Chapter 34
June
Five days after I hugged Callum and wasn’t the least bit tempted to shove him out of my apartment window, I’m tired.
But not from bond sickness. This is tiredness from having to clean too many hotel rooms with not nearly enough help.
Manny is punishing me for calling out, or maybe for inconveniencing him by being sick.
Lucia warned me before I took the job, so it seems petty to complain about it.
Like asking for a cheeseburger and complaining it has cheese.
Archer walked me to work this morning, in what’s become a routine that I think I’d miss if he ever stopped. He’d been waiting outside my apartment with a vanilla latte and a chocolate croissant. Before I walked into the hotel, I told him I was working late so he shouldn’t wait for me.
It was a lie.
After I finish work at the usual time, I head into the city and to a shop I haven’t visited in several weeks now.
I’m at the pawnshop to buy back my great-grandmother’s bracelet with all the money I’ve scraped together.
If Callum hadn’t told me I didn’t have to pay rent, I’m fully aware that I wouldn’t have had the money to do it.
And I will pay rent. Just not this month.
But I have thirty days to buy my bracelet back, or the guy will sell it.
Pushing the door open, I step into the store. It’s as quiet as it was before, with the same tinge of someone having smoked inside it recently.
I smile at the man on the other side of the counter and pull out a thick white envelope from my tote bag.
$700.
I barely, and I mean barely, scraped the money together, and that’s only because I’m skipping out on paying rent and not buying any groceries.
“Hi, I’m here to buy back my bracelet.”
The pawnbroker checks his nails. “Got a ticket? Can’t do anything without a pink ticket.”
“Yeah, sorry.” I rummage through my tote bag for the pink slip he gave me, and I push it across the counter toward him. “Here.”
He picks it up, scans it, and sets it back down. “That’ll be $2,000.”
I stare at him, certain I must be hearing things. “What do you mean, $2,000?”
He nudges the slip toward me. “You sold the bracelet for $700. This is a different transaction. The price of gold has gone up. Now it’s worth $2,000.”
“But you said I could buy it back when I had the money. And you said nothing about the price going up.”
He points his thumb at the tiny rows of letters at the bottom of the slip. “Says so right there. Price of items can go up and down. As required by law.”
“But you didn’t tell me that.”
“It’s not my job to tell you. Just have to have it written. Not my fault you didn’t read it.”
I grit my teeth. “But you didn’t give me time to read it when you bought my bracelet.”
“And again, not my job, lady. You want the bracelet or not? You might not want it at $2,000, but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t. It’s a nice piece.”
My face is hot, and I shake with anger. “But you said…” I force myself to stop and take a breath.
This isn’t working. He isn’t listening to me, and I’m getting the sense that he does this to everyone.
And gets away with it. Opening my eyes, I try to return to my calm state. “How long do I have to buy it back?”
He peers down at the pink slip. “About a week.”
“Can you hold it for a little longer? It’ll really help me to—”
“Can’t do that.” He smiles blandly at me. “It’s thirty days for everyone.”
He doesn’t care that this bracelet means everything to me. That it’s all I have left of my great-grandmother. In fact, he probably likes that it means so much to me. It makes me so desperate that I’ll pay whatever he wants to get it back.
“I’ll be back with the money,” I tell him firmly, even if I’m not sure how I’ll do that yet.
“Don’t wait too long,” he warns. His smile is so greasy, I never would have sold him the bracelet if I’d seen it before. “Wouldn’t want to sell it to someone with the money since it means so much to you.”
Hating myself for not recognizing that I couldn’t trust him, I pick up the pink slip from the counter and walk out of the shop, the door banging loudly behind me. Not just defeated, but angry and frustrated.
I could ask my boss for a loan, but Manny will say no. Worse, he might make his help dependent on me doing something in return. The girls at work don’t call him Wandering Hands Manny for no reason.
I wander down the road toward the bus stop, thinking hard about what to do.
No one I know has that kind of money.
Callum might give it to me, but do I really want to be relying on him for everything? He might be okay with the idea of me using him, but I’m not.
My mood doesn’t improve when my bus doesn’t come for thirty minutes. I briefly debate whether to try speaking to my parents again or going on another fruitless search for River. But no one will talk to me, and even if my parents or their friends knew where she was, they wouldn’t tell me.
Garrison might help, but he’s still interviewing omegas matched by Haven Academy. I see occasional reports in the newspaper. He doesn’t have time to look for River for me.
Jack’s hardware shop is closed, and the lights are off when I pass it.
When I knock on the door and peer in the window, Jack doesn’t seem to be inside.
I try calling him, wanting to ask if he’s found a solution to saving the shop yet.
He doesn’t answer, so I head home, making a mental note to try again later.
My bags of groceries, things I won’t eat that I leave near the noticeboard, are gone. I smile when I see a note, a page ripped from a notebook, pinned to the noticeboard.
