Page 55 of Use Me Up

“Obviously not,” I say. “I’m just, you know, enjoying what I can get while I can get it.”

Ellis’s lips press together tightly.

I think I probably shouldn’t have said that.

“Well,” says Andrew, “about Callie—”

“Not everything is about Callie,” I interrupt.

But then, no one says anything, and I realize, what the hell, yes, everything is about Calliope. Damn it.

“If I tell her that you have an alpha,” says Andrew, “what will you do?”

“It doesn’t change anything,” says Ellis, stuffing lettuce into his mouth and chewing.

“The fuck it does not,” says Andrew.

“Andrew, language,” says my mother. “Not at the dinner table.”

“If she knows that you’re claimed, it will change a lot of things,” says Andrew.

Ellis shrugs at him. “Will it?”

Andrew huffs.

My father speaks up again. “Ellis, what happened with your alpha?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” says Ellis, and he doesn’t sound annoyed or ruffled, just firm.

I’m nervous. “Ellis, I really am sorry I said anything,” I whisper to him. “I don’t know why I did that.”

He shakes his head at me, and he’s still not annoyed or ruffled. No emotion at all.

This worries me worse than anything else. My heart starts to pound in my chest.

“What are you doing to her?” demands my mother. “I can scent that she’s frightened. Andrew, you must scent that?”

Andrew, I realize, is on his phone. “Sure,” he says noncommittally. He’s typing something.

My mother doesn’t scold Andrew for phones at the table. “Ellis, Hannah is terrified of you.”

Ellis gives me a look, an assessing look, and he blinks a few times and then turns to my mother. “I shouldn’t have come.”

No, he shouldn’t have.

My mother’s shoulders slump. “Oh, let’s just pass around the food,” she says, sighing.

So, then, we’re dipping food on our plates, and we’re not talking. There’s just the scrape of utensils on plates. Andrew is still on his phone, which is beeping off and on.

My mother finally takes him to task. “Are you texting at the table?”

He puts his phone under the table, on silent, but I can tell he’s still having a conversation with someone.

My mother eventually tries again with Ellis. “Is there some way I could entice you to leave her alone?”

“Hannah?” says Ellis. He glances at me. “Like you said, she’s scared of me. I think it’s over.” He turns to me, lowering his voice. “I’ll get an Uber, okay?”

“No,” I say. “I’m not… scared of you.”