Ground Floor: Toys and Games by Jorja Lovett

for someone who found even wearing a bikini in public traumatic, so she covered her modesty as best she could with two hands.
    She didn’t know the protocol for making a gracious exit after a quick bunk-up, especially when she was still starkers. He didn’t strike her as the type for flowery words anyway, so she kept it short and to the point. “Thanks, but I…er, have to go.”
    He lay back and watched as she scrabbled to her feet. “That’s it? No cuddles?”
    “I’m sure you won’t shed any tears over it.” They’d both gotten what they’d wanted so she saw no need to pretend it had been anything more than a physical release. Mia, however, was left with tumultuous emotions not so easily dealt with. Another moment of madness had thrown her carefully ordered world into chaos and made her question who exactly she was, and why she denied herself these flashes of happiness.
    Mia shifted back into her wolf, and, with one last lingering look at her playmate lying magnificently naked on a bed of leaves, she ran toward the woods. Back to the life she was supposed to lead.
    * * * *
    The stale stench of cigarettes and alcohol assaulted Caleb’s nostrils on opening the door. The smell of home.
    A tentative step took him into the dark hallway and onto the wooden floor, tacky beneath his boots. The air was still, heavy with neglect and abuse, and it took every ounce of courage for him not to turn around and walk straight back out.
    Instead, he carried on into the living room and opened the window to invite a blast of cool autumnal wind to sweep through the gloom. Something crunched underfoot and he knelt to inspect the damage. Glass. Beer bottles to be exact, littering the floor along with cigarette packets and food remnants. He turned up his nose, even though he should’ve expected it. Every stray wolf that happened along always used this place as an unofficial pack house. His father welcomed everyone with open arms. Except his own son, of course.
    Ironic now that, as next of kin, Caleb had inherited this very house where his father had made his life a living hell. Viewing the destruction around him, Caleb wondered what chaos had reigned in his eleven-year absence. The yellowing paper on the walls, once decorated with pretty spring flowers, now featured slogans and expletives daubed in bright red paint. The old brown sofa was slashed open, stuffing ripped from its guts and strewn around the floor, and there was an empty space in the corner where the television had once sat.
    A niggling thought crawled inside his head and a quick look around the rest of the house confirmed his suspicions. Every room revealed new devastation and vandalism. With doors hanging from their hinges, drawers ransacked and every electrical appliance ripped from the walls, this was more than the aftermath of a pack party.
    He booted a discarded beer can across the floor. “Fuck!”
    Too many ghosts had held Caleb back from taking occupancy earlier and now his plans were royally screwed. So much for a quick sale.
    “Hello? Is there someone in there?” a deep voice bellowed from the hall.
    Shit! He had forgotten to lock the door behind him, but he suspected that burglars didn’t announce themselves before they robbed you blind. Besides, there was nothing left to take.
    Caleb didn’t answer but edged his way cautiously along the wall to peer around the corner. A dark figure loomed large but Caleb Jackson didn’t back down from a fight, even with an opponent built like the side of a house. His wolf growled a warning, low and deep.
    “Caleb? Is that you? It’s me, Rory.”
    It took a moment for the name to register, but he recognized the would-be intruder the minute he stepped into the small shaft of light escaping through the door. Rory Blake, high school hero, all round good guy and the constant reminder of everything Caleb had lacked when they were growing up. A real blast from the past, and his past was the very thing he wanted to