CHAPTER FOURTEEN **Spades**

It was 98 degree for the last week of August this summer's heat was brutal and Alicia wanted to go to Myrtle Beach she had a beach house there, Wes gave it to her in the divorce. Drew loaded his truck as Briggy stood on the lawn watching them, she had agreed to go with them on this five day vacation because she wanted to get out of St. Matthew, the small town vibe had worn off.

Her only interest there was Jabari and he was leaving for school in two days, so she'd rather go off with her mother than say goodbye to him. She was in love, he was in love and love made you stupid, so she felt it best to leave with her mother than cry at home alone.

"Why do retired people take vacations? Because technically aren't you already on vacation?"

"No, now get in the truck." Alice took her hand. "You know that I'm ready to lay in my hotel room."

Briggy got in the backseat watching Tall Hawk driving by her house, slowly and she pointed at him, the look he threw back gave her chills.

"Drew who that?" she was still pointing. "That dude in the truck?"

Drew got behind the wheel. "That's native guy Hawker or something. I don't really know, he owns that bait and tackle complex."

Briggy watched the car drive into the distance until it turned the corner she wondered why she was seeing this man again and again. Why was he coming around her so much after he was standing at her window? Creeping her out.

Briggy was taking these five days to reflect on how went so fast. How she fell in love with Jabari and how they were connected to him on every level, through every cell. In three short months but she felt like she knew him forever. She felt confused in part and lassoed in, willingly, but happy at the same time.

The classic Motown tunes that Drew played had her reflecting on all the weird shit she'd seen in St. Matthew since May. She recalled the pick up games she watched over to his house, during that game one of neighbor hood boys knocked his cousin Kyle down and his eyes flash like a flash bulb.

Then there was the time she was over at his house, helping his sister Bernice cook and one of Jabari's twin sisters came in the running with blood dripping from her hand. She ran to the sink running water over it, and Briggy thought it she saw a dog's paw.

By the third Elgin's song she was recalling what the clerk told her at the community college. The lady told him to believe everything she saw and Briggy was putting things together. He howls, he's athletic, she's never spent a full moon with him, he bit her before, eats lots of meat, she's seen his thighs change shapes in her hands, his grandfather says his a wolf and sex from Jabari was animalistic and wild. What did she really see in that tent?

Can I be in love with a Werewolf? Is that real? She kept these thoughts until she drifted to sleep until Jabari called her phone which was something he rarely did in the text message era.

"Why u ain't stop to say good-bye bae?" He sounded disappointed.

"I don't like goodbyes." She took a selfie and sent a picture with the peace sign and sent it to him. "I don't want to see you drive away from me, then I won't see you till the holidays."

"You go be up there every weekend you know that. You got that jeep girl."

Briggy laughed in agreement, "Yes I do."

"Where ya'll at right now?"

"Place with lots of fields and green stuff growing. You know I'm a city girl and it all looks the same to me. When do you drive out?"

"Tomorrow night, my dad is driving me out."

"What will you do until them?"

"Chill I guess, play video game with Kyle." Jabari should have stuck to that plan, and he would not have needed saving in the future. Later that night Kyle ran up to Jabari's bedroom excited and leaped on the bed with him.

"Dawg you gotta go with me tonight."

"Where?" Jabari knew Kyle was sleeping with three different girls in the next county that no one knew about but Jabari because he didn't want Rita to know.

"I got invites to the Baron's."

"Fuck outta here!" Jabari didn't believe him.

"Nigga for real, on God."

"How?"

"My uncle Big, you know he ain't got no dick so he love that freak shit. They go be in like 15 miles south and I got a bring one."

"Yeah, I want to see this shit."

The Baron's, a legendary band of traveling whores each of them unable to have pups so they whored themselves out. This traveling band location was always secret, they sent out a text one hour before. Invitation only.

Male Werewolf's could have sex with a female they were not their sires; a taboo. The Baron traveling show becomes a freaky bestiality scene with transformed males with untransformed females having sex or the opposite. It was an intense, it was legendary and Jabari and Kyle were going to see if all the stories were true.

All baron brought shame to her family's because it was all illegal, the whole thing ever part of the traveling show was forbidden. Inside Baron's wore Greek death mask to hide their faces, everything was in secret. The Barons because had lots of customers at every stop usually the younger wolf's who were being forced to marry.

One always remembered the punishment for being caught with the Baron's, death.

"All my dad's uncles been here, because you know they ain't go no dicks." The Woodlands hand done that. "They say it straight wild. They said you ain't gotta do nothing, touch no body you can just watch, because I'm just watching. What about you?"

"I'll see when I get there."

That surprised Kyle. "Oh shit, not you. I thought your pet had you wrapped around her clique."

Jabari wanted to see if a shewolf sex could turn him on like Briggy's did that curiosity would take him to the brink of death one day. Some wonders should stay just that.