Page 57 of Brandon’s Mate

Be

Fri

A smile started somewhere deep in his chest. She’d kept it all these years.

He heard the bathroom door open and Kitty came out, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, rubbing her hair dry with a towel. He could hear her muttering to herself—rehearsing what she was going to say to convince him she was staying here, no matter what he thought. And she was going to back him up at his meeting with Jax, too.

All of a sudden, he knew he wanted her to stay—as long as she wanted to. He needed her to.

“Okay,” he said. “You convinced me.”

She startled, her head coming up as she realized he was there. “What?”

He leaned his hips against the dresser. “I said you can stay.” He paused, pushing the words out past the jagged places inside him. “I want you to stay.”

“Oh.” She raised the towel back up to her head and began rubbing her hair again, more slowly. “But you don’t want me to be part of your fake crew when you go talk to Jax.”

“That’s not about you,” he said. “I just don’t want Caleb to feel obligated to throw down because the hot chick who kicked his ass and humiliated him is there.”

“Oh.” She hung the towel from the doorknob. “Dammit, that makes sense. Which sucks, because I had some kickass arguments ready, and now they’re all wasted.”

He grinned. “You can tell them to me if you want.”

She shook her head. “Nope. You ruined my momentum—you’ll never get to hear them now. And they were epic.” She walked over to the dresser. “Have you seen my hairbrush?”

Then she saw what he was holding in his hand.

A flush rose up from her chest, all the way to her hairline. “Well, that’s embarrassing. I have no clue why I brought that.”

“Don’t you?”

“Shut up.”

She tried to snatch it away from him, but he pulled it back out of her reach, closing his hand around it. It felt good. Knowing she kept it felt good. “Do you remember the day you gave me the other half?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was in third grade and all the girls in school were getting these necklaces and giving half to their best friends. I was going to give it to some little snot from the Nashville wolf pack named Lilith. But she turned out to be a fucking traitor so I punched her in the stomach and took it back.”

He grinned. “That’s my Kitty.”

“I got detention, but it was worth it. And when I told my dad, he said good for me, and to let that be a lesson not to trust any Nashville wolves. All the good ones went to Idaho with Uncle Donny before I was born.”

“So I hear.”

Kitty said softly, “So I gave it to my real best friend.”

“Who turned out to be a friend-abandoning douche?”

She looked away. “I guess that necklace was doomed from the start.”

She went to take it once more, but he took her hand instead, holding it gently with the necklace between them. “I remember exactly when you gave it to me,” he said, picturing it in his mind. “I was fifteen, and I was having a real bad day. My gazillionth fight in school—I had detention too—and another fight with my dad, and then my panther took a swipe at Flynn and he flattened me. I felt like everyone hated me and I didn’t belong anywhere.”

“I remember you were upset,” she said softly. “I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“I do, though. I felt like shit, so I Changed and went off into the woods all by myself to lick my wounds. And you found me. You always found me.”

“Yeah. You and your cat were hurting so hard, it was like a beacon, leading me right to you. And I told your panther that you and he were my best friends and I hated everyone else. And your panther let me put the necklace around his neck.”

Her voice got dreamy. “He even put his head in my lap and let me pet him. And after awhile he started to purr, and I could tell he didn’t feel so bad anymore. I finally felt like I really mattered to someone who wasn’t one of my parents.”