I shook my head. “I want to catch up withSarah.”
“We still haveso muchto catch up on,” sheadded.
Once the boys were out of earshot and the waitress had scampered away, Sarah hissed, “Why does August Watt smell likeyou?”
I winced. “Do we really smell alike?” Iwhispered.
“Unless August and you have been swapping body lotions, then yeah. Usually dudes smell like”—she waved a hand toward the seat Lucas had just vacated—“the inside of a lockerroom.”
“Is it reallyobvious?”
“To a person who knows you and your smell,yeah.”
I wrinkled my nose at her wording. I figured she didn’t mean itderogatively.
“Did you guys imprint on eachother?”
I bit my lowerlip.
“Shit.” Her chair creaked as she leaned forward. “So you and Liam are already over,huh?”
“No. Why would you jump to thatconclusion?”
She pressed slightly away from the table. “Babe, you do understand the purpose of mating links,right?”
“I understand theirpurpose, but I have no plans on dumping my boyfriend to jump into another man’sbed.”
“It’s sort of unavoidable. Your body must’ve shut out all other males. My brother and Margaux are mates. He tried to resist her at first. He had a girlfriend. It lasted all of a week. You can’t resist mating links. You just can’t. It would be like trying to starve yourself and expecting tosurvive.”
My skin prickled with annoyance. “There are lots of mates who don’t end uptogether.”
“Really? Name onepair?”
“I don’t know names. I just heard about this from Frank McNamara. He mentioned someone in our pack had a mate but didn’t end up withher.”
Sarah tutted. “Well, I’ve never heard of mates who didn’t end up together. It’s biological or chemical or whatever. Plus, it’s a good thing. It doesn’t happen to everyone. I sort of wished it would happen to me.” She thankfully lowered her voice to add, “Apparently, the sex is explosive.” She waggled hereyebrows.
I shushed her with a forbidding look. “Besides, he’s leaving soon,” I added under my breath. “Distance will suppress thelink.”
“Why would he leave?” She glanced over at the pool table. “Is Liam making him so he can have his dirty way withyou?”
Heat snaked up myneck.
She leaned in, her long, kinky blonde curls draping over her shoulders. “Oh my gosh, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s real fucked up, Ness. No one should ever come betweenmates.”
“I don’t want a mate all right!” I unfortunately said this so loudly that even the rain pounding against the windowed façade couldn’t camouflage mywords.
Sure enough, the boys had stopped playing to cop a look, as well as two of the men slugging down beers at the sticky bar. Not that they knew what I was talking about, but August knew, and from the shadows that fell over his strong brow, I could tell my comment had made animpact.
I didn’t think he was hurt that I didn’t want to be with him, after all, he considered me like his sister . . . people didn’t want to get with their sisters because that was all shades of unnatural and wrong, but he probably hadn’t appreciated me voicing my disgust quite this brashly. I slid the elastic out of my hair to busy my suddenly shaky hands and to curtain off myface.
“Didn’t mean to piss you off,” Sarahapologized.
I rested my elbows on the table and cupped my forehead with my palms. “It’s not you, Sarah. It’s this whole stupidsituation.”
She sighed just as Kelly brought over our food. She deposited the plates a little heavily, gaze trained toward theboys.
“The other burger goes over there.” Sarah pointed toLucas.
