Chapter 12
Julia
“Juliiiiaaaaa,” Nicole singsongs from the front door. “It’s for youuu-ouuuuu.”
Last night was so much fun, though. I can’t remember the last time I really let loose like that. I’m usually the designated driver, the one who has to get up in the morning and drive the carpool, so it was a rare treat. I have Ian to thank for that.
The same Ian who’s standing in the doorway of Heidi and Nicole’s house, holding a pink box.
I’m suddenly way too conscious of my bedhead and the fact that I’m wearing cow-print PJs I borrowed from Heidi over yesterday’s undies that thankfully I located in my purse.
My first impulse is to hide so he doesn’t see me looking like this.
Silly. Who cares what he thinks about how I look? “Um, hi,” I fumble. “You’re back.”
He nods.
“Are those doughnuts for us?” Nicole asks, eyeing the box in his hands. When he nods again, she snatches them with a gleeful goblin noise and bolts for the kitchen, leaving me hanging.
I puff out my breath, unsure what to say. “Uh…what are you doing here?”
He jerks his head, indicating the cul-de-sac behind him. “Returning your car,” he says, holding out my keys. I take them, feeling a little wobbly because I thought my keys were in my purse. “You don’t remember?”
I shake my head. I don’t really remember much of anything after we left the bar except that Ian drove us home. How mortifying. I hope I didn’t say anything weird while I was drunk. “Thank you. For the car. And the doughnuts. You really didn’t have to do that.”
“Um, my brother wants to meet you, if that’s okay?” He winces, probably because I look like a rodeo clown in these jammies. I glance over at his car and see a wulver with even redder fur than Ian’s waving at me, a huge grin on his face. I tentatively wave back. Could this get any more embarrassing?
“It’s okay if you’d rather not right now,” Ian adds. “I made him wait in the Jeep for a reason.”
What reason? My head throbs, my thoughts thick and fuzzy due to my hangover.
The only reason I can come up with is that he’s not sure what his brother will think of me.
I’m sure his family is not going to be thrilled when they hear that I’m ten years older and human, not to mention married.
That’s definitely not what they dreamed of for him.
“Maybe another time?” I offer, crossing my arms over my bra-less, no-longer-perky boobs. It’s a good thing, because the chilly fall morning has made my nips harden into acorns. No wonder I’m not fit for company. “Like maybe when I’m wearing clothes? I don’t want to embarrass you.”
He stares at me, his mouth open slightly. “Julia. I’d never be embarrassed of you. I made Conall wait in the car because he’s a dumbass, and I don’t want him to bother you if you’re not ready to meet my family yet.”
“Oh.”
The Jeep’s passenger window rolls down, and Conall cups his hands around his mouth. “You want Ian’s nine-incher?” he calls. “He’s got two!”
My eyes go wide. That was definitely not in the brochure that Dr. MacDougal gave me about wulver reproduction. “You have two…?”
“Oh my god, he’s an idiot,” Ian mutters under his breath. To me, he grimaces. “See why I didn’t let him meet you? Two fish. I caught two nine-inch trout this morning, and my dear brother wants to know if you would like to have one or both of them.”
My stomach growls at the mention of fish. Richard always says it’s too smelly to cook fish in the morning, but I love it. My mom made grilled mackerel for breakfast regularly when I was growing up, so it’s really nostalgic and comforting to me. I’d eat it every day if I could.
Ian’s ears perk forward, and he lights up. “Wait right here!” He jogs over to his Jeep, where he has an animated conversation with his brother before returning with two speckled fish with bright pink stripes down their sides, cradled in a bed of damp sphagnum moss. “For you,” he says.
He hands them over, moss and all. I have to tuck my car key in my armpit to hold them.
“They’re small,” he says apologetically. “They’ll probably have a lot of bones.”
“They’re beautiful, thank you.” They really are, like gleaming little wares from a silversmith’s shop, almost too pretty to eat.
“Do you know how to clean them? If you don’t, I can—”
“I can do it,” I assure him, and his tail wags, just once.
“So, um…” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other as I stand there awkwardly, holding fish. “The contract. I saw it in your car when I was driving over, so I know you didn’t get a chance to sign it yet. But if we want to do…this…this weekend, we should probably get the paperwork done ASAP.”
This weekend. Right. That’s when Dr. MacDougal said I’d probably ovulate, based on her scans of my ovaries, but she said that when Ian wasn’t in the room. Which means…
“Did I tell you that I’m ovulating this weekend?” I ask, my voice strained.
