Trevor was sitting at a cheap desk with tiny plastic pieces scattered in front of him in organized sections.

“You’re up late,” I remarked.

“Sometimes I have trouble sleeping,” he said without raising his head.

I inched into the room and looked around. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling and decorated wooden shelves on every row.

“Is this a hobby or should we have an intervention?”

Trevor moved aside a magnifying glass that was attached to his desk. It swiveled and he angled it away. After rubbing his eyes, he turned around to face me and stretched his legs out. “It helps me.”

I lifted a plane and looked at it. “With what?”

He folded his arms and yawned. “It’s therapeutic, I guess. I used to be in the closet with my wolf. Building airplanes started when someone gave me one as a gift, but it helped me with maintaining control over my wolf. Now that I’m in a pack, I shift when I want. But I can’t seem to stop building planes,” he said with a short laugh. “Fucking crazy.”

“Maybe you should give some of these to an orphanage before you become a clutterbug.”

His chair squeaked as he moved it left and right, looking about the room. “Never thought of that.”

“Mind if I sit?” I asked, motioning toward the wooden chair behind me. Trevor nodded and I took a seat. “Austin is coming up at any moment to beat his chest and display his male dominance.”

“That’s a nightly occurrence. Welcome to our home.”

“You’re an outsider without any relation to them. What’s it like living in a pack? Do you gather outside, howl at the moon, and dance naked?”

He waggled his eyebrows. “That might be fun. But nah, it’s pretty normal around here compared to how I grew up.”

“Was it terrible?”

He leaned forward in his chair. “The worst. I don’t like talking about it, but I’m sure you can guess how a guy like me fit right in.”

Being gay, Trevor had undoubtedly faced cruelty at the hands of older wolves in his pack who were against it. Not because they had moral issues so much as they saw a wolf turning away from having children as a betrayal to their own kind.

“I’m glad I wasn’t born a wolf,” I said. “I can’t imagine the controlling lifestyle of a pack.”

He sniffed out a short laugh. “That was just my family. We lived in bumfuck nowhere, so they were the kind of pack that made up their own rules. Anyhow, my family cut me off. I assumed that’s how all packs were until I gave these guys a shot. I’d convinced myself they were going to go back on their word in the first month and force me out, but no one here has ever made me feel like anything less than a brother. Yeah, they razz on me, but I get them back and it’s all friendly shit. Nothing personal, and we always eat together. It’s hard to stay mad at someone who has to pass you the rolls.”