela jerked back, barking with fresh fury.
Lee moved before thought had fully caught up, bending and sliding one hand beneath Moe’s chest. He lifted him away from her and tucked the chunky pup against his side. Moe’s paws hung loosely for a second before he settled into the hold as if he had merely been waiting for transportation.
Hela remained below, staring up at him.
“Don’t look at me,” Lee told her. “I stopped him.”
Her tan eyebrow markings made the stare worse.
Omar shifted closer, his shoulder brushing Lee’s.
“She think you should’ve stopped him before.”
Lee turned his head. “Before he did the thing nobody knew he was going to do?”
“Mhm.”
“That’s not how this works.”
Hela gave one quieter, grumbling sound.
Omar glanced down at her, then nodded as if she had offered a reasonable rebuttal.
“She ain’t interested in excuses.”
Lee stared at him.
Omar looked away toward the lake again, though his shoulders moved once with a suppressed laugh.
Moe adjusted himself in Lee’s arms, all dense warmth and soft fur. For something so young, he had already become surprisingly heavy. Not difficult to hold, but solid enough that Lee could feel the growing weight of him through the front of his jacket.
“You’re fat,” Lee murmured.
Moe tilted his head back to look at him. Then his tail started going. It beat rapidly against Lee’s forearm, the whole back half of his round little body joining the motion until Lee had to adjust his grip.
Moe pulled his lips back, exposing a row of tiny white teeth in something that sat halfway between a grin and a grimace.
Lee stared down at him.
Moe held the expression. His ears went slightly back. His eyes narrowed into pleased little crescents. The tail kept wagging. The first time he’d done it, Lee had thought something was wrong with his face. Then Moe had repeated it after being caught dragging a sock under the couch.
Again when he’d peed six inches from the training pad and been confronted with the evidence. Again after gnawing the softened corner off one of Lee’s books.
Somewhere along the way, the puppy had discovered that pulling his mouth into a strange, toothy imitation of a human smile made people hesitate before scolding him.
Worse, it worked.
Lee looked at the small grinning face and felt his irritation begin to loosen against his will.
“You know what you’re doing,” he said.
Moe’s tail beat harder.
Omar leaned nearer, taking in the expression.
“Look at that.”
“He’s trying to manipulate me.”
Moe widened the smile as if demonstrating the strength of Lee’s case.
Omar let out a quiet laugh and reached over to scratch beneath the puppy’s chin.
“Aw, he just lettin’ you know he sweet.”
“He bit his sister.”
“He got complicated feelings.”
Lee gave Omar a slow look.
Omar withdrew his hand, but the curve of his mouth remained.
“A’ight. He guilty.”
Moe turned his grin toward Omar, apparently willing to widen the scope of his appeal.
Lee studied him with growing suspicion. There was no mistaking the appeasement in it now. The drawn back ears, lowered head, frantic tail. It was a canine gesture, but there was something deliberate in the timing that felt almost human.
Moe had made a connection. Smile, and the irritated voices softened. Show teeth in precisely this way, and the hands that might set him down instead pulled him closer.
It had taken him less than two months to learn how to work both of his parents.
“That shouldn’t be effective,” Lee muttered.
“But it is.”
“It looks deranged.”
Omar sucked his teeth, gaze moving over the plump body tucked into Lee’s arms. “He handsome.”
Moe had always been the roundest in the litter. Even as a newborn, when all four of them had looked unfinished and alarmingly fragile, Moe had carried more softness around his middle. He ate with complete dedication. He slept with equal commitment.
Now that his legs had thickened and his coat had fluffed, he had the compact build of something designed to roll downhill without taking damage.
Though, the title of biggest belonged to Dante.
There was no competition there.
Dante had arrived larger and kept the lead, his body stretching toward the proportions of the wolf hidden in their blood. His muzzle had lengthened earlier than the others. His paws looked too large for him, the dark fur around his face giving him a sharper, older appearance.
Moe looked like a puppy.
Dante, from certain angles, looked like a wolf someone had shrunk.
Moe didn’t seem bothered by the distinction. He had girth.
Omar placed his palm beneath one of Moe’s dangling paws, lifting it lightly. “He solid.”
“He’s heavy.”
“Strong bones.”
“Fat.”
The puppy’s nose lifted. He leaned forward and pressed the side of his muzzle beneath Lee’s chin, forcing Lee to raise his head or accept a mouthful of fur.
Omar made a choked noise beside him.
Lee looked over without moving Moe.
Omar had turned his face away, one fist held against his mouth.
“You got something to say?”
“Nah.”
“Then look at me.”
“I’m enjoyin’ the lake.”
Lee’s stare settled on the side of his face.
Omar’s shoulders shook once. “He got you figured out, baby.”
“He doesn’t.”
“He bite his sister, grin at you, and now you holdin’ him like he the victim.”
Lee glanced down.
Moe had gone limp against him with remarkable speed, one front leg draped over Lee’s arm. His eyes were still open, watching Lee from beneath slightly lowered lids. He looked content, secure, and entirely free of remorse.
Lee hated the evidence.
“He’s being removed from the situation,” he said.
“Mhm.”
“That’s all.”
“Sure.”
Lee’s expression made Omar press his lips together again.
The wind swept across the path, carrying the dry scrape of leaves and the mineral chill of the lake. Moe’s fur fluttered along his neck. He burrowed closer into the front of Lee’s jacket, nosing at the gap near the zipper until only the top of his head and one bright eye remained visible. Lee instinctively angled his body away from the wind.
Omar saw. He didn’t comment. He only watched Lee for a moment, amusement easing into a quieter warmth that made Lee feel more exposed than any joke could have.
By the time they turned back toward the parking lot, the puppies had reached the end of whatever reserve had carried them along the trail.
It happened gradually. The sharp little pull of the leashes softened.The scrabble of paws through leaves lost its urgency. They still stopped to sniff anything remotely interesting, but the pauses grew longer, each new discovery weighed against the effort of continuing forward.
Lee noticed before Omar said anything.
He felt the change in the rhythm around them. The pups had been all forward momentum on the walk out, tugging and testing, convinced every patch of ground existed for their inspection.
