Guys Night (Part II)

As Elijah sat listening to Jordan and Sterling’s screams of pain from outside, he found himself too terrified to even move an inch. Sitting beside him, sipping wine with his pinky up and eating a cheese plate, was the most notorious wolf known to anyone, anywhere.

“Boy, stop staring unless you plan on buying me dinner.” Elijah abruptly turned his eyes forward. “Why you so jittery?”

“Y-you’re Turnemloose,” Elijah stammered.

He laughed. “My actual name is Terrence.” Elijah sat in silence, scared of saying something wrong. “What now?”

“I-it’s just that…I heard some things…”

Terrence raised his eyebrow. His deep voice vibrated through the room. “Oh?” Elijah couldn’t help but wonder how he was so nonchalant. This was a man who brought fear wherever he went, and yet, here he was sitting on the couch sipping wine, pinky up.

“I-I heard they call you Turnemloose because you fought sixty rogues by yourself and turned their bodies inside out, and all of their, um, inside parts were loose on the ground.”

Bringing the wine glass to his lips, Terrence’s hazel eyes sparkled. “Allegedly.” He chuckled, then whispered, “They forgot to count the ones hanging on the top branches, and the others I shoved inside a few trees. You see these buttons? Made them out of neck skin. Probably my best ones yet.” His voice returned to normal. “Love me a wine with great legs. Look at the way it sits in the glass.” He leaned over to Elijah and laughed when he almost passed out.

Staring at the bulking older man, Elijah’s eyes grew bigger and bigger. He’d always thought Sterling was the most insane person he’d ever met. Yet, as he sat next to the big, bald wolf wearing overalls with neck skin buttons, he realized he was wrong. He cleared his throat. “I-um…”

“Been showing your ass, I know.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Before Elijah could speak, his wolf raged against his chest. “Ooo, that’s some rough imprinting you got going on. Reminds me of when I went through mine.”

“You’re imprinted?”

“Mhm. You don’t get a mate who killed ten rogues barehanded because she had a bad day at work, through regular mating.” Elijah’s mouth dropped, and Terrence backtracked. “Allegedly killed. Anywho, let’s see this mate of yours.” Pulling out his phone, Elijah showed him a picture of Rachel. Terrence’s eyes darkened, and he slapped Elijah on the back of his head. “Boy, are you crazy? I thought you were about to show me a damn mule, or something with lesions. This woman is fine as hell.”

He blew steam from his nose, giving him the resemblance of a raging bull. “Got a mate that’s thicker than peanut butter oatmeal spread on a Popeyes biscuit, and you out here being stupid.” Elijah fiddled with his fingers and he rolled his eyes. “Alright, let’s get this started before you piss me off.” He stood and posed. “I want you to take a good look at me. Knowing nothing about who I am, what’s the first thing you noticed? The first thing your brain picked up as soon as I walked in the door.”

“That you’re a serial killer?”

Terrence cut his eyes, and he gulped. “Alleged serial killer, and I’m talking about physical.”

“Bald?”

“Shaved. Keep going.”

“Big?”

He flexed his muscles. Pulling up his overall pant leg, he slammed his massive leg on the table and pointed at it. “Stop playing with me, boy. Klaus done told me you were smart, and Klaus doesn’t lie to people who don’t mess up his groove. Get it right before you piss me off. What is the first thing you saw when I walked in the damn door?”

Elijah’s face flushed red. He knew what he wanted him to say, but he couldn’t open his mouth to get it out. “Y-you—”

“I’M BLACK, DAMMIT!” he roared, and everything around them seemed to silence. He jutted his finger at Elijah. “You telling me you don’t see this sexual chocolate? This delectable debonair almond butter? This Hershey kiss?”

Elijah pursed his lips. “I don’t see color,” he said.

“Don’t make me slap you again,” Terrence raged, and Elijah promptly quieted. “Yes you do see color. Everybody does. To say that you don’t is tone deaf as hell. It only makes the person who’s saying it feel better. When I first walked in here, you noticed I was black, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Elijah whispered.

“The fuck are you whispering for? It’s not a secret. My blackness is not something I hide.”

“I wasn’t saying it like that. I just meant that I don’t think it’s the most important thing about you.”

“When did I say that it was? I asked you what you first saw when I walked in here, and instead of being honest, you pretended my blackness didn’t exist to make yourself feel like a good person. To avoid sitting in a topic that makes you uncomfortable. Seeing my blackness doesn’t make you a bad person, Elijah. I don’t need you to whisper it like it’s a dirty joke. I love who I am. I celebrate it, bathe in it, hell I wouldn’t want to be anything else. Do you understand why I’m bringing this up?”

Elijah sat in silence. This wasn’t a conversation he’d ever had before, and he honestly didn’t know how to proceed. Terrence huffed under his breath, pulled out his phone, and continued. “Listen to Malc X words on the black woman. Really listen and try to gain perspective.” The words of the speech played, and Elijah tried his best to understand. When it ended, Terrence looked at the confusion on his face.

Leaning in, he grabbed Elijah by his shoulders, forcing him to stand. “Elijah, whether or not you want to acknowledge it, your mate is a black woman. Her experiences differ from yours. Her trials, her tears, her struggles, her triumphs, her success. If you can’t even acknowledge the basics without getting uncomfortable, how can you possibly protect her or ever grow to understand a fraction of her pain? What makes the essence of her. Why it’s so important to her that you realize what it means to her. Nobody is asking you to do the impossible, but damn, you should be able to talk about it without shrinking away.” He pushed Elijah back onto the couch and took a seat beside him.

