“Rocks are cool,” Natalie said kindly.
“I have one thousand and ten rocks,” Birdie said excitedly.
“Oh. Wow,” Natalie said, her dark eyebrows arched delicately.
Be. Cool.Birdie fastened the oversized bra and wished her boobs were a little bigger like Ava’s. She pulled on a gray sweatshirt next and now she felt a little better.
“Hey, the truck’s warmed up,” came a voice on the other side of the door. It sounded like Lance. “Is…Is Birdie okay?”
“See,” Ava whispered.
Natalie opened the door a crack. “If you’re going to join our shifters-mated-to-humans club, you have to be nicer to her when she Changes.”
“What? Your mate wanted to eat her. Can I talk to her?” came Lance’s reply.
Natalie pointed at her eyes with two fingers, then turned her hand and pointed at him. “I’m watching you.”
Lance shoved the door open. “They’re kicking us out of the bar, but I want to give you a ride home.”
“You mean back to the cabins?” This place was not home, and it was time to start distancing from him.
“Yeah. I mean the cabins.”
Birdie hiked her loose jeans up higher and nodded. “I’ll ride with you. I think we need to talk.”
He swallowed audibly, and lowered his gaze, then nodded.
She could see it. She could feel it—the shutdown.
Gah, Birdie hated this.
What else had she expected though? She closed her eyes tightly against the ache in her chest and then followed him out of the bathroom and out of the bar.
Outside, his truck was running. The others were loading up in an old Bronco she’d seen parked at the Woodpecker Inn. Brock’s, perhaps.
She waved to them. She would absolutely overthink all of this later tonight when she had some time to be by herself.
Lance opened the passenger’s side door and waited for her to scramble up there. He shut the door beside her and as hemade his way around the front of his truck, illuminated by the headlights, she looked at the hamster supplies on the floorboard by her feet.
He’d thought she was a pet.
He got in and closed the door beside him, waved to the Bronco as it pulled away.
The silence in the cab was heavy for a few seconds, and then at last, he said, “I should’ve known it was you, shouldn’t I?”
Birdie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, but I mean, we just slept together. I should’ve felt it or something, right?”
Birdie looked out the window. The snow was falling in earnest, and the town’s main street looked abandoned under the halos of streetlight illumination. “This place is really beautiful in the winter.”
“It’s beautiful in the summer too,” he said softly.
“What are we doing, Lance?” she asked, turning toward him.
“I think…” He looked confused and shook his head. “I think I’m trying to figure that part out.”
“We haven’t known each other very long—”