Now their steps had gone heavy. Their ears sat lower. The entire group moved with the stubborn exhaustion of children who had refused to admit they were tired until their bodies began making the decision for them.
Moe lasted the least amount of time.
He slowed beside Lee’s boot, took three determined steps, then stopped entirely.
Lee looked down.
Moe looked up. The puppy’s tongue showed faintly between his teeth. His round body rose and fell with each breath, tail giving a single hopeful wag when their eyes met.
“No,” Lee said.
Moe sat. The puppy pulled his lips back into that strange little grin.
“No.”
Moe’s tail tapped the path.
Omar kept walking for another two steps before the leash made him stop. He glanced back, took in the scene, and smiled.
“Look like he done.”
“He can walk.”
Moe’s expression did not change.
Omar shifted the bundled leashes in his hand.
“He can. He ain’t gonna.”
Lee gave him a long look, then looked back down at the puppy.
Moe lifted one paw. It was not injured. Lee knew that immediately. There had been no stumble, no yelp, no change in the way he’d moved before stopping. The paw was simply being offered as additional evidence in the case for transportation.
“You’re manipulative,” Lee told him.
Moe grinned wider.
Omar turned his face toward the trees. His shoulders moved once.
Lee bent and lifted the puppy before Omar could say anything. Moe settled against him with shameless speed, front paws folding over Lee’s forearm, body going loose and comfortable as though this had always been the intended arrangement.
He was warm through Lee’s jacket and heavier than he had any right to be after only eight weeks of existence.
“There,” Lee muttered. “Happy?”
Moe rested his chin on Lee’s wrist. The tail started again, thumping softly against Lee’s side.
Omar looked over. “He ain’t even pretendin’ to be tired no more.”
Lee glanced down. Moe’s eyes were bright. Alert. Perfectly interested in the world now that he no longer had to propel himself through it.
Lee narrowed his eyes. “I know.”
“You got played.”
Lee adjusted Moe’s weight more securely against his chest and kept walking.
The path curved beneath a line of trees shedding leaves into the wind. Sunlight came through in shifting pieces, warming one side of Lee’s face before disappearing behind branches again.
The lake flashed between trunks to their left, silver-blue and restless beneath the pale sky. Somewhere behind them, tourists continued taking pictures. Their voices faded as Lee and Omar moved farther from the main overlook.
For a few minutes, neither of them spoke.
Omar managed the leashes with more patience than Lee would have expected from him months ago.
He shortened them when the path narrowed, loosened them when there was room, gave a quiet sound whenever one pup threatened to veer toward something they shouldn't. He moved easily despite the tangle at his hand, body loose, attention split in several directions without looking strained by it.
Lee watched him from the corner of his eye.
Omar looked domestic.
The thought arrived without warning and made Lee nearly trip over a tree root.
Omar still looked like someone Lee’s mother would immediately assess for criminal history. The open hoodie, the chain, the tattoos visible at his hands, the dark curls pushed back by the wind, all of it stayed intact. But there was a familiarity in the way he checked the pups, in the way he matched their slowing pace without complaint.
Seeing him like this still unsettled Lee in a different way.
Capable. Present. Belonging here.
Omar caught him looking.
“What?”
Lee faced forward. “Nothing.”
“You was starin’.”
“I was looking past you.”
“At what?”
“The trees.”
Omar glanced at the trees on his other side, then back at Lee.
“Trees over there too.”
Lee said nothing.
Omar smiled to himself and let it go, which was somehow worse.
Moe shifted in Lee’s arms, nosing beneath the edge of his jacket collar. His breath was warm against Lee’s throat.
Lee tried moving him down, but the puppy stretched upward, determined to wedge his face into the warmest available space.
“Stop that,” Lee murmured.
Moe ignored him.
“You have fur.”
The puppy burrowed closer.
Omar looked over again. “He cold?”
“He’s spoiled.”
Lee tucked one hand over Moe’s back anyway.
The parking lot came into view ahead through the trees, broken into long rows between bare branches. Omar’s truck sat near the far edge, dark and familiar among a scattering of smaller cars.
Lee was already regretting the distance. Moe had seemed manageable when Lee first picked him up. Compact. Warm. Soft enough to settle easily against his chest. Now he felt as though he had gained several pounds in the last three minutes out of spite.
Halfway across the lot, the pups slowed again.
The leash in Omar’s hand went slack, then nearly still. He stopped and looked down at the remaining three. Hela, Reba, and Dante clustered close together near his boots, their earlier confidence reduced to a much slower, heavier sort of determination. They had reached the stage of exhaustion where pride remained but coordination had left.
Omar looked ahead at the truck. Then back down. “A’ight,” he said under his breath.
Lee watched him crouch, expecting him to lift one and leave the others to finish the walk.
Instead, Omar gathered all three. He moved without any visible calculation, sliding one broad hand beneath Dante’s chest while his other arm swept around Hela and Reba together.
There was a brief tangle of leashes, paws, and sleepy objection before Omar rose in one smooth motion with the entire bundle settled against him.
Dante, the largest by far, hung lengthwise across Omar’s forearms, oversized paws resting against the front of his hoodie. Hela was tucked along his ribs, her black and tan head emerging beneath his elbow with the stern expression of someone who had not authorized this arrangement. Reba settled closest to his chest, white and brown fur bright against the dark fabric.
Omar adjusted them once, more for comfort than weight.
Lee stared. He knew Omar was strong. It wasn’t new information. He’d watched him move furniture alone that should have required two people.
Still, seeing him scoop up three growing pups as easily as another person might collect laundry made Lee’s mind pause around the image.
Omar glanced over. “What?”
Lee’s eyes moved over the pile in his arms. “Nothing.”
“You lookin’ at me funny.”
“I’m looking at the fact that you just picked up three dogs without bending your knees properly.”
Omar looked down at the pups as if checking Lee’s math.
“They ain’t that heavy.”
“Dante is half a wolf already.”
“He still little.”
Dante’s dark muzzle rested across Omar’s wrist. His paws looked enormous against the man’s forearm, far too large for the rest of him, a promise of what he would eventually become.
