“This is fun! I like it when you’re stumped. Listen, it’s notthathard. Find one thing that’s important to her and focus the gift around that so she knows you’re paying attention.”
Fuck my life.
Chapter 18
Clover
“What’s been eating away at you?” Meadow asked as she bounced my sapling on her knee. He was cooing happily, chewing on his fist.
We had decided to sit outside for an hour—what was the point of living in LA if you didn’t occasionally suck up some of that delicious vitamin D? I had a cute set of squishy garden chairs and a table for a few snacks as we drank our tea.
“What do you mean?” I took a sip of my tea. One amazing thing about Meadow was that she had an excellent tea collection. The vanilla chai I was devouring was hands down one of the best I’d had so far.
My bestie had a cup of zero caffeine fruit tea. I didn’t envy her lack of caffeine, but I supposed it was a fair trade off for feeding my little sapling fresh homemade titty milk.
Meadow snorted delicately, her movements never faltering. “Don’t try to pull one over on me, Clover. I know you too well. I can tell when you’re upset about something.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m upset, more mulling something over,” I admitted.
Meadow nodded, her eyes wide, her expression clearly telling me to continue talking.
“I’ve gone on a date or two with some alphas recently.” Less dates, and more just fucking, but I knew which term Meadow would like better.
“Good, as you should be.” Meadow nodded approvingly. “I adore having you here and appreciate how much you’re helping with Forest, but you should be enjoying yourself too.”
“I am. Two are hot as sin, and another is a tenacious sweetheart—even put his number in my phone and texted himself so he could invite me for ice cream. It’s just… the last one of the guys was an ass.”
“Was he mean to you?” Meadow’s brow furrowed. I could practically feel the rage simmering under her skin at the idea. “I can have my guys look into them.”
“Stand down, mama bear. He just made a few comments insinuating I was a gold digger. Nothing new—I’ve heard it all before. Not at this level, but men in clubs always thought I was after them for whatever limited wealth they had. Now it’s my turn with the baby, gimme that cutie,” I said, making grabby hands at a happily babbling Forest.
The last thing I needed was Meadow’s pack dealing with Parker. Maybe once I made up my mind about him, but I needed space while I was still deciding, and I didn’t want to make things complicated for them with Hunter being their boss.
“Okay, baby, time to go to auntie,” Meadow cooed, picking up the baby and passing him to me.
Forest nuzzled into my chest happily, and a deep feeling of contentment washed over me as I inhaled the baby powder and sweet cream scent.
“Why are you so snuggly?” I asked playfully, kissing the top of his head.
“I make cute, cuddly babies, that’s why.” Meadow smirked.
“I have to agree.” Forest was adorable enough to make even the most heartless of monsters less broody.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a man’s opinion get to you.” Meadow picked up her mug and took a sip.
“I wouldn’t say his opinion got to me. I know how I look and what attention I tend to receive.” I sighed. “I think I’m trying to decide if I should give him a chance in case he’s redeemable. Is there any point to finding out?”
I wasn’t ready to explain to Meadow how tangled I’d gotten with Parker’s pack and the chaos that came with that.
Either I was grossly wrong when it came to the other three alphas, or they saw something in Parker that meant he wasn’t as bad as he appeared—something I had yet to see for myself.
“Do youwantto give him a second chance?” Meadow asked. “I think the fact that you’re even asking means you do. If you didn’t, you’d have written him off immediately like you usually do.”
“That is the crux of my problem,” I said. “Part of me does and part of me doesn’t. He asked to take me out, and I never answered, and I’m trying to decide if I should. Any date will probably be somewhere nice, with amazing food, so I’ll enjoy that—but I’m worried it will come with a side of snarky comments.”
“If anyone can deal with snarky comments, it’s you.”
“True.”
