CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
ADAM'S POV

The shop smelled the way it always did. Like motor oil gone slightly sweet with heat, rubber, and the faint metallic tang of something that had been sanded down that morning. Pops kept the two bay doors open even in the thick of the afternoon, and the sun came in low and orange, catching the dust that floated above the workbench.

My father was doing a terrible job at pretending like he wasn't interested in the conversation Santan and I were having.

He had his head half-buried under the hood of some ancient sedan, one hand gripping a wrench he wasn't using, the other resting flat against the engine block like he was listening to it breathe. Every few seconds his shoulders would still. That was how you knew.

Pops never stopped moving unless a conversation was worth more to him than the car in front of him.

True to his word, Santan came over during the weekend, and I didn't need him to call before I had to go over to dad's shop. Apparently, even to me, I know it had been long since I came visiting, but my dad would never call.

He would never reach out to let you know he wanted you to visit him.

But best believe he would judge you when you eventually visit him.

Currently, he was judging my brother and I.

He had that look on his face. The one where his mouth stayed shut but his eyebrows did all the talking. I'd grown up under that look. It aged a person faster than the years did.

And all the time, he comes up with the craziest reasons to defend why it takes so long to stop by.

Once, he said it's because he smelled like rotten fish. Prior to this, he told me about a new fish soup recipe he was trying with his neighbor, Squalene. She was an elderly woman who had lost her mate as well a few years ago. They weren't trying to start anything, but they did enjoy each other's company.

I remembered that particular excuse well, mostly because Santan hadn't let it go for a month. He'd bring it up over the smallest things.

Burnt toast, a missed phone call… anything. Just to say, "You smell like Pop's fish soup today."

Another time, he told Santan, that he didn't want to visit him because he had drowning tendencies. Dad went swimming the previous week and told Santan.

Today, he claimed we had abandoned him simply because he's aged, frail, and about to die, and hence we have better things to do than to interact with a semi dead man. He had a little fever last week because he ingested minimal amounts of mercury while working.

This is the same tactic he had been using for the past, how many years now?

I can't recall.

And it doesn't die with time for him. If anything, he keeps renewing it with fresher words or synonyms that he finds out.

Santan leaned back against the tool cabinet, arms crossed and watching our father with a patience that told me he was gearing up for something. He always got that stillness in him right before he decided to make my life difficult.

"So let me get this straight." Santan starts his interrogation, "She kept an attitude with you because she found out that you were a notorious fuckboy."

I groaned and slapped my forehead with my palm at his stupidity, "That is not exactly how it is."

"But that's what you're saying."

"You just wringing the words in every other way to suit yourself."

"That's exactly what you're saying."

"She didn't find out Santan, she heard."

"Why are you classifying it like it wasn't something you used to do?"

"Can you not do that right now? I'm trying to explain something to you."

My brother raised his hand to pause my speech "This still doesn't answer the question I asked you, Adam. Why are you breeding a wolf? A Matrix for that fact. I would have assumed that you would go for a stronger wolf."

"Stop saying that, you dimwit."

"One, mind your tongue and two, I have nothing against Matrixes. Okay? They're all living wolves. They deserve the right to life and every other thing a wolf deserves. But for someone like you, I would be wondering why it's a Matrix you chose. You have always been the one singing about a mate to represent. Now a Matrix represents? It doesn't make any sense to me."

"Kindly pass me the spanner, Adam." My father says while he was working on the engine of some vehicle that had deliberately refused to start after a million and one attempts.

I rolled my eyes, released a sigh, and reached out for the spanner that was on the table next to me. Picked it up and gave it to him. He collected it without saying a word. If anything, he yanked it from my hand like I had delayed between his request and bringing the spanner to him.

The engine sputtered, coughed, then died again, and Pop muttered something under his breath that I chose not to translate for Santan's benefit. He straightened up just enough to wipe his forearm across his brow, leaving a fresh streak of grease behind, and went right back to pretending he wasn't listening.

"I just have an interest in her." I answered his question because he would definitely ask again if I kept mute.

"Is this because of Blake?"

"It's not because of Blake. Get your furs together bro. Why should I do that?"

"If there's one thing I know about you Adam, delay is not denial. You would certainly get your revenge. It's how you've always been. You suddenly want me to believe that Blake rejected his mate, and now you want to breed his mate out of pure interest? You don't have any side intentions to what you're doing?"

Santan's eyes hadn't left mine the whole time he said it, the way they used to when we were kids and he already knew I'd broken something before I'd even opened my mouth to lie about it.

I couldn't answer him because the truth was, I genuinely wanted Athena. As much as I also wanted to get back at Blake, he was not the primary push.

I won’t deny there was a tertiary part where he existed.