Lee shifted Moe against his chest.
“You’re not a reliable judge of weight.”
Omar’s mouth pulled crooked. “You callin’ me strong?”
Lee gave him a flat look and started walking again.
Omar fell into step beside him easily, three puppies secure against his chest. The leashes looped around his wrist bounced lightly with every stride, more decoration than restraint now.
He didn’t have to brace himself or readjust every few seconds. His shoulders remained loose. His breathing never changed.
Moe, meanwhile, had somehow grown denser.
Lee could feel the puppy’s whole weight dragging gradually downward in his arms, softened by sleep until every part of him seemed determined to obey gravity at once. His warm nose remained tucked near Lee’s collar, breath puffing against the side of his throat.
Lee shifted him higher.
Moe made a faint protesting sound without waking.
“You’re the smallest problem here,” Lee muttered, “and somehow the most work.”
Omar looked over. “Want me to take him too?”
Lee’s head turned sharply.
Omar’s expression was innocent enough to be insulting.
He already had Hela, Reba, and Dante gathered against him with room left in his posture, as if adding a fourth pup would be no more inconvenient than carrying an extra grocery bag.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Could stack him on top.”
Lee looked at the furry bundle in Omar’s arms, then at Moe pressed against his chest.
“They’re our children, not firewood.”
The parking lot opened around them, cold wind moving unobstructed across the asphalt. Dry leaves skittered beneath parked cars and caught against tires.
The truck remained several rows away, but Omar didn’t seem concerned by the distance. He walked with the same loose stride he’d had beside the lake, three tired bodies barely altering his balance.
Lee hated how much he liked the sight. There was something deeply reassuring about Omar’s strength when it was used this way. The same hands that could tear, lift, and hold far more than a human body should were now arranging sleepy pups so no paw hung uncomfortably and no leash pulled against a harness.
Omar lowered his chin when Reba shifted against him, murmuring something too quiet for Lee to catch.
The movement made Lee’s chest tighten.
From a distance, they probably looked like two men who had badly underestimated the stamina of their dogs.
Lee knew better. He knew the warm weight in his arms had once fit almost entirely inside one hand. He remembered Moe slick and tiny, making thin newborn sounds while Omar worked with a focus Lee had never seen in him before.
He remembered watching Dante’s longer muzzle take shape over the weeks, seeing Hela’s temper arrive before her balance, Reba’s quiet curiosity sharpening every day.
Now they were heavy enough to tire themselves out. Heavy enough to be carried home.
The realization sat strangely in him.
Their growth was proof of time passing, and Lee still hadn’t adjusted to the fact that time no longer belonged only to him. It moved through the puppies too, quick and visible, changing them while he watched.
“Think Dante’s gonna be as big as you?” Lee asked.
Omar glanced down at the dark pup resting across his arms. “In wolf shape?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe.” Omar considered him for a moment. “He got big feet. Mama used to say you can tell by the feet.”
Lee looked at Dante’s paws again. “That feels like something people say when they don’t know.”
“She was right a lot.”
“She also lived in the woods for stretches at a time.”
“Exactly. Expert.”
Lee’s eyes slid toward him.
Omar kept walking, mouth curved.
The truck was finally close enough that Lee could see the old scrape along the passenger side door and the blankets piled across the back seat through the window.
Omar reached it first and stopped beside the rear door. For the first time, the situation presented him with an actual obstacle. Both arms were occupied.
Lee waited.
Omar looked at the handle.
Then at Lee.
Lee held Moe a little more securely. “You’re the one with supernatural strength.”
“Strength don’t grow extra hands.”
“You could probably open it with your teeth.
Omar’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You think you funny.”
Lee stared back, face blank.
Omar shifted the three pups against one arm.
Lee watched, momentarily certain he was about to drop one.
Omar gathered their combined weight against his chest with a single forearm, holding them steady as easily as if they weighed nothing. With his freed hand, he opened the truck door.
He looked at Lee.
Lee looked at the armful of puppies held securely against one side of Omar’s body.
“Show-off,” he said.
Omar’s grin flashed. “Now you callin’ me strong.”
“I’m calling you annoying.”
“Close enough.”
He bent and settled the pups onto the blankets one at a time, movements careful despite the ease with which he’d carried them. Dante went down first, sprawling across the seat with a long sigh. Hela was next, too tired to lodge a formal complaint. Reba curled toward the warmth already waiting for her.
Lee leaned inside and placed Moe beside them. The puppy stirred just enough to press into the pile, then went still.
All four fit together across the back seat, though Dante’s growing frame made the arrangement tighter than it had been on the drive out. Moe’s golden brown body disappeared partly beneath a dark leg. Hela’s eyebrow markings remained visible above the blanket. Reba’s white patch caught the dim light through the open door.
Omar leaned beside Lee, one hand braced against the truck’s roof.
His breathing remained even. Not so much as a hint that he had carried three of them across half a parking lot.
“You could’ve carried all four,” Lee said.
“Yeah.”
Lee turned his head. “You offered just to make a point.”
Omar’s mouth went crooked.
“I offered ’cause your arms look tired.”
Lee looked away before Omar could see too much land in his face.
“They’re fine.”
“Mhm.”
Lee reached in and pulled the edge of the blanket over Moe’s back.
“Shut the door.”
Omar did, sealing the puppies into the warm cab.
They stood there for a moment in the cold parking lot, arms empty now, the sudden absence of weight oddly noticeable.
Omar rolled one shoulder and glanced toward Lee.
“Good walk.”
Lee looked through the window at the sleeping pile.
“Next time we park closer.”
Omar laughed and headed around the truck.
Lee followed, hands returning to his pockets.
The heater had only just begun pushing warm air through the vents when Omar pulled out of the parking spot.
For the first few minutes, the truck was filled with the low hum of the road, the soft rattle somewhere in the dashboard that Omar kept saying he would fix, and the faint shifting of blankets in the back seat.
The puppies were quiet now, their earlier determination burned down to sleep.
Lee sat angled toward the window, one hand tucked beneath the opposite arm for warmth.
The lake disappeared behind bare trees, flashes of water visible through the branches before the road curved and replaced it with houses, gas stations, and the dull geometry of the city pressing back in.
