Chapter 42 Maddy #2
She must have heard me because she calmed down almost immediately.
The feeling I got from her was relaxed and kind.
I smiled as I sat to watch Nico and the other shifters.
My smile didn’t fade even when my mind drifted back to the nightmare I’d had.
My wolf wasn’t like that awful thing I’d become in my dream. I had to believe that.
Nico and the rest practiced and trained the entire day.
At noon, I put in a massive pizza order for delivery, and after everyone had refueled, they were back at it.
It was impressive to watch. Their stamina, strength, and speed were incredible.
By late afternoon, everyone was exhausted—and rightfully so.
I felt a little guilty watching them all walk off the field and toward their cars and houses because I’d spent the day catching up on my reading while they’d busted their asses in training.
I headed back home to see about dinner but found Nico’s mother in the kitchen, cooking what looked like a feast for an army.
It smelled like she’d already been cooking for hours.
My mouth watered, but I hesitated to step further into the kitchen.
I still remembered that she’d basically told me I wasn’t good enough for her son.
Before I could turn and disappear, she glanced up from stirring a pot and locked eyes with me.
Instead of any venom or vitriol, I only saw surprise mixed with a little shame and anxiety in her eyes.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t relish the abashed look.
She’d made a few attempts to make up over the last week or two, but the road wasn’t fully smoothed over.
“Oh, Maddy. Sweetie, do you want to help me cook dinner? I could really use the help.”
I chewed at my lip in contemplation, then decided to be the bigger person. “Yeah, sure. What can I do?”
Julia smiled and tapped the cutting board. “If you could dice some tomatoes and cucumbers for the salad, it would help so much.”
I stepped over and started chopping. From the corner of my eye, I watched Nico’s mother hesitate. She was standing over a bowl that held what looked like dough for some type of bread. She had a pained look on her face, and I could almost guess what was going through her head.
“Maddy?” she said, “I’m… so very sorry.”
“For what?” I asked, knowing full well what she was talking about. A small part of me was ashamed of my pettiness, but it was a very small part.
Julia put a hand to her forehead. “I was—to use a vulgar term—a bit of a bitch to you.”
I almost dropped the knife. I stopped chopping and glanced across the kitchen island at her. I didn’t respond. Instead, I just looked at her and waited for her to continue.
Julia sighed and wiped her hands absently on a dishtowel.
“I should know better than to have such bigoted thoughts. I’m sorry I said those things to you.
My kind has been through awful things over the centuries, and I think I still have some ingrained things in my head about family and what an alpha and his mate should be.
The thing is”—she finally looked into my eyes again—“you make my boy so happy. That’s the only thing a mother should worry about.
Is her boy happy? Does he love the woman he’s with?
Is she good for him? You, my dear, check all those boxes.
From the moment Nico was born, I told myself I would do anything for him to be happy.
And then,” she said, sounding exasperated, “he finds the one person who makes him happy, and I treat her… well, I treat her like shit. Your whole life has been turned upside down. Your friend and parents were kidnapped. It feels like I’m the absolute worst person on Earth when I think about what I said to you.
I’m so sorry. Is there any way we can start over? ”
I stood there, dumbstruck and on the verge of tears. Finally, I nodded slowly. “I think that would be nice. To start over, I mean.”
Julia’s face burst into a smile that was both happy and relieved.
She’d probably thought there was a fifty-fifty chance between me forgiving her and me waving the chopping knife in her face until she ran screaming.
She stepped forward and put a hand on mine.
“Thank you for giving me a chance. The… the chance I didn’t give you.
I’m here for you. I’d love for you to look at me like a mother one day. ”
A single tear spilled over and onto my cheek, and I wiped it away quickly as I smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I think that would be great.”
Dinner was amazing. All of Nico’s friends and brothers came over along with his dad, and even after all the guys stuffed themselves, there was a ton of food left over to send home with everyone.
Julia pulled me into a hug before she left, and I almost broke down sobbing as I hugged her back.
Once everyone left, I went out to the back porch to be alone.
Nico found me there once he’d finished cleaning up the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around me, and I rested my head on his chest. “What are you thinking about?” he whispered in my ear.
I was honest with him. “My family. Being around yours is wonderful, but it makes me think about my parents being tied to those chairs.”
Nico squeezed me tight. “It’ll be okay.”
I chuckled humorlessly. “That’s what I keep telling myself. It’s all I can do to stay sane.”
“We won’t let them hurt your parents.”
“What if they're playing us, Nico? What if they’re lying, and they’re all already dead?”
“Don’t think like that. We have something they want. Viola is a businesswoman. The first rule of business is if you have leverage, you use it—you don’t get rid of it. They are alive. Never think differently.”
I fed off his confidence. He sounded like he truly did believe it.
I hugged his arm, clinging to him and his hope, praying it would rub off on me.
All I could do was hope that what he was saying was true.
I also had to wish things would go the way we wanted.
One thing I would never tell Nico was that if it came down to me or my parents and Abi, I’d sacrifice myself every time.