Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
“H ow’s the number 2 love of my life?”
I melted on the other side of my phone’s camera, torn between so much love my body could barely handle it and wanting to slap my hands against my face so I could muffle the scream that had been steadily building in my body over the last few days. I hadn’t purposely kept things from my two closest friends in the entire world, but there were some things that were easier to explain verbally than through text.
Plus, I knew Matti and Sienna; they were going to want the whole story, not just part of it.
And Sienna showed me just how well she knew me when she lunged forward, so close into her own phone’s forward-facing camera that all that was visible was a single green eye and a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “What happened?” she demanded.
Did she have any idea she’d picked up Matti’s video call habits? I let it go for now as I leaned against the seat of my travel trailer’s dining room table slash bed, not sure where to start even though I had already planned parts of this conversation out so we could cover everything. That’s why I was in the trailer, to give myself the closest thing to privacy I could get without driving an hour away. Nothing I had to say was worth the gas. And too many people came in and out of the clubhouse for that to be a proper venue for our conversation.
“That good?” Sienna’s eye got even closer so I couldn’t see anything but a blurry iris and pupil.
“‘Good’ is a stretch,” I told her honestly, slumping into the refinished seat. I had redone it myself four years ago when I’d parked outside of Sienna’s parents’ house and spent a month and a half refurbishing my trailer with the help of her dad.
She whistled long and low. “I had a feeling about this two nights ago.” Her eyeball flicked to the side where Matti was sitting. “Didn’t I tell you my sixth sense was going off?”
“You did, baby,” he agreed from out of the shot.
I smirked, and Si nodded.
“See? I’m ready when you are,” she let me know.
The smirk fell off my face. “You pick. I don’t know where to start. My maybe biological father waking me up in the middle of the night?—”
She gasped, and it was my turn to nod.
“The bogeymen and the gnomes who want to have kids.” Her eyebrow arched at that. “Or do you want to hear about how someone’s cousin is ignoring me now because I haven’t been able to stop asking him if he wants to marry me, even though he kissed me… or he gave me a peck, if we’re going to be technical.” It was not my finest moment. But I didn’t want to regret not putting myself out there, especially not when the only person I wanted to mate with to stay here was him.
I held up my finger. “He also rubbed his face all over me after a bunch of werewolves showed up to cook.”
I was suddenly really glad Sienna wasn’t around to smell the despair that I had to be emitting at the acceptance that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted.
The thing I wanted being Henri.
“You didn’t,” was all she said.
“I did.”
“ Nina .”
I shrugged.
The camera zoomed back, and she shook her head slower than anyone I’d ever seen before. “That. I pick that. I want to hear about that son of a bitch DNA donor, but later, and you having a bunch of werewolves wanting to mate with you has been old news before it was even news. I’ve always known you were boner material.”
I beamed. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”
“No, but thank you. Now tell me what’s going on with someone’s cousin. Henri kissed you?” Her voice went high and everything.
Out of view, Matti muttered, “Ugh.”
Even though I’d told Matti some of what was going on, and I was confident he’d shared it with her, it took about two minutes to rattle off the first brief mention I’d made to Henri about Matti’s suggestion. I followed that with the most recent and wrapped it up with a brief explanation about him being stressed, letting him borrow my RV, and him coming home and giving me that smooch that was still haunting me.
It had been three days since I’d last seen him, for the record.
I told her almost everything but skipped out on him being half-naked and all the stuff with my father since this was a three-part miniseries. “He’s avoiding me now.”
She scrunched up her face. “Why do you think that?”
Holding up a finger again, I peeked through the blinds behind my back and then got up and checked the other windows. There still didn’t seem to be any other community residents walking around; for the most part, none of them got home until late in the afternoon anyway. Once I was back at the table, I leaned forward and whispered, “Because I take the kids—Duncan and the white wolf, Agnes—out every night for a game of tag and a popsicle, and we look at the stars. We go out at the same time, and I know he knows that because there were a few nights before all this that he would come home and sit with us when we were out there. Since that night when I’d asked him if he was sure he didn’t want to marry me—” I realized then I’d forgotten to tell her the part of me telling him he was attractive. “—he’s purposely gotten home fifteen minutes after we would’ve gone back inside the clubhouse. Same time every night.” I’d timed it.
“You sure it isn’t a coincidence?” She squinted. “Matti’s said before he’s blunt. Wouldn’t he tell you if something was going on instead?”