His arms still felt full. That was the strange part. Moe was no longer pressed against his chest, but Lee could still feel the shape of him there, solid little body, warm breath, the weight dragging gradually downward as he slept.
Lee rubbed one forearm absently, looking out at the passing storefronts.
Omar drove one handed, loose at the wheel. He glanced into the rearview mirror every few seconds, not enough to seem nervous, but often enough that Lee noticed.
After the third check, Lee looked over.
“What.”
Omar’s eyes stayed on the road. “Nothin’.”
“You keep looking at them.”
“I got mirrors. I use ’em.”
Lee watched him for another moment, then turned back toward the window.
“They’re asleep.”
“I know.”
“Then stop checking like one of them is going to open the door.”
Omar’s mouth tugged at one corner. “Hela been studyin’ the handle.”
Lee looked over his shoulder.
The puppies remained bundled together beneath the blanket, warm and still. Nothing but soft fur and the faint rise and fall of sleeping bodies.
“She can't even reach the handle.”
“Not today.”
Lee faced forward again. “Don’t say that.”
Omar’s grin widened briefly, then faded as his attention settled back on the road.
The silence that followed was different. Not empty, exactly. Lee could feel Omar turning something over in his head, the way his jaw moved once, the way his thumb tapped against the steering wheel and stopped.
Lee waited.
He had learned that pressing Omar too early usually earned him a joke. Letting the pause stretch gave the real thought time to surface.
Omar glanced at the rearview mirror once more.
“My week comin’ up,” he said.
Lee went still.
He didn’t need clarification.
Wolf week.
Lee remembered claws against hardwood. The weight of a broad wolf body trying to crowd into his space.
The constant restless need for touch, food, movement, reassurance. Omar had been manageable, technically, but manageable in the way a storm was manageable if you stayed inside and moved anything breakable away from the windows.
Last time, the puppies had barely done anything. They had slept. They had eaten. They had made small noises and shifted together in their bed, warm and blind and mostly content to remain where Lee placed them.
Now they could run. Not elegantly, but fast enough. They could climb low obstacles, pull at blankets, nose open cabinet doors, and coordinate poorly but enthusiastically around anything they were not supposed to touch.
They had started noticing outlets. They had started treating the trash can like a personal challenge.
Moe had discovered the benefit of smiling his way out of trouble, and Hela had developed a full-bodied stomp for any instruction she found insulting.
Lee turned slowly toward Omar. “When.”
Omar’s fingers tightened slightly around the wheel.
“Few days.”
“A few days.”
“Yeah.”
Lee looked at the passing street. It wasn’t that wolf week itself frightened him. Not anymore. He understood enough now to know what to expect. But the puppies changed the equation.
Lee looked back at them again.
One small body stirred beneath the blanket and went still. Last time, Lee had been able to keep them in one place. This time, they would be awake. Curious. Mobile. Determined to investigate every corner of an apartment already too small for one werewolf at full restlessness.
He imagined feeding four pups while Omar tried to climb into Lee’s lap in wolf form.
He imagined the pups becoming excited by him, following, nipping, wrestling, all while Omar’s patience shortened by the hour.
Lee rubbed one hand over his face.
“So I’m handling them,” he said, “and you.”
Omar glanced over. “I ain’t that bad.”
Lee turned his head.
Omar looked back at the road.
“It did.”
“You growled at the refrigerator.”
“It was hummin’ wrong.”
“You followed me into the bathroom and sat against the door because I was gone too long.”
Omar’s mouth curved. “You was gone long.”
“I was brushing my teeth.”
“Took forever.”
Lee stared at him.
Omar kept driving, completely unashamed.
From the back seat came a sleepy little huff.
Lee’s eyes flicked to the mirror, then back to Omar.
“Now add four small animals who think electrical cords are a food group.”
The truck moved beneath a line of traffic lights, late afternoon sun flashing across the windshield in pale bands. Omar drove in silence for another block, then rolled his shoulder against the seat.
“I can call Clarisse,” he said
Lee looked at him. “For what.”
“Advice.”
“On how to manage you?”
Omar gave him a sideways look. “On the pups. Keep ’em settled. Maybe tire ’em out before it hit hard.”
Lee considered that. It was practical. He disliked how relieved practical things made him feel.
“Can they stay with her?” Lee asked, then immediately knew the answer before Omar gave it.
Omar’s jaw shifted. “Not on short notice. She down home.”
“I know.”
“And I ain’t sendin’ ’em that far without us.”
Lee nodded once. He wouldn’t either. The thought had only existed long enough to be rejected.
Omar glanced at the mirror again.
“Could set up the bedroom different. Gate off part of the apartment. Put anything chewable up high.”
“They climb.”
“They climb bad.”
“For now.”
Omar’s expression tightened with reluctant agreement.
Lee leaned back into the seat. The problem began assembling itself in his head despite his resistance.
Puppy gate. Feeding schedule. Extra pads. Lock the cabinets. Move his textbooks. Move Omar’s tools. Remove anything Hela had looked at for more than three seconds.
Figure out what to do when Omar shifted and the pups decided the much larger wolf was either a climbing structure or a challenge.
“Will they react to you this time?” Lee asked.
Omar went quieter.
“That’s what I been thinkin’ about.”
Lee’s chest tightened. “How.”
“They might get restless when I do. Might wanna follow. Might get loud. Wolf part gon’ know somethin’s different even if they don’t understand it.”
“And the human part?”
Omar glanced toward the mirror.
“Might make it worse.”
Lee closed his eyes briefly.
Of course it might.
Human enough to be curious. Wolf enough to respond. Young enough to have no restraint.
“This is going to be awful.”
Omar’s hand left the wheel long enough to rest briefly against Lee’s knee.
“Maybe.”
Lee opened his eyes and looked down at the hand.
Omar didn’t squeeze. He just left it there for a moment, warm and steady, before returning it to the wheel.
“We got through last time,” he said.
“They were the size of potatoes.”
“Moe still potato-shaped.”
“That doesn't help.”
Omar laughed softly, then caught Lee’s stare and cleared his throat.
