Yikes, dude.
There’s a long silence over all of us, Aiden glancing at me and making eyebrows like should we be trying to unpack that with Logan or just pretend he doesn’t have the most depressing mindset to be going into the rest of his life with?
I hadn’t really put a lot of thought into why Logan was following through with our mother’s wishes, why he’d never wanted more for himself. I’d just assumed after it went so badly for me, my brothers decided that was enough proof for them, that they needed to keep to the tradition of marrying into other wolf packs. I hadn’t considered that Logan didn’t believe romance was worth trying for because of our parents.
I can see why he’d be a little pissy about my flaunting my not-relationship with Elise around the house.
The shop’s door dings the bell hanging on its corner, and the feelings that twist in my stomach conflict wildly. It’s Elise and Laura stepping into the shop, glancing around at the second-hand boutique.
“Wow,” Laura says flatly, wrinkling her nose, before her eyes even find us. “Did we all just have the same idea?”
“Was it ‘I’m not buying a whole brand-new suit for this weekend’?” Aiden offers.
“Or ‘Shit, I don’t have anything to wear, and this is the only place nearby I can probably find something’?” Elise sighs,crossing her arms and looking unimpressed with the three of us, even though she’s clearly in the same situation.
Her eyes fall on me, and something in her posture tightens, almost defensively. It’s almost startling to see her acting like a cat with all its fur standing on end, even as she fights to hide it.
“You’re going to be there? I mean, I know you’re going to be there in the house at the reception, but I didn’t know if you were going to be there at the wedding.” I stumble through the surprise and my sudden inability to coherently form a thought.
There’s something a little too rigid about her stance. This whole crazy situation she’s had a perfect poker face, but now something just feels off. Did one of them say something to make her uncomfortable? Or had the early morning moment between us crossed a line?
She gives a little shrug, trying to be casual. “Just something a little nice. I just didn’t want to be working in my jeans like I usually do when everyone else is dressed up, like professionally underdressed.”
“You never look underdressed,” I offer in what I hope is a neutral voice and not at all trying too hard.
Aiden and Logan are inevitably rolling their eyes and repeating what I said mockingly under their breath, like I’m not bound to hear it. Aiden makes some grotesque kissing noises like he’s twelve until I throw a glare at them and wave a gesture for them to cut that shit out.
It doesn’t really help.
The moment Laura and Elise disappear off to the side of the store where the dresses are, I mouth at my brothers, “I will kill you.”
Aiden and Logan raise their eyebrows at each other, before apparently deciding they don’t care.
“Fucking try it. I’d love a distraction,” Logan sighs, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of the jacket.
“Yeah, you won’t, coward,” Aiden echoes, and I am this close.
Instead of responding, I glance in the mirror Logan’s been standing in front of all afternoon, watching Laura disappear into the racks of clothing when Elise heads for the dressing room, a couple options already picked out.
I swallow. I should stay right here and finish up. But I also want to apologize for the other day. I can’t stand the thought of her being upset about something. It claws up my insides to think I might have done something that hurt her.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell them, not that I think they’re paying attention.
“Don’t do it,” Logan replies without looking over his shoulder. He doesn’t have to say anything to me about my behavior with Elise, for me to know he thinks it’s a bad idea, but he probably enjoys gloating some, and who am I to take that away from him? When I keep walking away, he mutters to himself, “What happened to exercising a little self-control?”
“I didn’t agree to that,” I reply under my breath.
There’s plenty of self-control happening here, demonstrated by the fact that I’m only going over there to talk to her, and not to whisk her away somewhere just private enough for round two. And now that I’ve thought about it, there’s a lot more self-control needed.
Whatever. If anything, when I’m around Elise I feel better than normal. The itch in my bones disappears, and I finally feel like I can think. And at that point, I come back to the conclusion that if I feel fine this close to the full moon, it can’t be me that’s going feral. It can’t. I don’t know who my mate is, but we’ve never been separated like my Aunt Danielle and her mate were, so that wouldn’t be actively driving me off the edge.
I wade through the overstuffed racks of clothing over to the other side of the store by the dressing rooms, where Elise is, digging my hands in my pockets. After this morning we should probably talk a little, considering how we definitely crossed a line we said we wouldn’t at the start of all this. I dunno, maybe there isn’t all that much of a line between a little light fingering and sticking your tongue inside your ex-wife, but I feel like there is.
Elise steps back when she sees me, and it kills me that she looks afraid.
“Hey,” I offer softly, a gentle, verbal olive branch. After this morning I’d have thought she’d have warmed up to me a little more, but there’s something in the way she’s looking at me that wasn’t entirely there before. Did I just not notice because we weren’t exactly making a lot of eye contact?
She glances around for Laura, for the others. She’s clutching the clothing hangers of the dresses she picked out like they’re for protection.
