Chapter 10 - Nikki
“He took you on a picnic?” Amber asked, gawking at Nikki, her eyes almost comically wide.
“Yeah, though I’m not sure why that merits that sort of reaction,” Nikki said. “It’s just a picnic.”
Amber gave Nikki the same look one might give a willfully ignorant child. “A picnic is never just a picnic,” she said. “It’s too romantic.”
Nikki’s face grew hot while Amber’s giddy grin grew wider. She shouldn’t feel this flustered about a simple picnic, but her friend had a point. Despite Nikki’s insistence that there had been nothing to it, there had been something special about it. Something almost… romantic.
“How was it?” Amber asked when Nikki remained quiet.
“It was … nice,” Nikki said. She could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks despite herself, and she glanced away. “It was fun. He was sweet.”
She didn’t talk about the way she had nearly kissed him despite her common sense telling her it was a bad idea. She didn’t talk about the way she had wanted to lean in and kiss him.
Amber practically squealed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “It’s sweet that he did something like that for you. It means he cares.”
Nikki smirked, but kept her mouth shut. The picnic had made things even more complicated.
Until then, it had been easy to simply be angry at Jasper.
Now, both with the picnic and their date at the restaurant—had it been a date?
What else could she call it?—Things were beginning to get muddied and confusing.
It had been simpler when she could just be angry at him.
She still wasn’t happy with him, but she at least understood more about where he was coming from.
“Come on, give me the details,” Amber insisted.
“No!”
Laughing delightedly, Amber’s eyes sparkled.
“It’s nothing,” Nikki insisted.
“Yeah, sure it is,” Amber said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have that look on your face about someone.”
“A look? What look?”
“You know, that look people get when they’re interested in someone and don’t want to admit it. The look you get when you start falling for someone.”
Nikki rolled her eyes, praying that she wouldn’t start blushing. “You’re impossible, did you know that?” she groused.
“I know,” Amber said in a singsong voice, beaming. At Nikki’s scowl, she started laughing again. It wasn’t until her gaze slid away to look down the street that her smile faded and the laugh died. Her jaw tightened.
“What?” Nikki asked.
“Hoo boy.” Amber’s eyes narrowed at something in front of them. “Brace yourself. We’re about to have some unwanted company.”
Nikki followed her friend’s gaze and barely suppressed a groan.
She recognized the group strutting toward them.
They were the pack members who didn’t want the women to learn how to fight, thinking that was only for the men.
She had caught them jeering at her on more than one occasion, laughing their asses off, making fun of her behind her back.
For the most part, she had managed to avoid them and go about her life.
She didn’t think she was going to be that lucky this time.
The men caught sight of them and shifted their trajectory, heading straight toward them. The one at the front of the pack, a burly shifter named Rick, leered down at them with a disdainful sneer.
“Look who we’ve got here,” Rick said. “A couple of our female warriors. How’s the training going? Think you might be able to take on a rabbit by the end of the month?”
“Knock it off,” Amber snarled.
“Yeah, you know, maybe she’s right,” another one, a dark-haired shifter named Alek, chimed in. “They probably should be trained. I mean, think about all of the sandwiches they’ll have to fight when they’re in the kitchen.”
A roar of laughter echoed through the group. Nikki shrank back, looking down at the ground.
“I told you to back down,” Amber repeated.
“Aww, are your feelings hurt?” Rick said. “Why don’t you do something about it? With all that training, you could probably knock me down flat.”
“I’d love to,” Amber spat. “But honestly, I don’t think you’re worth the effort.”
More laughter. It sounded like an earsplitting cacophony in Nikki’s ears. She flinched again.
“Good excuse,” Rick said. “It’s cute. At least you know you can’t go up against a real threat.”
Nikki watched Amber stare up at them defiantly, hands on her hips, looking nearly the part of a warrior princess. A rush of admiration ran through Nikki at the sight of her friend, along with the faintest hint of jealousy. Why couldn’t she stand up to people like that?
Despite Amber’s stance and the rage radiating off her, it wasn’t doing anything to impress or deter the other shifters. They leered at her, chuckling with malicious amusement.
“It’s cute, isn’t it?” Alek said.
