“OKAY!” I nearly shouted. “Okay. Fine. Read the book. See if I care. But you’re staying up in the apartment while we have book club. This is friend time. And for the record, I wasn’t thinking ofyou.”
He scowled and growled slightly at the insinuation of me thinking of someone else, which was totally bullshit.
“As you wish, boss.” He started to leave. Paused. Turned back with that wicked smile still on his face. “Though I should mention, there is a scene in chapter seven that is anatomically inaccurate. Wolves do not work that way.”
“GET OUT!”
He left, still smiling, my romance novel tucked under his arm. The sound of his footsteps on the stairs faded. The apartment door closed.
Silence.
Then Krystin absolutely lost it. Well, more than she already had. She was laughing so hard she fell sideways on the sofa, tears streaming down her face. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Wen. He’s going to read your porn and then tell you which parts are anatomically incorrect!” She was gasping now, trying to breathe through the laughter. “And then he’s going to use it as a manual to court you. This is the best thing that’s ever happened.”
“I hate everything.”
“He made you orange juice,” Bella said, giggling. “From stolen oranges. And now he’s reading your werewolf romance novel. Wen, this is...”
“A nightmare?”
“Adorable,” Daphne finished. “It’s adorable. He’s courting you.”
“And he said he thinks about you constantly,” Bella added, her face red but smiling. “About how you’d feel and taste and-”
“I heard what he said, thanks.”
I grabbed my glass of orange juice and took a long drink. It was good. Really good. Fresh and sweet and tart. He’d made it perfectly.
Damn him.
“Can we please just talk about literally anything else?” I begged.
“Oh, we’re definitely talking about the book,” Krystin said, grinning. “And by the book, I mean your actual life. Because Wen? Your life has become a paranormal romance novel. Complete with a hot alpha who steals oranges and reads your smut.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “I need vacations.”
“You need to admit you like him.”
“I barely know him!”
“You know enough to imagine him in chapter seventeen.”
Upstairs, I heard movement. He probably was reading it.Andmy notes, my highlights. My embarrassingly desperate annotations about alpha males and claiming bites and-
Oh god.
“This is the worst day of my life,” I muttered.
“This is the best day of ours,” Krystin countered.
This was my life now. I was so screwed. Kill me now.
8
— • —
Wen
I managed to ignore the werewolf in my apartment for three whole days.
