Chapter 17
Seventeen
I f Luna was the type of person who enjoyed ASMR, she might’ve found the current atmosphere soothing. A snowstorm was raging outside, and she could hear the soft sounds of people chewing Prickles chocolate as everybody stared silently at the lobby carpet.
But she wasn’t, and if somebody didn’t speak in the next ten seconds, she was going to flip her shit.
“So,” Luna said around the chocolate minotaur she was chewing. “I told my fiancé it would take a few more days. Do we think that’s realistic?”
The snowstorm howled outside. The roof vibrated, and everybody stopped chewing to stare up at the repaired patch of wood.
The howl died down. The wood stopped shaking.
“Maybe a week,” Ben said.
“It is quite late in the year for snow,” Sabine added. She held out a hand for more chocolate. Ben tipped another minotaur into it .
“How did Hector take it?” Sabine asked, covering her mouth while she chewed.
Luna shrugged. “It’s Hector. He can take everything in stride.”
Ben nosed at Sabine’s jaw. “If this happened before our wedding, I’d be camped out in your room with you. Not on some beach?—”
Sabine nudged him, giving him a severe look that made Luna think they’d talked about this before.
“I mean, that’s cool,” Ben said hurriedly. He turned to shoot Luna a wide grin. “We love a guy who rolls with the punches. Sounds like a cool, cool dude.”
Grandmother Musgrove sighed. She was leaning against the front desk, gripping her shawl so tight her fingers were white with pressure.
“I think it’s been long enough,” she announced. “One of us should go talk to him.”
Luna looked over at Ben. Everybody else looked at her.
Luna laughed. “Me? Not, I don’t know, his brother ? No, send one of the kids! He can’t yell at Leo! Not without feeling really bad about it later.”
“I’m adorable,” Leo agreed, stuffing another chocolate minotaur into his mouth.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Uncle Roy offered. He shot Luna a dirty look. He’d been shocked by the revelation in the hall, but there was something triumphant in his twisted expression. Like all his suspicions had finally been validated in the worst way.
“I think it’s best if he talks to someone who wasn’t directly involved in…” Grandmother Musgrove trailed off.
“Why?” Uncle Roy glared at her. “He doesn’t trust her. And he shouldn’t! She’s not pack.”
“She sure as shit smells like pack,” Ben muttered.
Uncle Roy sneered. “That bond is about as real as Althea’s gold tooth. It never should’ve happened, and you had no right to stretch it out.”
“I thought it would be good for him,” Grandmother said quietly. She rubbed her forehead, leaning back against the front desk once more. She looked exhausted.
Ben frowned. “Grandmother? Can I get you something?”
“No. I’m fine.” She gave him a faint smile, then turned back to Luna. “You don’t have to. You’d be fully justified to not do anything I ask for the rest of your time here.”
Part of Luna wanted to agree. Wanted to stamp her foot and leave a bad review on Yelp. But it was a surprisingly small part. Everything else in her felt nothing but sympathy for this woman who had to watch her grandson close up on himself and not know why. Of course, she wanted to see him open up again. Even if she had to use a blonde heiress who was getting married to another man.
Luna swallowed the fresh sting of betrayal and smiled back at her.
“I can go,” she said. “Just… don’t be surprised if he throws me out.”
Ben snorted. “You can hold your own. If he yells?— ”
“Yell back. I know. I’m good at that.” Luna shot them all another smile, this one more strained. Then she turned and headed down the hall, only pausing to grab another two chocolates from Ben’s paper bag.
Luna knocked on the door.
No response.
“Typical,” she sighed. She knew he couldn’t hear her through the soundproofed door, but she was nervous. She wasn’t the girl you sent to talk about something serious. She was the girl you sent when you needed to liven up a party. What was she even doing here?
She knocked again. Nothing.
Luna sighed. Then she started drumming the beat to Shakira’s She-Wolf , which she had spent a good thirty minutes singing on the hike this morning, only stopping after the fifth time he threatened to drop her.
The door flew open. Oliver stood behind it, teeth bared in a snarl.
Luna held up the chocolates. “Last chance. They’re going fast.”
Oliver’s face twisted. He started to close the door.
Luna threw herself in the way. “Come on! I promise not to talk about anything you don’t want to. I just got sent down to make sure you’re not eating the curtains.”
“The curtains are fine,” he said dully. “Get out.”
“I still need to check.” She batted her eyes at him. She even propped herself provocatively against the door, which would be more effective if he wasn’t still half-heartedly trying to close it.