“It’s something. Personally, I don’t get the point of training women when we still have to come to their rescue,” a third man said, gesturing at Nikki with a brash laugh. “Case in point. She couldn’t fend for herself when that guy came to town to snatch her up.”
“That’s enough,” Amber snarled. She stepped in front of Nikki, who couldn’t seem to find her voice.
Another roar of laughter clanged and reverberated in her ears. Nikki kept her gaze on her feet, her fingers flexing in frustration. What she wouldn’t give to be able to stand up to them like Amber was right now.
“At least she’s got a pair on her,” one of them jeered. “It’s cute, isn’t it?”
“It sure is something,” another said.
“Knock it off before I lose my patience,” Amber said.
Nikki still couldn’t find her voice. Her gaze strayed down to her shoes as more heat flooded her face in some combination of anger and shame. She gritted her teeth, but she remained embarrassingly mute.
“Nikki’s got to have other women fight her battles for her, too?” Alek asked. “God, that has to be embarrassing for her. I’d probably be staring down at the ground, too.”
“Walk away right now unless each of you wants a new asshole,” Amber spat.
All it did was elicit another round of howling laughter.
“Come on.” Rick gestured with his head. “We’ve got to get going. We’ll leave the ladies to whatever they’re doing. Probably food-shopping or something like that.”
“Real original,” Amber called, her voice oozing sarcasm. “Next time you decide to be an asshole, at least try to come up with something creative. Your insults are getting boring.”
The men didn’t acknowledge the comment. They walked around them, talking to themselves again as if Nikki and Amber weren’t even there.
Amber stayed in front of Nikki until the group had vanished down the street. She exhaled, bristling, then turned back to Nikki.
“Assholes,” she muttered. When she saw Nikki’s face, her features softened. “Don’t take what they said personally. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They’ve got their heads so far up their asses, it’s insane.”
“They’re right, though,” Nikki finally said, unable to conceal her frustration.
“They were right. I couldn’t defend myself.
Jasper had to come to my rescue. And look at what just happened now?
” She gestured in the direction the men had vanished.
“I couldn’t say a single thing. I just froze up.
You’re the one who managed to get them to leave. ”
Amber sighed. Her hand went to Nikki’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “Nikki, it’s okay. And you don’t need to listen to anything they had to say.”
Gnawing the inside of her cheek, Nikki didn’t say anything, too much shame and frustration welling up inside her.
Why couldn’t she just stand up for herself?
All her life, she’d been little more than a doormat.
Even though she knew it, even when she didn’t want it to be the case, she still couldn’t bring herself to actually stand up for herself.
As if able to sense her continued frustration, Amber nudged Nikki.
“Come on,” Amber said. She slipped her arm around Nikki’s, looping their elbows together. “Let’s go to Lacey’s Chocolates. I could go for some treats, what about you?”
She guided Nikki down the road and into the gourmet chocolate shop, where they spent the next fifteen minutes combing over the selection of delicacies on the shelves.
Amber refused to let Nikki leave until she had a tall stack of boxes, each filled with different goodies like truffles, chocolate-covered fruits, and bonbons.
By the time Nikki finally managed to extract Amber from the store, their wallets were significantly lighter, and she was even able to smile.
The grin didn’t last, however. After a little bit of time, the laughter and jeers crept back into her head, clanging and ringing over and over.
Her fingers tightened around the paper bag currently weighed down with chocolate, the taste of the truffle in her mouth turning bitter by the time they got to the library.
That stupid encounter stuck with her all day.
She kept replaying it in her head over and over again.
As the day continued, she began drawing into herself even more.
Why couldn’t she defend herself? Why couldn’t she tell those jerks to get lost like Amber had?
It was as though the second they had started jeering at her and making fun of her, she’d curled into herself.
She wasn’t a pathetic, helpless weakling, but it felt as though she was incapable of ever standing up for herself.
Those thoughts echoed around her as she returned books and took care of patrons, all with a smile on her face despite the fact that those words kept eating at her, chewing at her insides.
She gritted her teeth. The truth was that all of the strength she had been starting to feel inside her had evaporated.
It had disappeared the second Lucas had attacked her.
She willed herself not to think too hard about it. She managed to keep the thoughts at bay as well as she could, but they still loomed around the corners of her mind for the entire rest of the day, pushing down on her.