Chapter 2: I’ll Call You Grey!

My morning started closer to midday — and that was one of the sweetest perks of living away from your parents. No standing interrogations at the door about where I’d been gallivanting till dawn, no morning kitchen bustle that, back home, always managed to wake me at the worst possible moment. No “A proper girl doesn’t wander the house in her nightdress!” and no “You can’t sleep till noon!” Ha — Mum still didn’t know that Lexa and I used to wander the flat, as Nan liked to put it, “in our birthday suits.”

Not that I’d actually managed a proper night’s sleep anyway, what with the nightmares creeping back in towards dawn, and some restless, waiting sort of feeling underneath it all. I spent the whole day essentially living inside my own head, thinking about the evening ahead. Somewhere inside, a mad, desperate little hope kept flickering — that last night’s incident on the road hadn’t been some overactive figment of my imagination. That the wolf really had understood everything. He’d promised to come. I wanted, right down to a trembling in my knees, to see him again — and, more to the point, as a future vet, I needed to make sure that hard knock from the bumper hadn’t left him with some hidden, dangerous injury.

Getting ready for this mad little outing, I even nipped into the local vet’s pharmacy and bought a decent pack of complex vitamins for large dogs. At home, I sliced up some good ham and made sandwiches, so there’d be something to offer my furry friend if he actually turned up for our “date.”

Having done all that, I spent the rest of the day glued to my phone: messaging Lexa, sorting out — at her request — an endless string of admin questions about her upcoming start at university and booking student housing. She’d insisted she’d live with me, but we might both end up with a “personal life” that, frankly, had no room in it for a sister. So it all had to be thought through in advance. My head was spinning. I got so caught up and worked up over it that when it was time to leave, I bolted out of the flat entirely on autopilot, still in my “at-home” clothes — very short summer shorts and a light, barely-there vest top. Hurrying to the car, I didn’t even think to put on a bra, and only remembered once I was behind the wheel, when the fabric of the vest brushed intimately against a chest that had, for some reason, already gone sensitive with anticipation. Luckily, I’d thrown a blanket and a bag with the flask onto the passenger seat that morning, and my old checked shirt was hanging over the back of the seat.

Midnight was still a good way off — it wasn’t even nine — but I couldn’t stand staying cooped up indoors any longer. I decided I’d rather watch the sunset from the top of the hill than sit at home stewing in anticipation.

I drove along the forest road at a crawl, straining my eyes at the fern along the verge until they ached, dreading a repeat of last night’s ordeal. But the treeline stood perfectly still, wrapped in the gold of the coming sunset.

The moment the car rolled out onto the viewpoint, though, my heart did a somersault and dropped somewhere down into my stomach. He was already there. A large grey shape, sitting motionless in the deep shade of the sprawling, ancient pine. It was him! My saviour from last night.

I stopped the car and shot out of it. And it was only then, the second my trainers hit the gravel, that a belated, panicked thought scorched through me:

Sasha, you idiot. This is a wild forest. What if it’s a completely different wolf? An ordinary, hungry predator?

Fear locked my legs instantly. I froze on the spot, not daring to take another step. But the wild animal under the pine didn’t bare its teeth. It got up, flattened its ears comically against its head and — to my astonishment — started wagging its tail with obvious delight. That friendly impulse seemed to set its whole powerful grey body wobbling. The wolf parted its jaws in a completely human, entirely sincere grin, with not a hint of a snarl, and came trotting over to me, favouring its front leg just slightly.

All my pretend seriousness evaporated on the spot. I crouched down in front of it, laughing, burying my fingers in the thick, coarse fur at its shoulders and back. The animal wasn’t about to be outdone — it set about licking my palms and bare knees with enthusiastic devotion, making the odd attempt to swipe its hot tongue across my face. Normally that sort of clingy dog behaviour would irritate me no end, but right now every touch sent an incredible, clean warmth spreading through me. I was absurdly, almost tearfully glad to see him.