The two sat quietly until finally, Elijah muttered under his breath, “I’m not racist.”

“Shut the hell up. Never said you were. Those are people who attach their biased bullshit to people just because of the color of their skin. You are, however, arrogant, elitist, tone deaf, and classist. You attach biases to people you feel aren’t on your level. Then you had the audacity to sit there and let your mother attach the same ugliness to your mate. It’s ‘bout time you pull your head from your ass and stop being a dick. You might have more than most, but that doesn’t make you better. In fact, if that’s all you think you’re worth, no wonder your mate left you.”

Elijah looked down at his lap like a scolded child. “Do you have to be crass about it?”

Terrence laughed. “There’s that classism again. Just because I don’t convey it like you want me to, doesn’t make the message any less clear. Instead of being concerned with my delivery, be more concerned with why you’re trying to tell me I need to correct what you aren’t taking a moment to absorb.”

Elijah sat and stared at the man who was bald and wore overalls with neck skin buttons. Whose dirtied boots stained the white rug, who knew how to pair a wine with cheese. A man who was so proud of his blackness, he demanded it be acknowledged. A man whose expansive vocabulary had just given the Beta an unapologetic, uncomfortable tongue lashing that made him feel like an utter moron. He was ashamed. He’d never realized that ugly thing about himself, though it wasn’t the first time the words were used to describe him. He did look down on anyone he initially felt wasn’t on his level, and what was worse, he allowed his mother to do the same to his mate.

“Tell me something. What was the issue with her going to Baltimore?” Terrence asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

“I was worried.”

“Why? Isn’t she from there? Was she cheating on you? What scared you so much about her being home that you felt the need to embarrass her?” Elijah’s faced flushed. “Let me tell you something. Had I ever done that to my Annie, she would have tied stones to my feet and sunk me in the river.”

“Didn’t you sink som—”

Terrence cut his eyes. “Allegedly, but continue.”

Stumbling with his words, Elijah tried to talk to the man. “I-I guess with everything I heard about the city, I didn’t want her to go back to that.”

“And when did that become your decision?” Terrence scoffed. “What? You think because you put all this fancy shit around her, she’s supposed to turn her back on where she’s from? Oh, I get it. You think you pulled her out of the mud, huh?” Elijah covered his mouth and his tears fell. “Boy, that’s a bold assumption to make. My Annie would have dislodged my brain.” He scrolled through the text on his phone. “Klaus tells us all y’all business. We got a group chat, see? Y’all really be up here cutting up.”

He laughed loudly before finding the text. “Oh yeah, here it is. Mhm, let’s see. Rachel got her Ph.D. and owns multiple restaurants. Damn, a few of ‘em provide meals for the homeless and one has single mother housing at the top.” He placed his phone back in his pocket. “That is some incredible work right there, and she hasn’t even been roaming around this earth as long as we have. You ever talked to her about any of this? And not in the sense of listening to respond. Have you listened to absorb what she was saying to you about her life’s work?”

“No.” He wiped his face. “I didn’t know about most of the stuff that you just mentioned.”

“It’s hard to learn about others when you are too busy focusing on yourself, ain’t it? It sounds like she was doing great before you, during you, and since you smell as terrible as you look, she’s clearly doing better than you now that she’s gone. Lemme ask you one last thing. Have you ever pulled your head out of your own ass long enough to acknowledge that she has her own success outside of you? Never mind, I already know the answer. I can see it all over your face. You’re finally getting that she didn’t need any of this shit. She was here because she needed you, dummy.”

That was the final nail. The moment Elijah understood what he’d done. He was no better than his mother; he was just better at hiding it. Rachel had never asked him for anything, except to protect and defend her against his mother’s beratement. What hurt him more was the fact that she had to ask in the first place. Multiple times she protected him without a second thought, but when it was his turn, he’d found every excuse for why he couldn’t return in kind. Even their imprinting had been about what he told her she needed, rather than what she relayed to him were her needs. Until now, their relationship had been on his terms, not what was best for them together.

“Boy, I suggest you learn what it means to have this type of woman by your side. Stop relying on that imprinting and learn to love every part of your mate. Not just the parts you enjoy and make you feel comfortable, but the very essence of her. Celebrate it loudly and stop whispering as if her being her is some kind of dirty joke. Sit in it, feel it, and figure it out before you go back to her with your mess. She’s already carrying the world, Elijah. Either lighten the load or get the hell out of the way.” Klaus and George entered, and Terrence stood and joined their side.

“You straighten him out?” Klaus asked.

“Yeah, he’s a good kid. You lied to me, though, Klaus. Boy ‘bout as dumb as a box of rocks.”

Elijah wiped his tears and chuckled. “Thank you for everything. I listened and absorbed.”

Nodding, Terrence grinned at Jordan and Sterling as they staggered inside. “Did that beating do y’all good?”

Sterling leaned against the door to keep his bruised legs from giving out. “Beating? They may have beaten Jordan’s behind, but I got a few in.” Terrence laughed and then bucked at him, and he instantly shriveled. “Jesus no, not Turnemloose,” he said, cowering. The three elderly men cackled, and Jordan shook his head, making sure not to say anything that would make him a target again.

Opening the door, George eyeballed the twins and Elijah. “Get your shit together. Hear me and hear me good. Old fools ain’t nothing but young fools who didn’t learn their lessons in time. Make yourselves worth coming home to and then bring your ladies home. Klaus said they’re amazing and I don’t like that y’all giving them a hard way. Keep it up and next time we come, we not being nice.”

“Nice?!” they all shouted to the elderly men who guffawed and closed the door, leaving their lessons to be processed.