20. Boyfriend Material
Boyfriend Material
Tara
The air was damp and heavy when I stepped onto the front porch. Overhead there were hundreds of twinkling stars, the storm clouds from this morning a distant memory.
I wished it all felt that far away.
My ex-boyfriend was a werewolf.
Everything I saw the night I left was real.
Then there was Isaac.
Of all the men I could have run into that night—why him? How did I run from one Barbeaux, only to end up in the arms of another?
I rubbed absently at my chest, trying to make sense of what I was feeling.
A smart person would find the keys to one of the trucks parked under the house and drive as far as possible on a single tank of gas. Even if I didn’t have my wallet or my belongings, I would still have my life.
How far was Jay’s reach? I assumed he found me because of that phone call. He heard Isaac’s voice and knew where I was.
There was still the man at the boat launch. I remembered his eyes and I knew—he was one of them too.
Had Jay known where I was all along? Was he giving me a chance to come back to him willingly?
Why me?
“We’re territorial. Might be you stuck around long enough for him to think you’re his.” But even Eli didn’t look like he fully believed that. “You ought to talk to Isaac about the rest. Not really my place to explain.”
I gleaned a little more from Cady. She told me that she and Eli were soulmates. I could tell she wasn’t just being sentimental.
I walked down the steps. Under the house was dark. Beyond it was nothing but a tangle of wild plants.
The wind moved with my breath, whispering through the foliage and making me shiver. I had the distinct sensation of being watched, as if every shadow was hiding a set of eyes.
There was something familiar about this place. I felt like I had memories here. Like I knew the bayou somehow—or it knew me.
All the talk about werewolves was starting to get to me.
I stopped underneath the house, startling when I noticed a figure in the front seat of the nearest truck.
It was Isaac, head tipped back, eyes closed.
When my gaze landed on him, those eyes snapped open, swirls of green and gold glowing in the night. For half a heartbeat his face took on that dangerous, sharp look.
A glimpse of what he was.
He softened quickly, his irises dimming until they were almost lost in the shadow of the cab.
The door opened, Isaac unfolding himself with a pained expression.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Didn’t want you to be alone with my brothers.”
“Then why bring me here in the first place?”
“You’re scared of me. I thought you would be more comfortable around Cady.”
I snorted. “I don’t know, she might be scarier than Saul.”
Isaac’s exhale was one part amusement, one part relief. “I know I fucked this up.”
“Which part?” I asked too quickly, my words sharper than I meant for them to be.
He roughed his hand through his hair, and I realized this was the first time—outside of the bedroom—that I’d seen his hair like that. Windswept, no gel in sight. The jeans were different too, faded Levi’s that might have been bought second-hand by the look of the seams.
Without the style and that confident air, Isaac looked vulnerable. More human, as ironic as it sounded.
“All of it. The night we met. The way I barged into your life—I was an asshole.”
“Would you have left me alone if I asked you to?”
His answer came fast. Honest. “No.”
“Why not?”
He swallowed, glancing away to stare at the trees, then back to me. “What did my brothers tell you?”
“Oh, you know. Centuries of secrets.”
“You seem unreasonably calm.”
“I had a complete mental breakdown when I saw you earlier,” I said, not bothering to hide the wobble in my voice. “I’m not the same person anymore. My entire worldview has changed in a matter of hours. I don’t know what to believe.”
“Would you believe I’m sorry?”
“What are you apologizing for?”
“For letting you get hurt. I should have been there with you this morning.”
“You didn’t want to be there. Anyway, you didn’t send them after me. Your cousin did.” I backed away from him, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I did want to be there. I got held up with Eli.”
“Doing what?” I had no right to demand that answer. We’d been clear about what this was.
I made him leave.
I wanted him to stay.
His tone sharpened when he said, “Saving Cady’s life.”
Okay. That was a good reason to be late.
“But why did you block the house off?”
He dragged a hand through his hair and shifted his weight. “I was going to ask you to stay. To see where this goes.”
He wasn’t trying to get rid of you.
I forced my arms back to my sides. “I need to get out of here for a little while. To clear my head.”
“You can’t leave the bayou.” He quickly added, “It’s not safe. Unless I come with you?”
“Is that a question?”
“You didn’t want to be alone with me.”
I walked to the motorcycle parked in the gravel beyond the house. “To the beach by Rocky’s Docks. I just need a few minutes.”
I climbed onto the motorcycle behind him. It was easier in sweatpants than a skirt, and I was glad I had something comfortable to wear.
Until I wrapped my arms around his waist and realized how much of him I could feel through the thin, soft fabric.
I leaned back as much as I could when Isaac revved the engine. In a few short minutes we were gliding onto a neighborhood road, the asphalt smooth compared to the bumpy ride through the bayou.
Isaac pulled off at the beach. The sand was narrow, the tide high, but it suited my needs just fine.