Thanks, June. You’re the best!
Simon
Gia’s son must have found something he liked a lot in the bags to leave me a note.
At least someone is happy today.
As I make my way up the stairs, more drilling is going on in another part of the building. All the apartments have new front doors—probably with the same thick, sturdy door chain as mine—along with brand new furniture.
On my floor, someone has replaced the silver panel for the elevator call button. I hope it’s a sign that sometime soon, I won’t need to keep climbing four flights of stairs. I’m fishing my keys from my bag when I spot a familiar figure at the entrance of a door four from mine. Archer.
The door is open, and Archer has a set of keys in his hand. I don’t know if he was on his way inside the apartment or just stepped out of it.
“Archer?”
He twists around and freezes when he spots me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, continuing toward him.
He wipes all traces of expression from his face. “There’s no way to answer that without you being pissed at me.”
I peer over his shoulder and into the apartment.
It’s almost identical to mine and includes the same brand-new furniture that all the units now have. The sound of a mattress squeaking is unmistakable, though. So is the guilt stamped on Archer’s face.
He has a woman in there.
My mind instantly flashes back to Lottie, the omega laughing in the library with my scent matches. Callum told me Lottie was a childhood friend. There was no cheating, though it looked that way to me.
But what if this is cheating?
I told Archer I didn’t need him to meet me after work today, and he agreed so easily, without arguing or asking what I was doing.
Almost as if he were relieved.
Maybe he had something he wanted to do more than meet me at work. I turn to look at Archer, and the pain of this new betrayal surprises me.
My mood was in the toilet after my confrontation with the greedy pawnbroker. But now? If there were a window beside Archer, I’d have happily shoved him out of it. Hardening my heart, I turn away. “I have to go.”
“It’s not what it looks like,” he says, stepping in front of me.
“Said every cheater ever,” I mutter, moving around him.
“Juniper,” he says firmly. “I swear to you that it is not what you think. Someone is in that bed, sleeping, but it’s not a woman.”
I look into his face, hunting for a lie amid the ring of truth in his voice.
He steps aside, holding the door open. “Any room you want to look in, you can. I am hiding something from you, but it’s not a woman.”
After another searching look, I walk into the apartment, gripping the strap of my tote bag and praying Archer was telling the truth.
It’s a two-bedroom instead of a studio apartment like mine.
There’s a desk set up on one side of the living room, right in front of the double window.
I pass a three-seater navy couch and a wooden coffee table identical to mine.
The bathroom door is open, so I don’t go in there.
I push one closed door open. It’s a bedroom with one bed, lazily made. And the other…
Torin sprawled on his back, one arm flung over his face, softly snoring.
No woman.
I back out of the room and close the door quietly so I don’t wake him. Then I turn to Archer, who’s leaning against the dining table in the kitchen part of the open-concept living and dining area.
“We’ve been taking it in turns to watch over you,” he tells me quietly. “Torin volunteered to take the nights, so he sleeps during the day.”
“Why are you taking turns to watch me?” My heart spikes in alarm, and I glance at his partially open apartment door.
He crosses his arms. “None of us can stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Wanting to be close.” His eyes are as hungry as they are possessive. “Wanting to protect you. None of us deserves you, but we can’t stay away.”
“The bond between us is broken.”
“Is it?”
A tingle hits down low, a spark of heat flaring to life at his soft whisper.
I walk away, so fast it almost feels like I’m running from a feeling I wish I could kill. Maybe I am. “Well, stop doing it. It’s just the echo of the mate bond dying.”
Before I can step out, his quiet voice halts me. “Is that why you slept with Callum?”
I keep telling myself that I’m not even close to forgiving the three men who crushed my heart, but it didn’t feel like a mistake when I pried myself out of Callum’s arms.
“He told me to use him,” I say, with my back to him. “That’s all it was.”
“If that were true,” he says softly, “you’d have kicked him out of your bed the second you were through using him.”
Angry, I spin around to face him. “So, because I didn’t kick him out, I suddenly want him back, and you think I’ll want you back too? Is that it? Well, it doesn’t.”
And I walk out, slamming the door behind me, and march toward my apartment.
I fight with the new lock on my door, angry and frustrated, and not just at him.
At me.
I’m fine talking to Archer if we dance around the past and how he hurt me.
I’m okay with talking about TV shows and the weather, or about how good that coffee shop is down the street.
But the second I have to think about the way he fucked me against a bookcase and left me on the floor, I’m not okay.
I’m angry, and I feel so used and so… dirty, that I can’t even look him in the eye.
Callum was cold, and he shut me out. Archer used me and threw me away.
In my apartment, I slam the door shut behind me and dump my bag on the floor, wanting to kick it when I remember that stupid pawnbroker who will sell my bracelet to someone before I can buy it back.
I’m still stewing in my anger when a soft knock sounds on my door. Twisting around, I grip the doorknob and yank it open.