For a moment, she thought he would tell her to get out again. Then he sighed, the pressure of the door easing.
“I’m fine,” he said. “You can tell them I?—”
Luna swanned in and plopped herself on the bed, dropping the chocolates on the bed beside her.
“So,” she said briskly. “How about that snow?”
He stared down at her. He still looked raw, like he had out in the hallway. Luna had never carried a secret that huge for that long. That kind of secret would eat my soul , she thought. She didn’t know how he had coped.
“Luna,” he said flatly. “Could you just… not do this?”
“Do what?” She struck her cutest pose, the one that made Hector smirk and forgo whatever they were disagreeing on to kiss her. But like all her other cuteness attacks, it didn’t work on Oliver. Even with the bond burning inside of him, tempting him closer, he stayed away.
“I heard what you said on the phone,” he said. “Alright? You don’t have to pretend that you care.”
Luna’s smile froze. Shit. She knew he’d heard through her stupid, non-soundproof room.
“You heard what I said to my fiancé ? About the guy I’m sleeping with?” She tossed her hair dismissively, letting it fall over her face in that hot and appealing way she’d practiced in the mirror. “He’s not a jealous guy but come on. Guy’s gonna feel a little insecure if he hears we’re actually getting along. ”
His hands twitched at his side. There were little spots of red in his palm from where his claws had dug in. Luna had seen them pop out while he was yelling in the hall. The skin would be healed by now, she reassured herself before she could do something dumb, like reach for them.
She laughed awkwardly. “It hasn’t been that bad, right? Being stuck together?”
He just stood there, staring down at her. His shoulders were hunched.
Luna tried to think of a joke. Something sweet or ironic to get that guarded look off his face. But the longer the silence stretched, the emptier her mind got.
She sighed, picking up one of the chocolates she’d dropped on the bed next to her.
“Look,” she said. “I know I’m not… the person to talk to about heavy stuff. I’m Party Spice, you know? But I’m here. If you do want to talk.”
She rolled the chocolate between her fingers, pressing a nail in between the minotaur’s tiny horns.
The bed dipped beside her. Oliver had picked up the other chocolate and was sitting down, almost close enough for their legs to touch.
“You’re not that fun,” he assured her. He slid the chocolate into his mouth.
Luna said, “Okay, again, you’ve only ever seen me in a very different context to my usual?—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said over her. He bent over, elbows pressing heavily against his knees. “I can’t believe I—God. I can’t believe I told them.”
Luna hummed. “Probably good you did. It was obviously weighing on you.”
“What, almost getting my entire family killed? Yeah, Luna, it was weighing on me.” He rubbed his forehead in a move that reminded her so much of his grandmother she had to smother a smile.
“I don’t…” he continued. “I just… I want— Wait, what the hell were you saying about Party Spice?”
“Like the Spice Girls,” she explained.
His brown eyes narrowed. “There is no Party Spice. There’s Sporty Spice, Scary Spice, Baby Spice— Wait, no, I take it back!”
But it was too late. Luna was laughing, head thrown back with the force of it.
“You know their naaaaames,” she crowed.
He scowled. “Everybody knows their names.”
“No, they don’t!” Luna giggled. “This is great! Did you have a favorite?”
“Shut up and eat your chocolate,” he said. But the haunted look had drained out of his face. Some of the tension had left his shoulders.
She nudged him. “See? This is what I’m good at. Livening up a party.”
He snorted. It was a weak shadow of his usual impassioned snorts, but she’d take it.
“You can’t be all fun all the time,” he pointed out.
“Well, you can’t be grumpy all the time.” She popped her chocolate into her mouth, sighing happily as it melted over her tongue. “Everything’s fine , Oliver. Your family’s fine. That awful woman is in jail. The inn will get a lot better once you fix it up. Once you start implementing my genius ideas, money will be rolling in by the barrel. So, something terrible almost happened. So what? You’re okay. Your family’s okay. Everything’s good.”
Oliver was silent. Luna looked over to find him watching her, exhaustion shot through with something she couldn’t quite identify.
She smiled reflexively. “What?”
He shook his head. He reached up to touch her cheek, and Luna’s heart stuttered in her chest in a way that had nothing to do with the bond unfurling inside it, eager as always for his touch.
“Chocolate,” he explained. He drew his thumb back, sucking the spot of chocolate he’d lifted off Luna’s cheek.
Luna nodded, dazed. She couldn’t stop looking at his thumb, still shiny with spit. She wanted to put it in her own mouth. Wanted him to touch her again, smear that shiny thumb all down her collarbone. He was still watching her, and something strange washed over her.
