I try to resist the urge to check that it’s not that bad, as Laura spots us and bounds over. Behind her, a few more family members including Mom and Aiden trickle out across the lawn to us.
“Holy shit, I can’t believe you came back, and you’re ok? Logan is gone. I don’t know how the wedding can go on now—” Laura stops short right before us, cutting herself off with a loud gasp.
Maybe we don’t even need to think about it that much. Maybe the crescent of dried blood on Elise’s arm is enough.
“Shawn...” my mom says, warning in her tone. Her eyes widen when she gets a better look at my mate. “Oh my god, Elise.”
“It’s really not that bad.” Elise shrugs, trying to play it off, but she still winces a little at the movement. Her eyes drift to my relatives staring from the backyard patio, and red scorches her cheeks. She shifts incrementally behind me.
Laura is a lifesaver, and she moves quickly to pluck a white tablecloth off the ground and drape it around Elise like a shawl, or maybe a shock blanket. “What happened?”
Eyes shift back to me, and I glance away, running a hand through my hair.
I don’t really know what to say first. Maybe that it’s ok, she knows we’re all werewolves. We’re obviously way past that, but I don’t know how far we need to backtrack to get everyone on the same page.
“Oh. Um. Right. Hey, Mom, you’ve met Elise. Funny story, she’s also my ex-wife.”
Those are the words that break Elise from her reverie of embarrassment, and her knee-jerk reaction is to elbow me in the side. “Hey! Why are you leading with that?”
“I mean, all of it’s bad,” I mutter, shrugging and rubbing the spot.
Mom’s face drains of all blood. I’m honestly a little worried she’ll faint or something. Eyes darting rapidly between us, she just echoes the words, “Ex-wife?”
I try really hard not to glance to the relatives by the patio.
“We got divorced like eight years ago. There’s a lot to catch everyone up on,” I explain weakly. I try to smile to maybe encourage a more cheerful mood, but it probably comes out as an anxious grimace.
“Oh, you weren’t here for that part. So, first, Shawn was all like, put me back in, coach, to Elise,” Aiden is recapping for my mother, in what might be the most unhelpful way possible.
Yesterday evening is a little hazy to me at this point, but I swear I did not call my ex-wife “coach” at any point. Sure, most of the details are fuzzy because of full-moon-fuckery, but not that fuzzy.
“Did you really use the words, ‘put me back in’?” Laura asks immediately, making a face like she’s just barely holding back on a joke too dirty to tell in front of my mother.
“Obviously, because it worked on me,” Elise replies dryly before I can tell Laura to can it. She gives me a look that is completely unreserved in how happy she is, and everything else in the world melts away.
“You know what, you can embellish however you like, I’m going to find my mate a change of clothes and a hot shower,” I say, and I take the opportunity to tug Elise away.
We make it maybe another ten feet before my mom repeats, “Mate?”
I wince and stop on the stairs up to the patio, glancing over my shoulder. “How much do you really want me to explain?”
“Oh, that’s why you asked about . . . ugh, ew.” Aiden grimaces.
Deanna has one arm crossed over her chest and the other supporting her head as she processes it all. Or attempts to and just gets stuck somewhere along the way.
“I love you both,” she says at last, before shaking her head and waving her hands between the both of us. “But what the fuck?”
Aiden looks like he’s never heard Mom swear before, and I can count on one hand how many times I have.
“Mom . . .”
“I need a minute, but I need to figure out what to do with all this mess first,” she says, gesturing to the lawn, and looks resigned to that. It’s probably easier to tackle things within her power.
She stands still, looking out over all the destruction for a moment, before she steps forward and hugs Elise and me both. “You’re both grounded.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Let’s take a minute, and sit down, get a glass of wine,” Laura offers gently, sliding her arm through my mother’s, even though it’s probably ten a.m. at best.
