Chapter 12 #2
Eli moved before anyone else could react, out the front door and over the deck railing toward where Hawk was on the ground beside an overturned ladder, clutching his ankle while Ink stood over him with his hands on his head.
“Is he okay?” Tabitha craned her neck to see through the window.
“He’ll be fine,” Silke said, already heading for the door. “Not the first time someone’s taken a tumble off that roof. And he’s a Lycan, so he’ll heal quick.”
Olivia started to follow, but footsteps from the hallway made her halt. Margaux Featherstone emerged from the back office with Ransom right behind her. Up close, the matriarch was taller than Olivia expected, and her gray eyes steely as she looked straight ahead.
“Girls,” Margaux said, her voice cool and crisp. “We’re leaving.”
“Already?” Tabitha’s face fell, disappointed.
“The Alpha and I have reached an agreement regarding the wards. I’ll need a few hours to prepare. A Lycan-targeted barrier requires specific components that I don’t carry with me.” Her tone made it clear this was an inconvenience. “I’ll return tomorrow morning, at first light.”
“It was so nice meeting you, Olivia,” Tabitha said, giving her arm a squeeze. “Hopefully we’ll see you again before you go home.”
Astoria gave her a nod before her dark eyes scanned the restaurant one more time, landing briefly on Eli’s empty chair, before she followed her mother and sister out the front door.
Ransom watched them leave, arms folded, nostrils flaring. “She wants fifteen percent off the catering for the wedding,” he told Silke as she strode back inside.
The redhead blew out a breath. “Twelve.”
“Got her down from twenty.”
Silke chewed at the inside of her cheek. “Fine. Fifteen. But she’s paying for the liquor.”
“Let me go see what the idiots are up to,” Ransom grunted and disappeared out the door. A few minutes later, Eli came through the front door with Hawk hobbling beside him, one arm slung over Eli’s shoulder.
“Just a sprain,” Hawk announced. “I’ve had worse.”
“You fell off the roof,” Ink said from behind them.
“Like I said, I’ve had worse.”
Eli settled Hawk into a chair, then came back to the table and sat down across from Olivia. He picked up his coffee and took a sip as if the last ten minutes hadn’t happened.
“Everything okay out there?” she asked.
“He’ll be completely healed in a couple hours.” He reached for a piece of bacon. “What’d I miss?”
“The witches left. Margaux needs a few hours to put together whatever she’s doing for the wards. She’s coming back tomorrow.”
“Good.”
They finished breakfast and Silke brought out a fresh pot of coffee and freshly-squeezed orange juice.
Olivia helped herself to another dozen chocolate croissants, though her mind was only half on the food.
She watched Eli across the table as he talked to Silke about the deck repairs, his voice easy, posture relaxed.
But something didn’t quite sit right with her, and she couldn’t work out what it was.
She replayed the morning in her head. The way he’d been tense from the moment the Featherstones walked in.
How he’d bolted for the door the second he had a reason.
Astoria staring at his empty chair as she left, as if she’d noticed it too.
It could all be nothing. He’d been on edge since Boston, and running to help a man who fell off a roof wasn’t suspicious.
But Olivia had spent a decade in the fashion industry, where designers smiled at you over champagne while their assistants called your agent to drop you from the show.
Where magazine editors complimented your outfit to your face and then booked someone else for the cover.
She'd learned early to watch what people did with their hands, not their mouths.
She could tell when someone was hiding something.
And the man she'd just realized she was in love with was hiding something.
Reaching for another croissant, she let it go, for now at least.
The next few hours went by quickly as the clan members checked off Silke’s extensive to-do list. By late afternoon, the work was done and the mood had shifted.
Bo had fired up burgers and hotdogs on a grill and someone had set up a speaker on the deck.
People milled about, eating and drinking, and just having fun on this rare afternoon when everyone was off and there were no guests around.
Olivia let herself enjoy the afternoon, too, as she sat on the deck steps with a plate balanced on her knee while Eli sat beside her, their shoulders touching.
Every now and then his thumb brushed the back of her hand, and each time it did, the words she'd thought over breakfast flickered through her brain over and over again.
I love you.
She wanted to say it out loud. She wanted to grab him by the front of his shirt and tell him.
But every time she got close, the other thing crept in.
The feeling that he was hiding something from her yet again.
She couldn't say one without resolving the other.
And she wasn't ready for that fight. Not yet.
“So,” Axle materialized in front of them with two beers and a grin. “A bunch of us are heading to The Barrel Bottom tonight. It’s a bar, nothing fancy, just drinks and pool and some truly terrible karaoke.” He handed Olivia a beer, then remembered. “Oh wait, you can't—”
“Yeah.” Pregnant True Mates could not stand alcohol. Her mother described the taste and smell as “something between rotting garbage in the height of a New York summer and Arch’s dirty laundry during puberty.”
“I'll take it,” Eli said, relieving him of both bottles.
“Right. Anyway, you two should come.”
Olivia looked at Eli. She loved the man, she really did, but the walls were starting to shrink after four days in the same cabin. While she wasn’t a party girl, she wasn’t a cloistered nun either.
“That sounds fun,” she said.
A muscle in Eli’s jaw ticked. “We should probably stay in.”
“One night,” she urged. “A couple hours. We sit in a corner, have a drink. Well, you have a drink and I'll have a ginger ale, and we leave before it gets late.”
“Olivia …”
“Please.” She held his gaze. Part of her knew she was pushing, and part of her didn't care.
She'd been walking on eggshells around him, trying to be patient.
She needed one night where she wasn't thinking about murderers and witches and whatever it was Eli wouldn't tell her. “Do this for me? I'm going stir-crazy.”
He paused for a long moment before letting out a snort. “Fine. A couple hours.”
Axle pumped his fist. “Yes! I'll tell the boys. We're leaving at eight.” He jogged off before Eli could change his mind.
Olivia squeezed Eli's arm. “Thank you.”
He grunted, which she chose to interpret as “you're welcome.”