The Vegan and the Wolf by Julie Steimle (red white and royal blue hardcover txt) 📕

“Where is he?” Vincent snapped, his eyes scraping over the area around them, briefly resting on Jeremy before searching once more as clearly Jeremy was not his target.

Blinking, Audry wondered if he had heard about Rick being there also.

“Who?” Audry asked.

Moaning, Vincent said, “That creep ex-boyfriend of yours. Harlin. I have come to kick the crap out of him”

Audry brightened up. “Oh. I think he went that way. He was chasing after Rick Deacon.”

Paula and Brooke laughed then caught themselves, pressing their hands over their mouths.

“Rick Deacon?” Vincent stared at her, puzzled. “Do you mean H. Richard Deacon?”

Audry nodded, hoping Vincent wasn’t going to go after Rick too.

“How do you know him?” Vincent asked, his temper cooling.

Moaning, Audry pulled out her cellphone and went to her pictures. “I keep bumping into the guy lately. But look. I first met him in Paris. He snuck into our tour group at the Eiffel tower.”

“No way!” Brooke said as if it was the biggest secret Audry had ever kept from them.

Audry showed them the picture on her phone. In it, she was standing with her best friends from French Club homeschool group when she was seventeen, with Rick, under the Eiffel Tower. The picture was amazing, really. It was another reason why she never wanted to delete it from her phone. The funny thing was, in the picture Rick looked like a skater boy with his clothes and getup.

Raising his eyebrows after peering at it, Vincent murmured, “Are you sure that was not just a lookalike?”

Chuckling, Audry put away her cellphone. “Positive. We verified. The point is, I also did my Master’s research on his land for the past two years. I never really even talked to him at all until I met him again in January. And we hardly talked about anything except my research and him going vegan.”

Vincent nodded. “I see…. So, why is your jerk ex after him?”

“Because Harlin is delusional,” Audry said with a groan. “He has convinced himself that I had broken up with him because he thinks—or claims—that Rick and I had an affair last winter.”

Vincent raised his eyebrows. Then he laughed, shaking his head. “You and H. Richard Deacon? You and him.”

“Why is that so farfetched,” Brooke asked, weirdly defensive on her behalf.

Laughing more, relaxing a degree, Vincent said, “Because, Audry doesn’t care about money. And she hates rich party boys even more.”

“And who are you?” Paula asked, her eyes accusing him of being the same thing.

Grinning, Vincent said, “I’m her cousin. Her dad and my mom—brother and sister.” He then turned toward Audry. “Your problem is that you are attracted to troublemakers.”

“Harlin wasn’t a troublemaker,” Audry protested, but it came out with a whine.

Cringing, Vincent replied, “No. Not technically. But you liked how he goes against the establishment. And that rebellious streak you did like.”

His words hurt. But Audry knew they were true.

“Oh, so she’s supposed to choose some boring accountant,” Brooke interjected, looking him up and down.

Pulling back, eying her look as well, he replied, “Accountants keep the money honest.”

Audry laughed. She loved his perspective on things. And he never apologized for the life he chose for himself, but he didn’t get into verbal battles either.

“It just maintains the capitalistic system,” Brooke retorted.

Vincent shook his head. “Oi…” Restraining himself from arguing politics and economics, he then turned his eyes back to Audry. “Anyway, where did he go?”

Audry pointed again. “That way. He was chasing after Rick.”

“Why do you call him Rick?” Vincent asked her, smirking. “His professional name is H. Richard.”

“But he asks everybody to call him Rick,” Audry shot back.

“So… you are on a first name basis…” Vincent said smirking more

Audry rolled her eyes.

“Yeah,” Paula chuckled, nodding.

So did everyone else at the booth.

“Don’t read anything into it,” Audry moaned, shooting them all dirty looks.

“I am trying hard not to,” Vincent said, but he laughed. “However, if people overhear you talk like that, they are going to assume you are a lot closer to him than you actually are. You’ll end up as tabloid fodder.”

Tabloid fodder. Audry didn’t like that. She cringed. It was worse than being told by Silvia that witches from their hometown might hunt her down. Or that Supernatural Regulator’s Association would find her and think she was involved with a ‘werewolf’. Tabloids at least were real, though their content was still garbage.

Looking in the direction Harlin had gone, Vincent sighed. “I don’t think I will be able to find him today. Not with him running around crazy. And if he is stupid enough to go after a Deacon, then he will get his just punishment soon enough.” He looked to her. “Hey, Audry. How about you come to lunch with me. We’ve got a break between sessions and—”

“Yes.” Audry stepped from the booth. She looked back to the others. “My shift is over anyway. Samantha is supposed to come, and I don’t want to be here if Harlin comes back.”

“Ooo…” Vincent thought on that, swaying as if leaving was a bad idea. His gaze hardened. “On second thought…”

“No.” Audry grabbed his arm, pulling her cousin from the booth. “We go to lunch. I don’t want you getting into a fight either.”

“What?” Vincent protested, yet going with her. “You don’t think I can take him on?”

She stared at the sky. “I have no doubts you can take him on. But I don’t want you ruining your suit and causing trouble for yourself.”

“And you’re not worried about your ex?” Vincent peered at her as they passed by other booths, dodging around people while her boothmates stared after her as if she had abandoned them to the wolves. 

Audry snorted. “No. He deserves to have his butt kicked.”

Vincent slapped an arm around her shoulder and cheerfully marched with her out of Schwartz Plaza. “Well said.”

They went to a deli.