Lee looked back at the puppies. Four small bodies asleep in perfect trust, unaware that in a few days their father would become even less reasonable than usual and Lee would apparently be responsible for keeping the household from eating itself.
The more he pictured it, the worse the picture became.
Omar during wolf week did not want enrichment. He did not want long walks, stimulating activities, or family bonding. He wanted food, darkness, Lee somewhere within scenting distance, and enough uninterrupted sleep to carry him through the worst of whatever his body was doing.
The puppies, on the other hand, had recently discovered that the world was full of things worth climbing.
Lee turned slowly toward Omar. “You know they’re going to harass you.”
Omar’s eyebrows lifted, but his eyes stayed on the road.
“Harass me how?”
Lee looked at the rearview mirror again, then back at him. “You’re going to be a giant wolf lying on the floor.”
“Mhm.”
“They’re going to treat you like you’re furniture.”
Omar’s mouth twitched.
“They already climb you when you’re human,” Lee continued. “And that’s when you can tell them to stop.”
“I can tell ’em to stop as a wolf.”
“No, you can make noises and hope they respect your authority.”
“They do respect me.”
Lee stared at the side of his face.
Omar held the expression for two seconds before conceding, “Sometimes.”
The truck rolled beneath another traffic light. Pale afternoon sun flashed across the windshield, catching in the fine scratches on the glass before the buildings swallowed it again.
Lee imagined the apartment with Omar stretched across half the living room in wolf form, all fur, heavy paws, and exhausted irritation.
He imagined Moe trying to climb the slope of his ribs. Hela testing whether a tail could be provoked into movement. Reba investigating his ears. Dante, bigger and more wolfish than the others, deciding that the appropriate response to his father becoming a full-sized wolf was to follow him everywhere and study him at close range.
Lee’s stomach tightened.
Not because Omar would hurt them. He trusted him far more than he would’ve expected to months ago. Even when irritated, even when half out of his human mind, Omar was careful with the pups in ways that seemed welded into his bones.
But careful did not mean rested.
“You’re going to be miserable,” Lee said.
Omar shrugged one shoulder. “Usually am.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It ain’t supposed to be. It’s wolf week.”
Lee leaned his head back against the seat.
The memory of Omar sleeping through most of the last one returned in pieces. The apartment closed up against daylight. Omar in wolf form sprawled across the rug, breathing deep and slow, waking only to eat or reposition himself closer to Lee.
The pups had been tiny then, barely capable of anything beyond rooting, sleeping, and making thin little noises whenever they got cold or hungry. They had fit neatly together.
Now Moe had learned deception through smiling. Hela had an attitude problem. Reba could get her nose into spaces Lee swore were sealed. Dante could stand with both front paws against the couch and look over the cushion.
The next wolf week was not going to be quiet.
Lee looked back again. Moe’s rounded body had disappeared into the loose pile, but one golden brown paw rested on top of the blanket. All four slept deeply enough that the motion of the truck barely disturbed them.
“They’re going to bite your ears,” Lee said.
Omar nodded. “Probably.”
“They’re going to climb on your back.”
“Yeah.”
“They’ll follow you every time you get up.”
“Most likely.”
“You’re way too calm about this.”
Omar glanced over. “What you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. Show concern.”
“I’m concerned.”
“You look like you’re thinking about lunch.”
“I can be concerned and hungry.”
Lee turned his face toward the window.
Omar let the silence sit for a moment, then said, “They ain’t gonna understand why I’m different.”
Lee looked back.
Omar’s expression had changed. The humor was still there, but subdued now, pushed behind something more thoughtful.
“You think they’ll be scared?”
“Nah.”
Omar answered quickly enough that Lee believed him.
“Might be confused at first. Maybe excited. Dante gon’ know fastest.”
“Why Dante?”
“He watches.”
Omar glanced at the mirror.
“And he lean more wolf than the others. He pick up things before they show all the way.”
Lee followed his gaze.
Dante remained somewhere beneath the blanket, dark fur blending into shadow.
Lee thought of the pup’s oversized paws and long muzzle, the way he could become unnaturally still when studying something. He had always looked like he was waiting for the world to explain itself.
“What about Hela?”
Omar’s mouth curved.
“She gon’ think I’m bein’ difficult on purpose.”
“That’s because you usually are.”
“See? She get it from you.”
Lee gave him a look and Omar turned his attention back to the road, plainly pleased with himself.
The city thickened around them as they drove. Traffic pressed closer. The low growl of buses and the sharper sounds of horns replaced the open quiet of the lake. Lee watched storefronts blur past, mind already running ahead to the apartment.
They would need to move the pups’ bed somewhere Omar could rest without being surrounded immediately.
That was pointless. They would find him.
They could put up the gate.
Dante was close to figuring out how to hook one paw against the mesh and pull. Hela had started watching the latch.
They could tire the pups out first.
That would buy perhaps twenty minutes.
“You’re going to try to hide from them,” Lee said.
Omar’s eyes stayed forward. “I might.”
“They’ll find you.”
“Maybe not.”
“You'd smell like their father.”
“That’s why I’m sayin’ maybe.”
Lee turned toward him fully.
“You believe four puppies with half-wolf senses won’t find a full grown werewolf in a one bedroom apartment?”
Omar looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Could get under the bed.”
“You don’t fit under the bed.”
“In wolf form I might.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I ain’t tried.”
Lee stared.
The idea of Omar trying to wedge his enormous wolf body under their bed to escape his own children was irritating enough that Lee could already see it happening.
The pups gathered around the exposed half of him. Moe climbing the hindquarters. Hela barking into the darkness because Omar refused to come out.
“You’re not allowed to barricade yourself anywhere,” Lee said.
“Didn’t say barricade.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Maybe.”
“They need to see you. They need to understand what you are.”
Omar went quiet again.
Lee heard the sentence after it left him. Not just the practical meaning. The deeper one underneath.
The puppies needed to see Omar as a wolf because that was part of him. Not an emergency. Not something shameful or hidden behind a locked door.
Their father. Their blood. Their own bodies carrying some version of the same thing.
Lee looked down at his hands.