“I know one night his shift ended an hour earlier because one of the other wolves called him and asked where he was.”
That had left a little knot in the center of my chest. The idea that Henri might be avoiding me, hurt.
But I’d taken a risk with him that night in my room, even though I hadn’t actually thought he would say yes, no matter how much he seemed to stare at me sometimes, or touch me, or how helpful or kind he could be.
Or how playful he could be with me. Or affectionate. Or protective.
Or regardless of what Matti had smelled coming from him.
I’d been doomed.
On the screen, Sienna got even more squinty, and Matti was blinking very casually at the screen—he’d slid closer to her at some point—and I knew I needed to change the subject.
“Can I tell you about my father now so I can tie in that story with Henri avoiding me?”
“Proceed.”
Only with them could I grin through this conversation. “My DNA dad may or may not be waking people at the ranch up in the middle of the night, in a dream that’s not a dream, asking for his ‘child.’ The gnomes think it’s him or a family member.”
“ What? ”
That sounded as outrageous as it was. I told them what happened.
Moving the camera back to only focus on her, she mouthed “whatttt,” and I nodded again. “There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s back up a couple steps.” Sienna leaned forward again. “What exactly would you do if he said yes?”
We were back to that. “Do it,” I told her instantly.
She leaned away, then zoomed back in. “Really?”
Did she have to sound like it was that crazy? “Yeah.”
Her eyes slid from side to side. “I haven’t gotten the full story, but it sounds like you might have options, and if you do, then why wouldn’t you explore those instead of him?”
I’d known this was coming. I sat up on the bench seat. “He’s very handsome. He’s so good with all the kids. He bickers with me but in a fun way. He works hard, but too hard. He’s very protective?—”
“Henri?” She couldn’t believe it, and I laughed.
“Yes.” Not that she could see, but my shoulders dropped. “Henri. He ticks all my boxes. Every single one of them.” I paused and told them the truth, even though I couldn’t see Matti at the moment. “I like him a lot.” Saying that out loud made me… it made me sad, because I did. And nobody was indebted to like anyone in return, but why couldn’t that be the case? He was the first man I’d ever felt this level of attraction to, on so many different levels, not just physically and….
Sienna narrowed those green eyes at me, but all she said was “Huh.”
I shrugged, and I knew my struggle had to be evident. I more than liked him, and if I couldn’t admit that to them, then who could I say it to? Raising my eyes to the ceiling, I told her without moving my lips, “I think I’m a little in love with him.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “Sorry, Matti.”
Sienna didn’t say a word, and I peeked back down at the screen.
She had the saddest look on her face. “I’m sorry, Nina. That doesn’t explain that kiss, but…” Si shrugged. “It’s his loss, and I kind of hope he regrets it when you mate with someone else.”
It said something that she wasn’t telling me things would work out, and it said even more that Matti stayed quiet too.
The low-key grief was there in my tone. “I kind of hope so too.” I shrugged. “It’s fine. I saw a couple of the wolves who did seem interested, and they were nothing to be disappointed over.” I could love anyone. If I gave it time and watered the love, fertilized it… it could grow. That rang true for every kind there was.
Just because one person couldn’t love me didn’t mean someone else couldn’t.
There was no reason for that thought to hurt me as much as it did, but it did. My stomach, though, revolted like it always did when I pictured that.
My oldest friend leaned in front of his wife. “Give me names. I’ll do backgrounds checks.”
The three of us were smirking, but something that felt exactly like disappointment took a little bit more of my joy away.
At least I knew what I was working with. At least I knew where I stood with him. With Henri.
At least… I had another chance to be with someone else in the future.
* * *
Child. Nina?
I sat up.
My throat hurt. My nose stung. It was the grogginess, though, that was the worst of it all. Duncan, fortunately, was sleeping peacefully against my leg. Safe. Innocent. Undisturbed.
I took a breath in through my nose and let it come out shaky. And when a minute went by and then another and there was no knock, no barging in, no handsome man coming to save me, no nothing, I told myself it was for the best while wiping at my eyes and my nose with the back of my wrist. I did it again before I put my elbow on the mattress and crawled out from beneath the covers. Duncan lifted his head up from where he was on his side, and I curled my body around his. And my sweet, perfect puppy wiggled his way up to tuck his head beneath my chin, and he gave me exactly what I needed right then.
“Love,” he told me.
LOVE , I tried to tell him right back.
* * *