“And here is the pack house,” Jackson continues to ramble on excitedly, like he’s a child showing me his action figure collection. “We usually have meetings here, but sometimes it’s used as a place for parents to drop their kids for babysitting. Or sometimes teens come here to hang out and play video games.” Through the window, he points to the console that stands atop a table in what I think is one of the living rooms.
“There’s no daycare?”
“We’re making one.” As we pass the pack house and move down the street, Jackson gestures to a tall unfinished building that stands close to what is probably the largest house I’ve ever seen in my life. “Obviously, teens don’t make very good babysitters, well, most teens anyway.” He chuckles. “Mothers kept complaining, so we all got together and drafted an outline for a daycare.”
“Do you have anybody already hired?”
“Yeah,” Jackson nods. “A few college kids. They seem to be more responsible than the teenagers, anyway. They’ve gone to school for the job, so they’re qualified.”
“You could always give the teens tutoring jobs,” I suggest. “It’s what I used to do. The pay isn’t bad for that age and it turned out to be more useful in my studies too.”
“Hm.” Jackson seems to think about that. “That’s not a bad idea, actually.” He squeezes my hand. “I’ll bring it up in my next meeting.”
“Why do you have meetings?” I let my gaze travel around the garden that guards the unfinished daycare. “I mean, don’t you make all the decisions?”
“I make the final decisions,” Jackson explains. “I have a cabinet who helps me, so it’s not completely my choice.” He pauses. “Think of it as a government, in a way. I’m the president, so I can veto and pass ideas, but the cabinet is the one that comes up with most of them.”
“So…a monarchist government, is what you’re saying?” I tease.
Jackson’s cheeks flush. “Something like that, although I try not to be so much of a monarch and more like a President. That’s why I have a cabinet to help me. So, my pack knows I’m not in complete control.”
“Despite you making the final decisions,” I point out.
“Yes, despite me making the final choice,” Jackson agrees. He notices my skeptical stare and shrugs sheepishly. “Hey, I’m trying, okay? Between evil Alphas and nosey humans, I have a shit-ton of food on my plate.”
“It’s your job,” I laugh. “You’ll have to get accustomed to it.”
Jackson laughs with me. “I have,” he says. “I’ve been King since I was sixteen, when my father passed.”
“Oh.” I stop laughing. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Jackson shakes my apology off. He doesn’t seem the least bit upset about it. He speaks as if it’s a common fact – something that shouldn’t be dwelled on for long. “It’s not something I think about too often, you know?”
“I get it,” I say quietly. I look down at the grass and just narrowly avoid tripping over a stone that somehow magically appeared in front of me. “How did he…?”
“Heart attack,” Jackson replies. “He’d always had heart problems. He was a smoker in his youth and drank a lot, so my mom and I weren’t too surprised when he began to have small strokes and stuff.”
“Sounds like he went through a lot,” I say and I’m not sure if I’m saying it to Jackson or to myself.
“He did, but he never showed it,” Jackson answers. “My dad always kept his emotions to himself. He never wanted to burden other people with his problems. As his health worsened, my mom began to take charge of the pack, but he still insisted on working.” He laughs dryly. “He reminds me of you, now that I think about it?”
I kick a rock by my feet to the side. “How so?”
“You’re both pretty resilient,” he explains. “You’re like a punching bag. No matter how many times somebody punches it, they always come back up.”
“I don’t always come back up,” I smile. “Sometimes it takes me days.”
“But you still do,” Jackson points out. “Just like my dad.”
“Oh. You said his name was Jackson too, right?”
“Yeah. And my mom’s name is Hayden.”
“That’s a pretty name – Hayden,” I smile. “It reminds me of a Disney Princess.”
Jackson laughs. “I’ll let her know. She’ll be ecstatic. She always wanted to be a princess.”
“Well, to be fair, she is a Queen.”
“Was a Queen.” Jackson corrects. “She abdicated after dad’s death. But my mom was a daydreamer. She liked to place herself in certain fantasies and live in them, you know? Her favorite fantasy was becoming a princess.” He stops in front of the large house that had captured my attention throughout his entire tour. “She was fine marrying my dad, but she always liked to joke that she wished he was a Prince.”
“Maybe that’s why your brother’s name is Adonis,” I grin. “He was a prince before he was God, after all.”
“Maybe,” Jackson agrees. He digs into his pocket and pulls out his large set of keys, swiping through each of them faster than I can count. He pauses, then smirks. “Speaking of Adonis, you might just meet him soon enough.”
“Really?” I cock my hip to the side and cross my arms over my chest. “He lives with you?”
“Like a goddamn leech,” Jackson groans. “Adonis is just a lazy bump on a log, but it’s no secret that he’s my mother’s favorite.”
“The younger one? A mother’s favorite?” I scoff. “I doubt it, but I never had any siblings, so I can’t say for sure.”
“Trust me, my mother loves Adonis,” Jackson grumbles. He twists the key into the hole and unlocks the door. He swings it wide open and lets me go inside first before following.
“Woah…” I’m unable to take everything in one go. “Jackson…your house is so beautiful!”
“Thank you,” he replies, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him gazing at me from beside a cracked marble statue. The woman is the same woman from the meeting, except her eyes aren’t wet this time. She’s stone-faced, both literally and figuratively, like she’s tired of crying for someone else.
Jackson’s house reminds me of a palace. Everything is white and gold, but once in a while I’ll catch a glimpse of grey or blue. Pillars hold up the separate floors and staircases and closets line every wall. Some of them, Jackson tells me, have cleaning supplies in them. But others are what the different keys on his keychain are for, and he says that with a secretive smile, like he’s enjoying teasing me with the knowledge of what he keeps hidden there. I’m curious, I’ll admit, but I’m not going the humor him if I won’t get any amusement out of it. So, I just nod and move on to the next room, smirking when it takes him a few seconds to catch up with me.
“If it’s just you and Adonis, why do you have such a big house?” I ask as Jackson leads me up the steps to the second floor.
“We have family gatherings often, and when there are pack parties a lot of the time wolves just end up here drunk, so we keep extra rooms for them to stay in.” Jackson pauses at the top of the staircase, frowning. “Speaking of extra rooms…”
I quirk my brow. “What?”
He bites his lip. “I’m not sure if…” he trails off.
“If what? What is it?” But Jackson isn’t looking at me. His gaze is past my shoulder and when I turn to see what he’s looking at, I yelp, jumping up like a cat who touched water and scrambling behind him.