He nods slowly. “You don’t remember that, either?”
I have to laugh. “No, and please don’t tell me what else I said.”
“Nothing bad,” he murmurs. He really has the prettiest eyes. I’ve never seen anything like their golden gleam.
His brother honks the horn, jolting us both. “Come on, my mate needs her breakfast, too!” he hollers out the car window.
“I should go.” He doesn’t, though. Maybe he’s worried about the logistics of what’s next for our little arrangement.
“I’m working tomorrow afternoon,” I tell him. “If you want to pick up the paperwork at the bookstore.”
“Tomorrow afternoon, then.” But he still doesn’t move. He just stands there on the porch, looking at me.
“Go!” I laugh.
“You first.”
Hands full of fish, ridiculous pajamas, bedhead in full force, I retreat into the house to escape his golden gaze. Not because he doesn’t like what he sees when he looks at me. But because I think he does, and that puts us in some dangerous territory. The kind of territory where feelings develop.
We have a business relationship, and it needs to stay that way. Nights like last night can’t happen again, or this is going to get really messy.
I find Nicole in the kitchen, hovering over the doughnut box.
“Are those rainbow trout?” she asks through a mouthful of sugary glaze. “Nice.”
I nod. “I thought I’d go home and grill them for breakfast, but I can do it here if you want some. My kimchi is still in your garage fridge, I think.”
Nicole nods excitedly. As much as she is a doughnut goblin, she grew up with her Indonesian grandma cooking for the family, so she also loves a savory breakfast. “Hell yeah, I’ll make the rice.”
“I like him,” she says later, when all we’re left with is a pile of bones, spicy lips, and a much-improved hangover situation.
“Who?” I ask, pretending I don’t know who she means.
“Your wolf.” She gives me a look when I make a he’s-not-mine noise. “Heidi does, too. He’s a keeper.”
“I can’t keep him, and you know it.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not. This is just a short-term arrangement. Seventy-five-day pregnancy, a few weeks’ recovery.
By the time the girls visit at the end of January, it’ll be back to life as usual, and that’s the way it needs to be.
” I push up from the table and clear our dishes, but she takes them from me.
“I’ll do those. You sit.” She glances at me over her shoulder as she rinses them in the sink and loads the dishwasher. “Did I tell you Matthew apologized to us again for that whole handholding debacle?”
I shake my head. When he was in seventh grade, he asked Heidi and Nicole not to hold hands at school events because he didn’t want to explain his two moms to his classmates.
He didn’t want their family to stand out.
They had a big family meeting about it, and it was all sorted out… or so I thought. “What prompted that?”
“He’s dating someone, apparently. A succubus. He says they’re in love.”
“Ooh.” I wince. It’s kind of a stereotype these days for young college guys to date succubi, catch feelings, and then have their heart broken when the succubus moves on. I hope that doesn’t happen to Mattie.
“Exactly.” Nicole nods. “That’s the reaction he’s been getting when he tells people, so now he gets what it feels like to have your relationship judged unfairly.
Why it’s important not to hide your partner away just because someone else might have a negative opinion.
He’s feeling bad that he asked us to do that back then. ”
“He’s a sweetie.”
“Like his mom.” Nic means Heidi, but she has a soft heart herself. She gives me a pointed look. “You realize I’m telling you about this for a reason?”
I frown, a little confused. “I mean, I’m always glad for a Mattie update.”
She sighs, leaning back against the cabinets. “My point is that he’s an adult with grown-up feelings and ideas now. And so are your girls. They can handle it if you tell them what’s going on in your life. They’ll understand. They want you to be happy.”
Right. They’ll understand that I kissed someone who isn’t their father?
That they might have little wulver half-siblings running around out there in a few months?
That their dad and I have this weird, cold partnership bound by legal contracts that define how much food I can eat and what topics we discuss?
“They need to focus on school,” I murmur, hoping to shut down the conversation. “They don’t need to be worrying about their family falling apart. I’m not going to let that happen.”
“Of course not. You’ll always be there for them. I’m sure Richard will be, too. I’m just saying…you don’t have to be together for them to be okay.”
She means a divorce. My heartrate picks up so quickly that it makes my hangover nausea return. “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Okay, honey.” Nic’s forehead is creased with concern, but she doesn’t push. She walks me home across the cul-de-sac and gives me a hug at the door. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“My doughnuts back?” I joke, thinking of the pink box still on her kitchen counter.
“Keep dreaming,” she shoots back, then hugs me again. “I’ll save you a cherry one.”