Relief, she realized. She was relieved she was still here. That she wasn’t in her rental car right now, finally on her way to the airport.
Oliver dropped his gaze. Then he looked at the door and groaned. “They’re all waiting for me, aren’t they?”
“ Oh , yeah,” Luna said. She let out a nervous laugh and stood. “Come on. Nobody’s mad, I promise.”
“They should be,” he muttered.
She held out a hand.
Oliver glared at it. But it was a tired glare, one born out of habit rather than actual annoyance .
She wiggled her fingers.
He sighed loudly. Then he took her hand, letting her pull him to his feet.
The kids were clustered on the ground, with Darren picking at Leo’s light-up sneakers as Leo and Vida commenced a thumb-war, quickly stopped by the aunts just as Luna and Oliver entered the lobby. Grandmother Musgrove was off in the corner with Uncle Roy, their hushed conversation dying as both of them looked up. Sabine turned toward them, in the middle of crumpling up the empty Prickles bag. There was no one beside her. Where had Ben gone?
The roof creaked. It was a statement of how anxious Oliver must’ve been that he barely even glanced at it, his hands fisted at his sides.
Luna looked down. No claws out, no blood in his palms. Then she looked back up at the pack. They all looked encouraging. Except for Uncle Roy, who was still glaring at Luna, and Grandmother Musgrove, who was watching Oliver with a sorrowful expression.
For a moment, the only sound was the wind howling outside.
“We really don’t have to make a big deal about—” Oliver stopped, turning to watch Ben push past him with his arms full of towels. “Where are you going?”
“Delivering more towels to room 12,” Ben replied. “The new fluffy ones. Luna was right, the guests really love ‘em.”
Luna swallowed her nerves and posed, sending him a wink.
Ben winked back. He was terrible at it, but that didn’t stop him from doing it to Sabine at least once a day.
“Somebody’s gotta take care of the guests,” Ben continued. “Since we actually have guests now. That woman who heard about us from Luna’s Instagram story is staying for another three days.”
He swayed sideways and headbutted Oliver fondly in the shoulder, reminding Luna oddly of a cat. “If you’re planning on some grand apology, forget about it. You got conned by a crazy lady. We have a new home now. No score to settle, brother.”
Then he headed off, arms so full of towels he had to shove them down with his chin to see where he was going.
“He’s right,” Sabine said, stepping aside to let Ben down the guest hall. “You don’t need to apologize.”
Oliver growled. “Just let me say it!”
“You said it after the house burned down,” Darren said, going back to toying with Leo’s light-up sneakers.
“Over and over and over,” Leo added, kicking gently at Darren’s fingers. “It was so annoying .”
“Yeah, well…” Oliver’s jaw tightened. “You all kept saying it wasn’t my fault. You didn’t know.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Sabine told him. “It was Alexis. Like Ben said, you got conned. No one got hurt?— ”
“But you could’ve! I put the pack in danger just because I was stupid enough?—”
Grandmother Musgrove spoke up. “To fall in love? To trust someone?”
The lobby fell silent once more as she walked up to him, laying a hesitant hand on his arm. He stiffened underneath it, but he didn’t pull away. Not this time.
“Those were brave things to do, Oliver,” Grandmother Musgrove said softly. “Just… the next girl you fall for, get us to vet her first.”
No one looked at Luna, but it was a very pointed avoidance. Luna even caught Vida ducking her head to hide a very un-Vida-like smile.
Luna felt her cheeks heat. She glanced at Oliver to find him already looking at her. She wanted to make some joke—do I have chocolate on my face again?—but her throat was suddenly tight. She couldn’t speak if she wanted to.
The roof creaked louder. Luna frowned. Was that uneven patch of wood from Oliver’s patch job moving, or was that just her?
Ben emerged from the guest hallway. “The guy in room 3 spilled his drink. We still keep the carpet cleaner in the top closet, right? Or did Ollie have another fight with Sabine about where to keep cleaning stuff?”
“It wasn’t a fight,” Sabine argued.
“Um,” Luna said as the uneven patch of roof bulged. “Guys?”
Ben slid an arm around Sabine’s waist, smacking a kiss on her forehead. “So, I’m going up the mountain next time the snow thaws, huh? I’ll re-pack that backpack.”
Oliver sighed. “Sometimes I really hate?—”
“GUYS,” Luna yelled.
The roof cracked open. Snow piled into the lobby, right on top of the carpet Oliver had cleaned a month before.
“Snow,” Oliver finished flatly.