I shake my head wildly. “What’s too much?”
“All of this, Max.” She waves a hand about, gesturing at nothing in particular. “I know you’ve been going through a lot, and I just want what’s best for you. I really do. But I’ve been going through a lot too.”
“Yeah, I know.” I glance at Todd and Simon, who are pretending they’re not listening in. “We’ve barely had a second to ourselves.”
She blinks and shakes her head like a bug just flew into her mouth. “Well, yeah, because everything is about you and Jasper. He’s not even nice to you, and all you’re interested in is following him around. And now there’s this blood-wolf thing and—”
“And what?”
She shrugs and stares at the floor. “Maybe we’re just drifting apart.”
My ears must be telling lies because there’s no way my best friend just said that. But the way Katie is fidgeting with her purse and curling her shoulders in, I can see she means what she said.
“Katie, I… I don’t want us to drift apart but…”
Across the atrium, Jasper passes through the crowd, catching my eye.
“But what, Max?”
As much as I want to stand and talk this out—as much as I want to make things right—I can’t stop right now. Not when a couple of my friends are about to be torn apart.
“There’s something I need to take care of.”
Katie glances back and spots Jasper as well, and when she turns to face me, her eyes say it all: she’s not angry, just disappointed.
“I’m sorry,” I say, before darting into the crowd to find Jasper. I have to believe that my friendship with Katie is strong enough to withstand this—that running from her now to find Jasper isn’t the nail in the friendship coffin.
When I reach the other side of the room he’s gone. I turn in circles, but there’s no sign of him—no whiff of his scent amongst the heavily perfumed wolves gyrating to some repetitive song. I spin again, and this time when I stop I come face-to-face with a giant of a person.
“Jericho,” I say, and then remembering myself, I bow my head and add, “Alpha.”
“Max,” Jericho says, his voice cutting through the noise effortlessly. “I see little has changed since I arranged for you and my son to spend some time together.”
Oh, if only he knew.
“I’m disappointed, Max.”
His words hit me like a high-speed train, but instead of letting myself be run over, I give into the anger that flares in me.
“You’re what?”
“I thought you would have the gumption necessary to tame a future alpha.”
Maybe it’s because my best friend has potentially just told me she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore. Maybe it’s because Mia and Olivia are stuck in a stairwell panicked they’re about to lose each other. Or maybe it’s just because this dude thinks I’m responsible for his son’s complete inability to open up, but something inside me snaps, and I forget who I’m talking to.
“You know what?” I say, letting the floodgates fall. “I’m disappointed too! I’m disappointed that you’ve put so much pressure on your son to be a certain way, he has no idea how to behave like a normal teenager. I’m disappointed that you’ve let him blame himself for his mother’s death his whole life. I’m disappointed that before you decided to set us up you tried to break us apart by forcing Jasper to mate with someone else. And I’m disappointed that no matter how hard I try to get Jasper’s attention, he’s too busy trying to get yours. Trying to show you he’s worthy. Maybe if you’d stopped for a second to tell him how proud you are of him, how you love him, Jasper would be better adjusted, and he and I would be together already. Maybe if you’d been a better father, I wouldn’t be responsible for making him feel okay about himself.”
When I’m finished, I clamp my mouth shut. Alpha Jericho is towering over me, very much like how this very skyscraper did earlier. His face has turned an impressive shade of purple, veins are bulging on his forehead, and suddenly I realize…Oh shit, I’ve just pissed off the alpha!
HAPPY NEW YEAR
I turn and run, leaving Jericho steaming behind me. It’s maybe the cowardly move, but I’d rather run and leave this party with my limbs intact than stick around.
I’m pretty sure I’ve just pissed Jericho off enough to sink his Jasper-Max ship and now I need to find Jasper more than ever.
My adrenaline is pumping so hard, I don’t even feel the cold when I burst out onto the windy patio. I stand on tiptoes, trying to see over the crowd, and press my lips together, concentrating, shutting out the noise. In Times Square the clock has counted down another hour.Already?Time is ticking away.
For an instant I think I see a flash of black hair across the patio, so I head in that direction. When I reach the spot where I thought I saw him, Jasper is gone again. Maybe heisavoiding me.Well, sorry Jasper, this is an emergency, and you don’t have a choice.
