“That doesn’t sound good,” Max muttered. “What happened?”
Remy shrugged. “Triana and I went to dinner and the subject of relationships came up. Without meaning to, I kind of told her that I’d been in love once and didn’t have any inclination to do it again.”
Max didn’t say anything for a moment. Based on how Max had reacted yesterday, Remy wouldn’t be surprised if his friend punched him, regardless of the fact that he was driving.
“I know we talked about this yesterday and that you felt it could never work between you guys, but dumping her right in the middle of dinner?” Max blew out a breath. “That’s pretty fucked up, even by your relatively screwed-up social rules of engagement.”
Remy sighed. “I know. I cringed the moment the words were out of my mouth, but by then it was too late to do anything.”
“That’s bullshit,” Max said. “Maybe you should have just nutted up and told her you’re a chickenshit who’s simply afraid to fall in love again.”
Remy snorted. “Oh yeah, that probably would have worked. Unfortunately, since you weren’t around to give me advice last night, I went with my own instincts, which seem to be rather impaired when it comes to Triana.”
Max groaned. “Oh hell, what else did you do?”
Remy told him about the lowlifes at Gemma’s shop and how he’d dealt with them, then the strange way Triana’s mother had behaved after seeing him sliced open, and, most important, the way he’d walked out on Triana afterward.
“Damn,” Max breathed. “When you want to sabotage a relationship, you really go all out.”
Understatement there. “Even though I thought I was doing it for the right reasons, I still went to bed last night feeling like a complete shit.”
He pulled into the parking lot of the NOPD SWAT facility when Max hit him with a question that completely caught him off guard.
“You think that’s why you’re sick this morning? Because of the way you treated Triana last night?”
“I’m not sick,” Remy said firmly. “I’m just tired.”
As he parked in one of the visitor spaces at the end of the first row of vehicles, Max leaned in and gave him another sniff. “Could have fooled me. You don’t smell right, dude. I think we should call Cooper.”
Remy frowned. “Why the hell would we call Cooper?”
“Because he always knows what to do about this kind of weird shit. Besides, you remember how screwed up Cooper felt when Everly didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Well, I think you’re going through the same thing, except worse because this time you’re the one trying to walk away from the person who’s The One for you.”
Remy wanted to tell him that was just about the dumbest crap he’d ever heard, but unfortunately, he couldn’t tell Max he was wrong. None of the other members of the Pack who’d been lucky enough to find their soul mates had ever tried to resist the attraction. For all Remy knew, Max could be right. This crappy feeling in the pit of his stomach just might be his body’s way of saying he was making the dumbest mistake of his life.
He remembered Max laughing at his big plans to tell the cosmic forces behind the legend of The One to fuck off. Maybe this was how the cosmos responded to dumb-ass plans like that.
Not that he intended on listening to his body. He might hate the way this was all going down, but he still believed separating himself from Triana was the best thing to do.
Remy was still thinking about that as he and Max walked into the SWAT facility. They hadn’t even shaken the water off their rain jackets when Brooks and Drew met them in the hallway.
“Don’t bother drying off. You’re going right back out,” Drew said. “We have reports of some of the streets in Bywater already starting to flood. I need you and Max to get over there with some of my guys to help people evacuate from the worst of the low-lying areas.”
Remy and Max immediately fell into step with several of the local guys who passed them in the hallway and headed toward the back door. Going back out in the rain was fine with him. It would give him something to occupy his mind instead of thoughts of Triana. Because right then, that was definitely something he didn’t want to think about.
Chapter 13
“You want the T-shirts taken upstairs too?” Triana yelled toward the back room, where her mom was busy packing up all her herbs, powders, and potions.
“Yes,” her mother called. “I want anything that can get water damage moved upstairs. That includes the T-shirts, books, dolls, and gris-gris bags.”
Triana groaned softly. She’d known before asking what her mom was going to say. She eyed the two racks full of shirts, dreading the task of boxing them up and carrying them upstairs, but she understood why her mother wanted the stuff moved. Ophelia was coming in closer to New Orleans than anyone was comfortable with, and even though no one was predicting this part of the city would flood, there was always a chance they’d get water coming in under the door, which it did during bad summer thunderstorms on occasion. If that happened, they’d all be happy they put a little work into saving the shop’s merchandise.
“Those T-shirts aren’t going to pack up themselves,” Kim said as she dumped a pile of empty boxes at Triana’s feet.
Triana smiled. Her friend had shown up an hour ago, saying she’d known Triana and her mom would need some help getting stuff done. That was just an excuse. In reality, Kim had stopped by because she’d known Triana needed a friend this morning. Kim hadn’t asked any questions about what had happened last night. Instead, she’d walked in and given her a big hug. Triana wasn’t sure what she’d done to deserve friends like Kim, but she thanked God she had them.
