I find Lonnie sitting on my front porch, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. “Where the hell have you been?” he demands. “I’ve been looking for you; Alicia is up to something.”
“And when you saw I wasn’t here, you just decided to camp out on my porch?”
“It’s not like I’m in the house,” he says. “Besides, this house is in pack territory, and I’m going to be the alpha of this pack. So, in a way, it’s really mine.”
I built this house with my own hands. I could just punch his lights out for that. But a brawl between me and Lonnie doesn’t help anybody. It’s important that I stay on his good side. He’s got authority over me as future alpha. More to the point, I want to be the person he trusts to hang around with Alicia, because if it isn’t me, he’s going to give that job to somebody else, and that would definitely be worse for her.
“I was doing what you told me to do,” I tell him. “I’ve been hanging around your sister.”
The unpleasant look on his face disappears. “Oh, yeah?” he says. “How’s that working out? Have you found out any new information yet?”
“Yes, actually,” I say. “Her baby’s a girl.”
“A fucking girl, huh?”