“I’m right here,” I remind him, but he ignores me, his eyes bright and only focused on Miranda.
Ethan has already launched into a detailed account of something that happened at breakfast involving a piece of toast and the family of sparrows that lives in the garden. Miranda is listening with her full attention, nodding at the right moments, asking questions. Ethan beams. He gets louder. More animated.
My wolf goes quiet.
Not tense, not restless. Just still. That low hum settles in my chest, deep and warm and satisfied, the same way it does when Ethan is asleep and the house is safe and everything I need to protect is exactly where it should be.
I turn my head away before the feeling can finish forming into a thought I’d have to deal with.
“Ten minutes,” I say to no one in particular and go back through the locker room door.
Chapter Eight
Miranda
“That one,” Brooke says, pointing.
“Brooke.”
“It makes your waist look incredible.”
“I have to catch two buses to get there. I am not wearing that on public transit.” I yank the blue dress off its hanger anyway, holding it against myself in the mirror. It’s nice, and it highlights my curves, but I just cannot bring myself to care.
“I don’t understand why you took that rental car back,” Brooke says. “You weren’t having to pay for it, right?”
“I really don’t have the time for this,” I comment, looking at my friend in the full-length mirror. She’s sprawled across my bed like she lives here, surrounded by the three other dresses she dragged over in a bag this afternoon. I wouldn’t even have said yes to this date if she hadn’t glared at me from across the nurse’s station.
“You already stood him up once.” The disapproval in Brooke’s voice is heavy. “And he’s still interested in you. I don’t know a man who would ask someone out after being stood up like that.”
“I know, but—”
“Girl, you need to get out. Working like a madman isn’t the way to live your life. You barely have a social life as it is. This is good. This is healthy.”
When I turn my attention back to the dress, she urges, “Dr. Hudson is cute. You said so yourself.”
I did say so. Six weeks ago when he first asked me out, I meant it. He’s tall, good-looking, and kind. He remembered I took my coffee black and brought me one during a twelve-hour shift. That’s not nothing.
“He is cute,” I say as I turn back to the mirror, but my words feel flat. I close my eyes to try to imagine him, to maybe summon that flare of attraction that I felt back then, but I can’t. All I see is a pair of amber eyes, a sharp jaw, and a smirk that should be illegal.
I open my eyes, and when I see the slight tinge of pink to my cheeks, I quickly turn around.
“Miranda.” Brooke’s voice goes quieter. “It’s just dinner. You don’t have to marry the man. You just have to eat food in his presence for two hours.”
I know what this is really about. She’s been watching me work doubles, skip meals, and deflect every question about how I’m doing with yes, I’m fine. She wants to get me out of this apartment and out of my own head for one evening, and I love her for it. But dinner with Dr. Hudson is not going to make the debt disappear. It’s not going to make Kozlov’s people forget I exist.
I sink down onto the edge of the bed beside her. The blue dress pools in my lap.
“Hypothetically,” I say slowly.
She turns her head, studying me. “Hypothetically.”
“If I had a way to pay off the debt.” I stop and regroup myself. “If I had a way to pay off my debt, but it would force me to step on my pride, what would you say?”
Brooke doesn’t so much as hesitate. “Do it.”
“You don’t even know what it is.” I give her a dry look.
“Do it anyway.”