Omar’s voice softened. “Yeah.”
The single word filled more space than Lee expected.
“It might be good for them,” Omar continued. “Even if they get on my damn nerves.”
“They will.”
“They definitely will.”
Lee glanced toward him.
“Can you sleep through it?”
Omar gave him a sideways look.
“I slept through Sebastian droppin’ a pan by my head when we was kids.”
“I’m talking about four puppies climbing into your fur.”
Omar considered that.
“Might have to make peace with it.”
Lee pictured it then with unwelcome clarity.
Omar stretched on the rug, huge and worn down by his own biology, the puppies tucked into the dense fur along his side once they finally tired themselves out. Moe probably using his ribs as a pillow. Hela stubbornly choosing a spot too close to his face. Dante pressed somewhere near his chest, listening.
The image sank warm and heavy into him.
He looked away before Omar caught it.
“You’ll complain,” Lee said.
“Every day.”
“You’ll act like nobody has ever suffered more.”
“Probably.”
“You’ll growl when they step on you.”
“Depends where they step.”
Lee’s mouth threatened to move.
Omar noticed. His own grin returned, smaller now.
“But I ain’t gon’ hurt ’em,” he said.
Lee looked at him.
“I know,” Lee replied.
There was no hesitation in it.
Omar’s hand left the wheel again, landing on Lee’s knee. This time his thumb moved once against the fabric of Lee’s jeans, slow and absent, before settling.
Lee left the hand there.
The truck turned onto their street. Brick buildings closed in around them, familiar fire escapes and narrow stoops replacing the lake and trees.
Behind them, the pups remained asleep, saving all their energy for the week ahead.
Omar checked the mirror.
“They gon’ wear me out.”
Lee looked back at the warm pile.
“You’ll live.”
“Cold.”
“You’re already preparing to be dramatic.”
“Baby, I’m about to spend a week gettin’ climbed like a mountain.”
Lee returned his gaze to the windshield.
“Maybe don’t lie on the floor looking climbable.”
Omar laughed, low and helpless.
Lee kept his face straight, but the thought followed him all the way home, Omar trying to sleep through four determined little bodies, complaining the entire time, while never once moving far enough away to make them think they weren’t welcome.
Then the rest of Lee’s week began arranging itself around the image.
School.
Work.
The assignments waiting in Lee’s bag beneath the passenger seat.
His mouth tightened.
“I have class,” he said.
Omar’s laughter faded. “I know.”
The truck slowed behind a bus, brake lights throwing red across the windshield. Omar glanced at him, then back toward the road.
“How many?”
“All of them, Omar.”
“A’ight, damn. What days?”
Lee started counting through the schedule before he answered. He knew it without checking, but his mind had gone briefly blank beneath the weight of everything else.
“Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Two classes Monday. Seminar Wednesday afternoon. Friday morning.”
Omar nodded slowly. “Coffee shop?”
“Tuesday and Thursday. Saturday too, unless I can get someone to switch.”
“How long?”
“Six hours Tuesday. Closing Thursday.” Lee rubbed at the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “Saturday’s seven to three.”
The bus dragged forward. Omar followed it with one hand on the wheel, the other having returned from Lee’s knee to the gearshift.
“We can work around that.”
Lee turned his head.
Omar’s expression stayed composed, which made the statement worse.
“We,” Lee repeated.
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to be a wolf.”
“I’m aware.”
“A wolf who sleeps for most of the day and gets irritated when the refrigerator makes noise.”
“I can still watch my kids.”
Lee stared at him.
Omar lasted longer under the stare this time, but eventually his jaw shifted.
“Some of the time,” he amended.
“You cannot watch four mobile puppies while unconscious.”
“I wake up when they loud.”
“They’re always loud.”
“Then I’ll always be awake.”
Lee looked forward again.
The truck turned down a narrower street, tires passing over a patched section of asphalt that made the cab shudder gently. Behind them, the puppies remained asleep. One soft little snort came from the back seat, then nothing.
“They need to go out every few hours,” Lee continued. “They need food. They need someone watching them because they’ve started putting everything in their mouths. I can’t leave them alone with you if you’re too deeply asleep to notice one of them chewing through a cord.”
“I’d smell it.”
“Before or after the electricity?”
Omar went quiet.
Lee took that as confirmation that he had made his point.
“And what happens when you wake up and decide you need me there?” Lee asked. “Last time you followed me from room to room.”
Omar’s mouth pulled slightly to one side. “You say that like I was causin’ problems.”
“You were standing outside the bathroom every time I used it.”
“I was lyin’ down.”
“Across the doorway.”
“Guardin’ it.”
“Blocking it.”
Omar gave a small shrug, as though the distinction depended entirely on Lee’s refusal to appreciate the service being provided.
Lee watched the street through the windshield, irritation gathering in orderly layers.
The previous wolf week had been easier, but not because Omar had behaved better.
Omar had spent most of it asleep or seeking somewhere new to sleep, usually wherever Lee happened to be.
If Lee sat on the couch, the enormous wolf dropped heavily across the rug at his feet. If Lee went to the kitchen, Omar followed and collapsed near the cabinets.
When Lee had tried working in the bedroom, Omar had sprawled across the doorway, waking every time Lee shifted.
The puppies had already been a few weeks old then. They weren’t helpless newborns, but they still slept through most of the day.
Their legs had only just begun to cooperate with them, their attempts at movement slow and uncertain enough that Lee could redirect one with the flat of his hand.
They had spent long stretches in their bed, pressed together in a warm mound, waking to eat before sinking right back into sleep.
Omar had wanted to stay close to them too.
That had been one of the stranger parts of the week, watching the huge wolf fold himself beside the puppy bed, body curved protectively around its edge.
Whenever one of the pups had made a thin little sound, one pointed ear would twitch. Sometimes Omar would lift his head, inspect the pile, and lower it again once he decided nothing required him.
There had been no climbing. No coordinated assaults on his tail. No one had possessed enough balance to bite his ears and flee.
Lee looked into the rearview mirror.
A pale patch of Reba’s fur showed between the darker bodies gathered around her, all four still dead asleep after the outing.
