Cash blushed. “Okay. Good. Just . . . be safe.”
Aleks left, and rather than escort him out, I stayed there with Cash. He casually dragged his wrist across the corner of his eye. When he sighed, he dropped his arms in his lap.
“You okay?”
He shrugged. “I honestly have no idea.”
“I’m sorry I made him leave.”
Cash’s lips parted slightly. Something painful twisted in my gut at the notion that he’d never heard an apology from his alpha before, but I knew he hadn’t. It wasn’t just the shock on his face, but the memory of what it’d been like under Reeve.
Clearly, Grant wasn’t any better.
Cash caught himself, shaking his head. “I get it. And he’s... he needs to be there. Just?—”
“He’s important to you.”
Cash stared down at his lap. “Yeah.”
“You trust him?”
“Completely.”
“Can I trust him?”
Cash looked up at me, biting his lip. He took a second to consider it. “I think so. I mean, he’s not going to hurt someone he’s loyal to for your sake, or for the Crescent pack, but there’s not a lot of love lost between him and Grant. I’ve never seen any reason that youcouldn’ttrust him.”
That probably shouldn’t have made me feel better, but it did. After making sure he knew he had free reign of the rest of the house, I got ready for work.
I’d had to call Charles in to bring a whole fleet of town cars to get every Crescent employee who was staying at our place to work.
There were plenty of people who weren’t so close to the danger zone who could keep things running until we sorted this out, so they didn’thaveto go to work. Before we’d gone in, Maia had reminded everyone of the company’s generous paid-time-off policy.
Every single one of us had decided to go in any way, and it was weird. I’d kind of expected to see people throughout the day, but everyone was staying pretty busy.
I didn’t even see Dakota at lunch. He had something he was doing at the lab? Given that his primary focus was our partnership with Igarashi, I had no idea what the hell that meant, but it made sense for him to branch into our magical sales as he got more comfortable as a mage.
Maybe he was working with Kent on that potions project.
I wouldn’t say it was the most productive workday I’d ever had. Still, I’d needed the sense of normalcy and something to lean on, and I didn’t think I was the only one.
I’d spent most of the day thinking about macaroni and cheese, maybe piled high with barbecue or pulled chicken. And okay, we could have a side of broccoli. Mostly, I wanted comfort food, and my wolf liked the idea of being able to provide for pack, so when we got home that evening, I pulled out the biggest pot we had in the house and got to work.
When we’d gotten home, Cash was sitting on the couch, which was a nice change from how he’d been hiding out since we’d brought him here. Most of the pack stayed out there, but Seth was still on edge, like he’d been for days. He stalked between the living room and the kitchen so he could put eyes on everybody every couple of minutes.
Me? I was making macaroni and cheese, and I wasn’t to be distracted from it.
Well, not until I heard a raised voice from the living room.
“You didn’t have a single drop of that poison,” Dakota shouted. I’d never heard him raise his voice like that before. It had the same firm tone he used with his family members back in Japan, but he’d neveryelledat them.
Of course, if he had, they’d probably have thought he was crazy. This kind of display among werewolves wasn’t half so strange.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Kent replied, but even from the kitchen, I could tell his voice was pinched by nerves.
“The fuck you don’t,” Dakota went on. “You faked it. You fell, and you faked it, but there wasn’t a trace of anything in your mugorin the coffee filter. You poured yourself a cup, and thenyouput that shit in the pot before you got one for Jax.”
“You’re paranoid!” Kent snapped back.
