“Sounds like you and Joel are going to be inviting the neighbors over a lot, then,” she said, emphasizing Joel the tiniest bit, to remind herself who was actually going to be hanging out on the deck.
Zach glanced over at her, looking almost shy. “I hope so. We’ve never had a—a big community like there is here. It’s always just been the two of us. So it would be great if we could have people over regularly, get to know everyone that works at the Park a little better.”
“You guys don’t have any other family?”
Zach shook his head. “Just us.”
Teri connected that with Zach saying that he’d taken care of Joel before he was eighteen, and came up with a picture of Zach’s past that made her heart ache. “It’s really impressive that you’ve done all this,” she said quietly. “Put you and Joel through school, gotten jobs in the same place, and now you’ve got a house and you’re thinking about building a deck...”
She hadn’t expected him to laugh at that. But it was a good-natured laugh, not like he was making fun of her. “Neither did I! I never thought we’d have something as solid as this. But don’t think it was all me. Joel worked his butt off to save money, same as I did. He worked all through high school, even though I told him he should let me be the moneymaker and focus on school. But he always kept his grades up—better than I did, and I had it a lot easier than he did when I was the same age.” Zach had a fond look on his face. “He’s a great kid.”
Teri tried to picture Lillian talking about her with the same amount of pride in her voice, and drew a total blank.
Oh, well. Families were different, right? Teri’s family just wasn’t...expressive, like Zach was.
And what was she doing, feeling sorry for herself? She was sure now that Zach and Joel had lost their parents at a young age, which must have been horrible. Teri was lucky.
“Sounds like you guys are a great team,” she said firmly. “Is he going to help you with the deck?”
Zach laughed again—such a big, happy sound, it filled the car. “No way. Joel is totally uninterested in carpentry. He’d much rather be out in nature. He spends half his free time out in the Park, even though he’s there all through the work day, too.”
“Sounds wonderful to me.” Teri knew she sounded wistful, but she couldn’t help herself. Her brief venture into the Park today had woken up the longing for the outdoors that had always lived inside her.
She probably wouldn’t want to be outside all the time, like it sounded like Joel did. But she missed hiking so fiercely. It had started to feel like all the time she’d spent trapped inside was a weight on her back, holding her down.
They pulled into Oliver’s. It was a weeknight, so not too busy, but there were still plenty of cars in the lot. Everyone in town was going to know who she’d been out with, which meant that her family would know she was dating a shifter.
Teri had mostly avoided thinking about it so far. After all, she’d only had it as gossip from Lillian, and Lillian might have heard wrong. But if Zach really was a shapeshifter...
Well, she hadn’t seen any evidence of animalistic behavior so far. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy with a totally normal amount of self-control. More than the average guy, even, the way he was so thoughtful and courteous with her.
She’d keep an eye out for any dangerous instincts coming to the surface, but she’d already long suspected that her family had misrepresented shifter natures to her when she was a kid, and so far Zach was just confirming that.
If he was a shifter. Would she have a chance to find out whether Lillian had been right?
They went inside the restaurant, got seated and handed menus, and Zach looked to Teri. “What’s good here? I’ve been here once, but I just got a burger and fries, nothing fancy.”
“They don’t have much fancy. I might get a burger and fries.” Teri hadn’t eaten out in a long, long time, and just the idea of a juicy burger and golden fries was making her mouth water. Her mother was always on her about her weight, and even more so since she’d been stuck in bed for a couple of months—though of course she wasn’t going to let Teri out to exercise!—so food like this never made it inside the house.
Zach frowned at the selection, and eventually went with the fish, which Teri assured him was always good—freshwater fish caught locally. She made a note to herself: no extra-rare steak in sight. Another checkmark against terrifying shifter instincts.
Although she guessed she didn’t know what kind of shifter he was. Maybe his kind of animal naturally ate fish. An otter? A pelican?
She smiled to herself behind the menu. She somehow couldn’t imagine powerful, strong Zach as a pelican. But the guessing game was fun.
“So,” Zach said after they’d placed their orders, “was coming to the Park worth it, today? I hope you didn’t catch too much hell.”
“Totally worth it,” she assured him. “My mom was furious, but I’d do it again in a second. I probably will do it again. I miss the Park so much.”
“So you used to spend a lot of time there?”
She nodded. “I was sort of an...awkward kid, so I spent a lot of time outside, growing up. As soon as I was old enough to go by myself, I went to the Park all the time. Out on the trails, there wasn’t anyone else to worry about, just me and the trees and the animals. I loved it.”
“Wow,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine you being awkward.”
“Really?” Teri’s eyebrows flew up. “I haven’t been awkward enough? Getting dragged off by my sister after we met like I was a little kid? Getting dragged off by my mom this morning like I was a little kid?”
“That’s your family,” Zach said. “The circumstances. Not you. You’re...cheerful. Fun. It seems like anyone would be happy to be around you.”