Chapter Eleven Loretta
Idon’t want Loretta to think I’m drunk. That’s my immediate thought when I pry my eyes open.
I drugged myself into a near-coma last night with three times my normal dose of wolfsbane extract.
One keeps me calm and drowsy. Two, I’m mellow.
I wanted to sleep straight through without a growl or scratch to terrify her, so I forced down a third dose, and now I have pee that smells like an herbalist’s shop blew up in my toilet, my tongue is stuck to my teeth, and I can barely navigate the flip top on my water bottle, let alone something like a zipper.
One and a half doses tonight, I think, as I stagger to the tiny bathroom that’s in the finished section of the basement. I dunk my head in the stall shower and gulp down water, then shiver my way into a towel and back for my clothes.
This time, I remember to vacuum up the piles of fur I’ve left behind and toss the pile of blankets in the wash.
“Hi!” Loretta greets me in the kitchen with bacon, coffee, and fried eggs.
“Ohhh, God bless you,” I groan, and fall into my mug, drinking greedily. “I pulled an all-nighter, and I’m dead on my feet.”
“Well, I made you something with lots of protein, and give me one more minute to finish chipping up strawberries, and you’ll have some fresh fruit. That should help you feel more alert.”
“No rush. You are treating me like a king, and I barely got to hang out with you and Ari yesterday. I’m sorry about my work schedule this week.”
Loretta waves away my apology and hurries to put a bowl full of fruit next to my plate. “Izzy told me about it. You’re working with some top-secret astronomy team, and you record for their documentary these nights, right?”
I’m going to have to have a long talk with Ardy if that’s the kind of crazy story Izzy comes up with—but Loretta actually seems to believe it.
“I have that good announcer voice,” I say. It’s not a lie, but it doesn’t answer the question. “I do other things these nights, too.” If I lie, she won’t trust me. She’ll hate me when she finds out. When she finds out, I’m going to lose her.
It feels like someone is clawing through my soul.
“How did you get interested in astronomy? Or is it just like, a good-paying gig?” she asks.
Not to sound like some chauvinist piece of trash, but Loretta has charm and skills that I find other women lack, at least in my eyes.
The way she puts her chin on her hand and stares at me, face genuinely interested, deliberately asking about my hobbies and my work.
.. “My family has always been interested in the moon in particular. My granddad got started long ago, when he was just a young man, on a camping trip in West Virginia. Growing up, my dad and I always studied it together. I guess that’s how I got into my gig.
The research is fascinating.” That much is true.
Explanations about why the werewolf exists, why other were-animals exist, why only one phase of the moon has the power to bring a beast out of a human skin.
.. “I could yammer away for hours, but I have to wolf this down and go to work.” No pun intended. “Want to come with me?”
“I... I think I want to try staying at home again today. I haven’t gotten done a quarter of what I’d like to.”
“You don’t have to be a housekeeper. Not really. I mean, on paper, yes, but not really.”
“Well,” Loretta swirls her spoon in her coffee. “That wouldn’t be fair. Then I’d just be freeloading.”
“You could be investing. You c-could be thinking this would be a great neighborhood for Ari to grow up in. The Wymark twins are here, Dr. Ellsworth and his wife, Frankie, have a little girl, Bella, and Ian and Vanessa Kane have a baby boy. Lots of kids. Big yards.” I gulp down eggs in between hints.
“That sounds like you want Arianna and me to stay.”
I nod.
“I know we kissed—”
“I can forget it if you want. It was too soon. I’m sorry if all of this is too soon.
I just wanted to tell you,” I risk another bout of soul and heart shredding, “that you’re the kind of woman, and Ari is the kind of daughter, that man would wait an eternity for.
If he knew you were coming to him, a man would wait at one end of the universe while you walked from the other.
I would wait. I’ve been waiting so long, and when I—” I stop and shake my head.
“I know you could do better, honestly, and it’s too soon to be anything more than people who share a home, but that’s enough for me right now. ”
“Why?”
I wish she hadn’t asked that. “Because you’re everything I want. I’m afraid to tell you the rest. I’ll scare you away. Forget it, I shouldn’t have—”
Loretta rises when I push back my chair. Her voice is tense, her face a mask of tight lines, but even that can’t change how gorgeous she is. “Is it because you’re falling in love with me?”