Audry was always annoyed that Vincent was inconvincible about meat—especially processed meats and cheeses like pastrami, capicola, and pepper jack. But he was incredibly accommodating and protective of her vegan beliefs, so she did not mind so much. The deli also had a café. They sat down in it together and ate their different sandwiches, just resting.

Then Vincent said, “You know, you really should just get a restraining order on that guy.”

Audry moaned. “Is this you saying it, or just relaying what Doug has been saying?”

Vincent shot her a sharp look as he replied, “This is from everyone who cares about you. If he had a brain, he would have let you go. The guy is beyond sense now. And that makes him dangerous. You pepper-sprayed him twice, for pity’s sake. He’s lost his mind.”

That, Audry knew to be true.

“We’ll even recommend him a therapist,” Vincent said, then muttered under his breath, “After I kick the crap out of him.” Yet louder he said, “But this can’t go on. I don’t want to see you as a rape statistic. Or worse.”

She stiffened. He was right, of course. It was just that Audry felt like a restraining order was going too far. No one needed their life ruined. Even Harlin.

As if reading her mind, Vincent said, “He is beyond rational thought, Audry. You have to protect yourself.”

She cringed.

“I am asking you, please come with me to the courthouse so we can get a restraining order against him,” he said.

“But…”

“I will deliver it myself,” Vincent urged. “So he understands we are serious about protecting you.”

Audry looked to him. He actually was serious. His eyes were as frank as she had ever seen. He looked like he would break if she got hurt.

“Come on…” Vincent begged. “Please.”

She softened. Her family was probably extremely worried about her. Otherwise, they would not have sent Vincent to convince her. They knew she had a soft spot for Vincent. He was her favorite cousin—and Audry had a lot of cousins.

Her family… Audry thought about them. Her father was from a wealthy family, old money. When he had married their mother, he had rebelled against the family’s wishes as she was a child of hippies obsessed with protest marching and all sorts of progressive movements, mostly focusing on civil liberties and making marijuana legal. Because of that, his family was bitter towards him for turning his back on their lifestyle—which was why Audry hated the wealthy so much. Audry’s own family was more liberal than conservative. They were strong environmentalists who focused on holistic health, natural cures, and vegetarianism. But Audry had thirteen cousins on her mother’s side and fifteen on her father’s side, counting Vincent. And that wasn’t counting their children. Of course her Bruchenhaus relatives hoped and expected Audry to marry into money. But her mother’s Busche-Waite family wanted her to continue her path toward naturalistic living, and probably would have not cared if she had chosen an open relationship with Harlin at all. A lot of them were hedonists. But none of them on either side would have wanted her to be stalked or worse.

“Ok,” she said.

Vincent dropped his sandwich on his plate and embraced her. “Oh, thank heaven.”

It drove her nuts whenever her family did that. Whenever she finally agreed with their point of view they always treated it as if they had averted global disaster. Audry cringed.

However, she did not renege on her agreement.

They went online first, using Vincent’s laptop at the deli. As they read the details and requirements for a personal protection order, they found the form and saved the Family Offense petition off the website… as technically she had an ‘intimate relationship’ with Harlin and this fell under the family court system. They had to still print off the form, of course. Then fill it out. So they had to go back to Audry’s dorm to do that.

Together, they left their tips at the deli and walked back to her apartment. Two of her roommates were there when she arrived.

“Oh, who’s this?” Wendy Nixon asked, her smile brightening at the new face.

Audry chuckled, gesturing to her cousin. “This is Vincent Williams, my cousin.”

“Nice suit,” Wendy said, nodding as her eyes raked over him, almost salivating.  

“Oh, please don’t flirt right now,” Audry said, hanging her shoulders. “He’s here to help me deal with Harlin.”

Vincent chuckled.

Perturbed, Wendy said, “Harlin was here this morning.”

“I know,” Audry said, getting a drink for her and Vincent from the refrigerator. “He hunted me down at Schwartz Plaza.”

“Did you spray him in the face again?” Tricia asked, climbing of the couch where she was studying from The Feminine Mystique. Vincent stared at her bright red (dyed) hair and quietly inched away. He kept his distance as he generally avoided anyone who looked likely to pounce on him for being a ‘cis white male’—never mind that he had done nothing to hurt anybody. But Tricia grinned at him now. She generally didn’t like ‘suits’ any more than Audry did.

Audry shook her head. “Nope. But I almost did.”

“Really?” Vincent said, looking to her.

“Some men deserve it,” Tricia replied with bite.

Rolling her eyes, Audry said, “He was threatening Silvia Lewis, who was with me.”

Both Wendy and Tricia gasped. Not because of the threat, though. But because it was Silvia. They were frankly terrified of her. And more, they could not understand why Silvia liked Audry. Audry decided that she ought to keep the real reason a secret. They were more likely to believe in witchcraft and curses than she was, and she didn’t want to give them nightmares.

Vincent shook his head. “Now that is proof we need a restraining order on that guy.”

“Totally!” Wendy emphatically said, her head bobbing heavily in agreement. “We keep telling her.”

“But she doesn’t want to ruin his life…” Tricia said in a mocking voice.

Vincent looked to Audry. He then patted her on the head then put her in a headlock. “You are too nice.”

Her roommates chimed in, agreeing. Even Tricia warmed up to him.

Audry shoved his arm off and punched him in the side. He play-winced, but she hadn’t hit him that hard.

“Computer and printer, now,” he said.

Audry nodded, leading the way to her room.

She got both out,