An hour later Lily was curled up in the chair in her living room with a glass of wine and a pizza box open on the coffee table. Emelise was stretched out on the sofa with her own glass of wine. “Now that we’ve got food and wine, dish, Eme. Like I said earlier, the last I heard, New Orleans was still off limits to you. What happened?” She was gentle with the request because she remembered the flash of pain in her friend’s eyes.
Emelise took a sip of wine before she turned her attention to Lily. “Three weeks ago my mother went out for drinks with some friends. On the way home she was hit by a drunk driver and died at the hospital. It was such a freak accident. She was a shifter—normally she would have survived a car accident—but a piece of the broken frame severed an artery. Between that, a punctured spleen, and two collapsed lungs…there was too much damage all at once. Her body couldn’t heal fast enough.” Her voice was thick with emotion. “After the initial shock wore off, I sat down and got to thinking about what I really wanted for my life. I could have stayed in Phoenix and opened a jazz and blues club there, but I’ve wanted to come to New Orleans since I was a little girl. I figured now was the time. Yeah, it hurts like hell that my mama is gone; sometimes it’s still hard to believe, but I can’t let myself think about it too much or I’ll drive myself crazy.”
“Oh Gods, Eme. I am so sorry. You should have called me. I would have flown out to be with you while you dealt with all of the funeral arrangements.” She’d met Adelaide during her brief stay in Phoenix; she’d liked the woman a lot. Her determination to live her life and give her daughter every advantage she could was inspiring.
“I know, but you have so much going on here, I didn’t want to drag you into my mess.” Emelise drained her glass and refilled it. “Now it’s your turn to dish. Who was the hottie who was watching you earlier?”
Lily groaned. “Here I was hoping you’d forget about that.”
“Not a chance, girl. Hell would freeze over first. So, who is he? And please tell me you’ve sampled the goods because I’m betting he has a very nice cock, if the bulge when he left is any indication.”
Lily threw a pillow at her. “Gods, Eme, I’m dating someone! No I haven’t sampled the goods.” She felt her cheeks warm and knew she was blushing.
“But you want to, don’t you? Who wouldn’t. He is fucking hot. If you don’t, maybe I will.”
Lily bit back a growl. She knew Emelise wasn’t serious, and it wasn’t like she and Declan were together. There was no reason for her wolf to get it’s hackles up. “If I thought he’d take you up on it, I’d tell you to go for it.” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “His name is Declan Monroe; he’s from my old pack in Montana. My father managed to track me down after all this time and sent Declan down here to fetch me, as if I was an errant child who’d wandered off instead of an adult who is more than capable of making my own decisions.”
“If he was sent to take you back to Montana, why hasn’t he left to let your dad know he failed, miserably?”
Lily looked at the wineglass in her hand. “Um, well, that’s the problem. He’s…my mate, and yes I’m fighting it.”
“Oh. Wow. Wait, why are you fighting it? Lily, do you have any idea how fucking lucky you are that you’ve found your mate? So many of our kind go through their entire lives wishing for that very thing but never getting it. I mean, I’d pretty much settled for the fact I would never meet mine since I wasn’t around other shifters, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t wish for it.”
“I know, Eme, I do, but there’s one little complication. I’m not single. I care a great deal about Keith. He’s sweet, funny, attentive, considerate; he’s a good man and he makes me smile. I can’t just toss aside the last two years just because Declan is my mate.” She crossed her arms. “Besides, it’s animal instinct and I’m more than my wolf. I’m a person. I am the one who decides who I belong with, not my wolf.”
“I don’t see why you can’t end it in order to be with your mate. Relationships end all the gods-damned time, Lil. You just tell him that you aren’t happy, or hell, tell him you’ve lost interest, find a reason to dump him but do it. It’s not fair to him if you stay with him out of some twisted sense of obligation. For fuck’s sake, Lily, would you want a guy to stay with you for that reason?”
Lily blinked at her friend. “No, I wouldn’t, but it’s not out of a sense of obligation. I care about him.”
“You care about him but do you love him? Can you see yourself spending the rest of your life with him? Because if not, you need to rethink your relationship.”
Lily sighed softly. “Maybe you’re right; I’ll think about it. Hey, listen, I’m going to have to take Declan out to meet Caine; he’s the Alpha of the Black Water Pard. Do you want to come when we go? You’ll have to meet with him anyway, so might as well kill two birds with one stone, right?”
Emelise nodded. “Yeah, sure. I was going to ask you about that anyway. Just let me know when and where to be, and I’ll be there.” She finished her third glass of wine and sighed. “I should get out of here. I have a lot to do tomorrow to get started on revamping the old bar I bought. It needs a fuck ton of work but it’s going to be so worth it when I’m done.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to crash here instead of a hotel?” Lily asked as she walked her to the door. “Oh, and the day after tomorrow is when we’ll go, in the evening. Why don’t I come help you with some of the cleanup, then we can get dinner and head out after that?”
“Oh, that sounds good,” Emelise replied. “Positive. I’ll be finding my own digs tomorrow too, I hope. Besides, you have a breakfast date, remember? I’d just be a third wheel.” She’d obviously overheard the quick exchange between Declan and Lily earlier at the coffee shop.
“Don’t remind me. What was I thinking inviting him here? I shouldn’t be alone with him.”
Emelise laughed. “Uh-huh, but you already invited him so suck it up, babe. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she added and left before Lily could find something to throw at her.
Lily cleaned up their impromptu dinner of pizza and wine, filled her bathtub with vanilla bath salt, and soaked in the tub until the water turned cold. When she crawled into bed that night, her mind went to the kiss she’d shared with Declan, and a shiver worked it’s way down her spine. She was in so much trouble with that man. Being alone with him in her apartment was a horrible idea.