“They barely moved last time,” Lee said. “You could sleep beside them because they stayed where we put them.”
Omar glanced toward the mirror. “They moved.”
“They wobbled.”
“They got places.”
“They crossed two feet of carpet in ten minutes.”
“Still movin’.”
Lee turned his head.
Omar’s mouth twitched, but his eyes remained on the road.
“They also slept most of the time,” Lee continued. “Now they wake up and immediately look for something they’re not supposed to have.”
“They curious.”
“They’re criminals.”
“They eight weeks old.”
“Exactly. They have no respect for consequences.”
Omar huffed softly through his nose.
“Neither do most grown folks.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
The truck rolled forward with the slow pulse of traffic.
Outside, the city had settled into the dull gold of late afternoon, sun reaching between buildings in narrow strips.
People moved along the sidewalks carrying bags, walking dogs, folding themselves into ordinary routines that did not include scheduling university classes around a werewolf’s biological cycle.
Lee rested his elbow against the door and pressed his fingers to his temple.
He could already see the week forming around him with ugly clarity. He would wake before his first class and take the puppies outside. Feed them. Clean up whatever they had done overnight.
Check Omar, who would most likely be in wolf form by then, asleep somewhere inconvenient and enormous.
Try to read while four small bodies moved around the apartment. Get dressed for class. Decide whether leaving them with Omar was responsible or the beginning of an electrical fire.
Then there was work.
The coffee shop did not care that his boyfriend periodically became a wolf and slept for most of a week.
His manager cared that Lee arrived on time, covered his register, cleaned the steam wand correctly, and didn't call out without notice.
His professors cared about attendance, participation, essays, and whether he had something useful to say about books written by people who had died before electricity became common.
His children cared about getting into the kitchen cabinets.
Omar cared about knowing where Lee was, especially when his human reasoning had gone muddy beneath the wolf.
Lee stared through the windshield, watching a line of brick storefronts pass in the muted light.
Maybe he was making one part of this harder than it needed to be.
He could call the coffee shop and tell them there was a family emergency.
It wasn’t even much of a lie. There would be four puppies in the apartment with a father who was about to spend several days as a large, exhausted wolf.
The fact that his manager would picture a hospitalized relative instead of reinforced puppy gates and a full grown werewolf sulking beneath the coffee table was not Lee’s responsibility.
He would feel guilty about the assumption.
But not enough to correct it.
“I could take off work,” Lee said.
Omar glanced over. “The whole week?”
“Probably.”
The answer came easier once he said it aloud.
Lee wasn’t depending on those shifts to keep a roof over his head. His parents still paid for he and Carmen's apartment without hesitation.
The money from the coffee shop belonged mostly to Lee, missing one week wouldn't put him in financial ruin.
It would bruise his pride more than his bank account.
Omar’s eyebrows drew together. “You ain’t gotta lose money over this.”
“I’m not hurting for money.”
Omar’s eyes flicked toward him before returning to the road.
Lee knew what Omar heard in that sentence.
The apartment. School. The casual cushion Lee rarely discussed because discussing it made him feel like someone had dragged a bright light across all the parts of his independence that were partially manufactured.
“My parents pay for the apartment,” Lee added, his tone flatter than the admission deserved. “And tuition. The coffee shop isn’t keeping me alive.”
Omar went quiet for half a block.
Lee watched his profile, waiting for a joke about rich parents or spoiled English majors.
Omar didn’t make one. His expression only shifted into thought.
“Your parents pay for that whole place?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Two bedroom?”
“Yes.”
Omar glanced at him again. “Damn.”
Lee looked through the windshield.
He was fortunate. There was no use pretending otherwise.
His parents had worked hard, planned well, and then used what they’d built to make certain their children started adulthood with more choices than they had.
The apartment had been part of that. Tuition too. His mother and father had never treated support like a debt Lee would eventually have to repay in exact figures.
They had simply done what they believed parents were supposed to do when they had the means.
Lee loved them for it.
That was the part that made the guilt worse.
“They’d tell me to take the week off,” he said after a moment.
Omar’s brow eased slightly. “Yeah?”
“My dad would say that’s what savings are for. My mom would tell me not to go to work if someone at home needed me.”
Lee rubbed his thumb along the seam of his jeans. “She’d probably ask why I was even debating it.”
Omar kept his attention on the road, listening without filling the space.
Lee could hear his mother too clearly in his head.
Work will still be there next week. Family and health comes first.
She had said variations of it his whole life.
When Carmen caught the flu before a school dance.
When Lee had once tried to go to class with a fever because he didn’t want to miss a quiz.
When their father had needed a minor procedure and insisted nobody rearrange their schedules for him.
Marisol believed in showing up.
Lee had let her show up for nearly everything. School plays. Parent-teacher meetings. Sick days. College applications. Every ordinary crisis of childhood that had once felt enormous.
His father had been there too, steadier and quieter, handling forms and deadlines and money before Lee understood enough to worry about any of them.
Then Lee had gone through the largest, strangest, most frightening thing that had ever happened to him and told neither of them.
He had carried four children. He had given birth in Omar’s apartment without a doctor, without a hospital, without even calling his mother afterward to say he was alive.
Now those children were eight weeks old and asleep in the back of Omar’s truck.
His parents didn’t know they were grandparents.
The thought struck with the same force every time.
Lee looked into the rearview mirror.
The puppies remained folded into the blanket, reduced by sleep to a warm, breathing heap. One dark muzzle rested near the edge, more wolf than dog even now.
The sight brought the familiar pull beneath Lee’s ribs. Love threaded through constant awareness, so deeply set into him that he no longer remembered what it had felt like not to know where they were.
His mother would love them.
That certainty hurt almost as much as the fear.
She would love Moe’s chunky build and strange little smile. She would inspect Hela’s ears and paws, pretend not to be charmed by the stomping, then tell everyone within reach that the puppy had a strong personality. She would notice Reba watching everything. She would become fascinated by Dante’s wolfish build and immediately begin asking questions nobody in the apartment could answer.
His father would claim he did not understand why anyone needed four dogs.
Then Lee would catch him quietly reinforcing the puppy gate.
“You got quiet,” Omar said.