I slid off before he killed the engine, walking barefoot into the sand. My feet sank in with a sigh, cool grains settling between my toes.
The wind whipped at my hair. Water droplets kissed my skin. I could almost taste the salt on my tongue.
I slanted my head back, staring up at the stars as if they had the answers for me.
I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I knew what came next.
I didn’t.
Everything was a jumbled mess. The world around me didn’t make sense. The world inside me wasn’t any clearer.
Isaac’s gaze pressed against my shoulders.
I rolled them, trying to relieve the pressure.
It didn’t help.
I opened my mouth and screamed.
“What the fuck?” I shouted into the wind. “What the fuck!”
I yelled until there was no more air in my lungs. Then I sucked in a breath, only to let it out in another stream of profanities.
What the fuck, Universe?
Why me?
Why now?
When I was done, the emptiness inside me felt good. Like there was room for my heart to beat again.
A whisper tickled at the back of my neck. “Feel better?”
I didn’t turn around. “I always make the wrong choice.”
“Me too.”
“I mess everything up.”
“Me too.”
I finally turned, meeting his eyes with my own pleading expression. “What if I mess this up too?”
“What if you don’t?”
“Cady told me that Eli was her soulmate.”
Isaac wanted to look away, I could tell. But his eyes stayed steady on me, and that was important.
“They’re bonded.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means even if he wanted to, he couldn’t let Cady go.”
“What if I want you to let me go?”
His smile was resigned. “I’m stronger than my brother.”
“I wanted to fall in love,” I admitted quietly. “I wanted it so much I was willing to see good in people that wasn’t really there.”
“That’s the best part about you, Tara. You find the good things everywhere you look.”
“I saw the good in you, too. At least, I thought I did.” My hand found his for the barest touch. Fingertips brushing. “Tell me it’s real. Tell me that part wasn’t a lie.”
This time, he did look away, scanning the black horizon. “I always thought I was the bad brother. The fuck up.”
I waited.
“I let my family—Jacques—convince me that I was the one who needed to change. To be something different.” He turned back to me, that shadow of resignation replaced by something sharper.
“But there was never anything wrong with me. I’m a monster. It’s true. I’m also loyal. I work hard. I can’t change what I am. I don’t know if that makes me good, but I promise you Tara, I am the man that you know. I’m just—more.”
“More,” I murmured, still grappling with that part. I’d been living under the same roof as someone like him for months and never knew.
“I was looking for you.” Isaac blurted. “I spent my life skirting the edges of what was allowed to find you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought I was dissatisfied with my life. That was why I went looking for novelty. For—" he cleared his throat, “—company.”
Jealousy burned my cheeks. I didn’t want to hear about his company right now.
“Every time I walked away, I felt worse. Emptier. I thought maybe all those things everyone told me about being cursed were true and I was just on the tail of my spiral to madness. But I wasn’t.”
He smiled, a touch of that confidence returning. “I was just waiting for you. He was waiting for you.” Isaac tapped the center of his chest, and I knew who he was referring to.
The beast, Eli called it.
That was what spent years—maybe decades—looking for me.
The idea wasn’t as scary as it should be.
What could be more romantic than that? A man like Isaac with all that charm and power and prowess searching every corner of his world—for me.
“What about your cousin? I lived with him.”
“What about him? I don’t care if you married him and had all eight of his kids. That doesn’t make you any less mine.”
“Yours?”
Gold flashed across his irises, the timbre of his voice shifting as he repeated, “Mine.”
“I don’t even know why he wants me back.”
“Doesn’t matter. If he wants you, he’ll have to take you from me.”
My hand found his again, lingering this time. “That’s really it? You feel this bond and you’ve got your mind made up about me? What if you decide you don’t want commitment?”
What if you get tired of me?
“I wanted you to stay before I knew about the bond. I wanted you because of you. Because you made me feel alive.” He took my other hand, drawing me flush against him.
“I can’t give you madly in love tonight, Tara.
But I’m pretty confident I can make you fall in love with me. I’m nothing if not persistent.”
“I was going to say pertinacious.”
Isaac ducked his chin, putting his mouth inches from mine. “No one knows what that word means.”
“I know what it means. I learned it from my word of the day app.”
“I was trying to say something romantic.”
I lifted onto my toes, my lips almost brushing his. “You can continue.”
“Give me a chance to show you how good this can be. Let me keep you safe until Jacques is taken care of, and then we’ll start this over. I’ll do this right.”
“I want to—"
But there’s still so much I don’t understand.
I’m scared you’ll be like the rest.
This feels dangerous.
My heartbeat stuttered. The air caught in my lungs.
This feels right.
But I’ve been wrong too many times to trust myself.
Red and blue lights spilled onto the beach. A vehicle marked “Sheriff” pulled in to block Isaac’s bike. A black SUV followed behind them.
Terror froze me to the spot.
They were back. And this time, they weren’t alone.