Page 33 of The Werewolf's Deputy
“Do they still think that?”
Emmett sounded uncertain, maybe a little worried, so Jonah was quick to reassure him with a gentle squeeze of his hand.
“I’m not sure if they believe it anymore, but it doesn’t really matter. Nothing is ever going to change.”
He blew out a frustrated breath. He was pretty sure his parents gave up on the idea of changing his mind after he graduated university. By that point, he’d learned enough to know their rhetoric was wrong, and they were only making life more difficult on themselves by hiding away. He did sometimes wonder why they hadn’t tossed him aside yet. Their hesitation gave him hope that they’d let it go someday. Maybe they’d love him enough to not cut him out completely.
Emmett stopped, tugging on their joined hands with a deep frown on his face. “Jonah… are you safe? With them?”
Pressing his lips together, Jonah considered his answer. “I don’t think they’d hurt me. But I do think if they find out what I do or who I spend my time with, they’ll cut me out completely. I’m hoping with enough time, they’ll come around. They’re ignorant and a little cold, but they’re still my family.”
Emmett searched his face, and Jonah could practically hear the werewolf fighting his protective instincts. He appreciated it, but he didn’t want Emmett interfering. He’d only make things worse.
Jonah’s phone buzzed, interrupting the conversation. He grimaced and whispered an apology as he fished it out of his pocket. When he saw the message, he couldn’t even hold back the groan of dismay.
“What? What is it?”
“I totally forgot. I need to take the end of the week off.”
“We’ve been worried about you, dear. Your mother tells us you’re working in the city now. You aren’t falling in with the wrong crowd are you?”
“Stick to your own kind, that’s what I always say.”
“You never know what you’ll catch from hanging out withthosepeople.”
Holiday dinners with his family were a prime example of what Jonah hated the most about his family. Every single one of them was a supe hater to their cores and would go out of their way to make a supe miserable if a supe had the unfortunate luck of setting foot in their town when any member of his family was around to see it. Jonah was used to being the center of these kinds of conversations, but it was getting harder to ignore now that he had friends who were supes, who he knew didn’t deserve to be treated that way. He gripped his fork tightly, keeping his eyes locked on his food so he didn’t slip and say something he’d regret.
“What is it that you’re doing in the city now, dear?” his grandmother asked.
It took him a minute to realize she was actually asking him a question and not just berating him like everyone else had been. Only when his father cleared his throat and glared at him did he figure it out.
“Oh, uh… I work in IT. Fixing computers for a human company.”
His uncle scoffed, taking another heavy swallow of his beer. “Still playin’ around with those computers, huh? Couldn’t find a real job?”
His uncle, like most of the men in his family, believed that a job wasn’t considered real unless you were doing something physical. Construction, farming, mechanics, that kind of thing. Anything that had you sitting behind a desk was pathetic in comparison.
“Yep,” Jonah gritted out as politely as he could muster. “I went to school for computer science, remember?”
“Pretty sure the only reason he hasn’t gone completely soft is because he’s still got chores at home,” James sneered,completely ignoring him. “Living at home is the only thing keeping him from becoming a supe loving woman.”
Jonah felt his lip twitch against a scowl. Holding back comments around his family was hard enough. Biting his tongue around his brother was excruciating. He wanted nothing more than to scream at them all and maybe even point out that he made more as a temp than they did on the farm, especially since they refused to sell their products to anyone other than humans.
He looked at his dad, hoping he’d say something. Jonah got his first paycheck the day prior and had paid the rent his parents had demanded. He still got up early to do his chores, and he made sure not to stay out too late, even though it meant less time with Emmett. Surely that was enough for him. But his dad only smirked at the comment, half-hiding the expression behind his beer can.
“You could have at least joined the military like your cousin,” his aunt pointed out, rubbing her son’s shoulder proudly. “At least then you’d be working for a good cause. What company are you even working for anyway?”
Jonah was prepared for that question. Ever since his mom had reminded him about the holiday dinner and that it was necessary for him to be there, Jonah had been preparing. He’d built a company website, including an employee roster of all humans, connections to other human companies, and even a contact number that would send them to a recording that sounded like any other company directory in the world, to seal the legitimacy of it. He picked an abandoned building on the edge of the human side of the city, and he asked for Roz’s help manipulating the online searches for it so the pictures would make it look legit. She’d raised an eyebrow at the request but hadn’t argued with him about it, which he appreciated.
“Stonewell Technology Solutions,” Jonah answered, pulling out his phone to show them the webpage already up on the screen. “I’m a junior employee, so I mostly do tech support.”
“How do we know you didn’t make all that up?” James scoffed. “Why would we trust some image on your phone?”
“Look it up, then,” Jonah countered. “A simple web search of the name will bring up the website.”
Several phones came out as they all attempted to pick apart his story, but he and Roz had tested every angle they could think of. No matter how they looked at it, they wouldn’t be able to find anything illegitimate about the business unless they looked past the surface, which his family wasn’t skilled enough in tech to do.
His uncle huffed, tossing the phone onto the table and grabbing his beer instead. “Still not a man’s job. You’d think after bein’ raised by a good hardworkin’ man like your father, you’d have learned the value of a real job.”