Lee kept his gaze on the mirror. “I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
Lee turned his head and gave him a look.
Omar’s mouth moved faintly, but he didn’t press the joke.
“’Bout work?”
“My parents.”
Omar nodded once.
There was no need to explain what his parents did. Omar already knew. He knew enough to understand the money and the apartment and why one lost week at the coffee shop would not become a disaster. What he didn’t fully know was how the safety his parents gave him could become its own kind of pressure.
They had offered him so much.
In return, Lee had hidden their grandchildren.
“I love them,” Lee said.
The words came out sharper than he intended, as if Omar had accused him of something.
“I know,” Omar said.
Lee looked down at his hands. “They’ve given me every opportunity they could. The apartment. School. They never made me feel like choosing English was some kind of failure just because it wasn’t medicine or finance.”
He paused, jaw tightening.
“My mother would drop everything if I told her I needed her.”
Omar’s fingers flexed once around the steering wheel.
“But you couldn’t tell her,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Lee let out a slow breath. “How?”
Omar glanced at him.
“How was I supposed to tell her?” Lee continued.
“Call her and say I was pregnant by a werewolf? That it was moving too fast for any normal pregnancy? That we couldn’t go to a hospital because nobody knew what I was carrying?”
His voice stayed low, but the words began coming faster once they were loose.
“My mother is a pediatrician. She would’ve wanted tests. Scans. Bloodwork. Specialists. She would’ve tried to keep me safe, and none of the things she knew how to do would’ve fit what was happening.”
Omar’s expression had gone still.
Lee looked back toward the puppies.
“And then what? Afterward, I call and tell her I gave birth in your bed without medical assistance?”
Lee rubbed one hand over his face.
“How do you say that to someone like my mother?” he asked.
“How do I tell her I gave birth to four wolf-dogs and didn’t call her?”
The inside of the truck seemed to narrow around the question.
Omar didn’t answer quickly.
Lee appreciated that. There was no answer that wouldn’t sound false if offered too easily.
Outside, the city moved past in late-afternoon fragments. Brick walls, metal shutters, pedestrians waiting at a corner, a bus kneeling toward the curb. Ordinary life continued on every side of them, indifferent to the fact that Lee was trying to imagine explaining his children to people who still believed Omar merely owned a dog.
“She’d think I didn’t trust her,” Lee said.
“Did you?”
Lee’s eyes cut toward him.
Omar’s tone held no accusation.
He watched the road, one hand loose on the wheel, leaving the question where Lee could choose whether to touch it.
“I trust her,” Lee said. “I didn’t trust the situation.”
Omar nodded slowly. “That's different.”
“Would it feel different to her?”
“Maybe not.”
The honesty hurt, but Lee preferred it.
He looked into the mirror again. The puppies slept on. They didn't know they were a secret. They didn’t know there were people elsewhere in the city who would have loved them on sight, if only the truth around their existence weren't so difficult to survive.
Lee imagined bringing them to the apartment he shared with Carmen.
Four small bodies crossing the polished floors his parents had paid for.
Tiny claws against old wood. Omar standing near the door, looking too much like trouble.
His mother arriving with questions.
Then the question that would break everything open:
Whose puppies are they?
Lee could say Omar’s.
That was true, but incomplete.
He could say theirs.
That was true too.
Then his mother would look at him closely.
“I don’t think I can ever tell them the whole thing,” Lee said.
Omar’s eyes moved toward him briefly. “Maybe not.”
Lee swallowed.
“I hate that.”
“I know.”
“They deserve to know they have grandchildren.”
The word changed the air.
Not puppies.
Not the litter.
Grandchildren.
Omar’s grip shifted slightly on the wheel.
“Yeah,” he said.
Lee looked toward the back seat again. “But they also deserve not to have their entire understanding of the world shattered over brunch.”
Omar breathed out through his nose. “Could ruin the pancakes.”
Lee’s head turned slowly.
Omar kept his face composed for nearly a second.
Lee’s mouth betrayed him first, twitching at one corner. The brief release did nothing to solve the problem. It only made it possible to keep looking at it.
“I could tell them about the puppies,” Lee said. “Not everything. Just that they’re yours and I’m helping raise them.”
Omar was quiet.
Lee noticed.
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
“That wasn't nothing.”
Omar’s jaw flexed. “They ours.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t say they mine like you just babysittin’.”
Lee looked down at his hands again. “What would you have me say?”
Omar thought for a moment.
“That we got dogs. That they family. That you helpin’ raise ’em because you live with me half the damn time anyway.”
“My parents don’t know that either.”
Omar sucked his teeth softly.
“Baby, you got layers.”
“I’m aware.”
The truck slowed behind a line of cars.
Omar rested his hand on Lee’s knee, warm and steady.
“You ain’t gotta tell ’em how they got here to let ’em know the kids exist.”
Lee stared at the hand.
“They could meet them as dogs,” Omar continued. “For now.”
The words made something twist inside Lee. Relief, guilt, longing—too tangled to separate.
His parents could know the puppies.
They could love them without knowing why Lee loved them as fiercely as he did.
It would still be a lie of omission.
But it would be less absence.
Lee looked back at the sleeping pile.
Maybe that was all he could offer right now. A door opened one careful inch instead of the whole wall coming down at once.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
Omar’s thumb moved once against his jeans. “A’ight.”
“And I’m still taking the week off.”
“Good.”
“The family emergency is real.”
Omar glanced toward the mirror. “Five of us need care.”
Lee turned his head. “Five?”
“Me and the kids.”
“You’re counting yourself among the dependents.”
“For the week.”
“That just might the first sensible thing you’ve said.”
Omar’s mouth pulled crooked. “Cold.”
Lee looked out the windshield, but his hand settled over Omar’s where it rested on his knee.
He loved his parents. He loved the children sleeping behind him.
The distance between those two truths remained wide enough to hurt.
For now, taking one week away from work was simple.
Telling his family why might never be.
But perhaps he could begin somewhere smaller.
Not with birth. Not with blood. Not with everything.
With four puppies.
With Omar.
With the truth that they mattered.
That would have to be enough until Lee found a way to carry more.