If I say yes, she might leave. If I say no, I’ll be lying to my mate. With a tortured look and a guilty voice, I admit, “Yes.”
“I’m a mess.”
“What?”
“This is the messiest point in my life. I have a baby. I’m in the middle of a divorce and a restraining order!”
“I know. I’ve been paying attention,” I say softly.
Arianna, who is sitting in a special supportive rubber baby seat strapped to a chair at the table, makes a happy squeal as she flips over some plastic cups and bowls that Loretta lets her play with.
“There is no good reason to want me. I bring nothing to the table.”
“I disagree. You bring everything I’ve ever wanted to the table.
If you want me to wait until you’re the head of an international corporation who brokers deals for breakfast and wears powersuits to bed, I’m willing.
If you need to have ‘power’ and money so you feel like you have a more equal footing, then I’m here for it.
I’m here for you and Arianna. Any way you come. ”
I wish she’d say something. Or nod. Or even breathe. Wait, is she breathing? “Loretta, honey,” I say, too sharply, “you need to take a breath.”
She nods, shuddering out a wheezing sound, eyes full.
“You can tell me no. You know that, don’t you? I’d still be your friend. I’ll still help you and protect you, even if you don’t want me to be anything more than that nice guy who helped you out when you were in a jam.”
“I don’t want to tell you no. I want to t-tell you I’m falling in love, too, and I’m so scared.
What if you’re not the nice guy? This is way too fast, and if I make another mistake, people will say, ‘There goes Loretta, she married too young, and she left him only to pick up with another loser. Oh! Not that you’re a loser.
Not that I believe, not that I can see, but if I—” Her eyes overflow.
“If I choose badly, everything that’s bad will be worse, because I’m falling in love, too.
” She circles back to her declaration with a sob.
I rush to her, nuzzling my face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her, and practically licking my lips.
Sleepy wolf is waking up inside, well aware that this warm, clinging woman is supposed to be ours.
“I promise I will never, ever rush you, and I’ll never, ever hurt you.
I’ve never been in love before. I’ve waited all this time to find the woman I could treat like my queen, to complete my life and my home.
We can take things slow. We can enjoy it.
You can heal and learn how nice love can be, and I can do all those corny things I’ve been dreaming of, like sending you flowers, taking you out to dinner, and walking in the mall while our hands are clasped together on the handle of the stroller. ”
“And come with me to courtrooms and custody battles, and watch me fall apart,” she mutters into my shoulder, fists clutching desperately at my shirt.
“Yeah. All of that. All of that is part of loving you, so all of that is okay with me. Look, you still have things up in the air with Matt and the divorce for at least another month. We won’t talk about this until after that, and then you can set the pace.
Unless you want to talk about things sooner. ”
“Okay.” Loretta nods gratefully, pulling back to look up at me. “I’m sorry that I’m a mess.”
“I don’t mind the mess. I don’t even see a mess. Just you.”
Well, that must have been the right thing to say, because Loretta melts into me, hugging me tight, but this time her body presses into mine, and her hands rest on the sides of my face, so she can hold my head still and really study me, it seems. And then she kisses me, long and slow and sweet.
The kind of kiss that roasts you over a low flame, and you want to stay and feel the burn.
So, naturally, Miss Stinker hurls a green WPNR cup right at my head. It bounces off, and we pull apart.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I whisper.
“Dadada. Dadadada!” Ari gurgles and makes grasping hands in my direction, arms raised.
She’s thrown all of her plastic arsenal, and she wants freedom.
Or, she thinks that she’s cute enough that I’ll help her reload, even though she hit me with friendly fire.
I go and unbuckle her and pick her up. “Well, you’re right.
You are cute enough, tiny missile launcher.
Come on, let’s help Mommy get all of your projectiles off the floor. ”
DADA. SHE SAID dada. Jasper didn’t make a big deal of it. Maybe he thought it was just baby babble, but to me... It was so much more.
Is Ari falling in love with him, too?
He’s spent a lot of time with us. I’ve never told her to call him dada. She could have heard the twins call Alban that last night. She’s smart. Matt and I used to try to get her to say it to him.
She probably thinks any tall human that looks masculine is dada, like any white woolly thing is lambie.
While Ari naps and Jasper works, I ply my homemaking skills. Cleaning. Looking through his selection of cookbooks. Hauling boxes of Christmas decorations down. I get the idea that he only used the box at the front of the pile. The others are dusty.