19
Shawn
“Did Dad ever talk to you guys about knotting?”
I ask the question under my breath, the words barely audible.
The small clothing boutique isn’t devoid of other people, but the two with supernatural hearing glance at me with near identical expressions of horror and incredulousness. Logan is halfway through buttoning up probably the fifth suit jacket he’s tried on, frowning impressively more than usual. The shop is nicely kept and there’s a lot of what I think are vintage prom dresses all in plastic protective bags.
It’s not a question I ever thought I’d ask, but I’m starting to feel a little desperate for brain cells. Not that I think I’ll find them among my brothers, but I would die before I asked my mom or Laura.
My brothers aren’t a better option by much, though.
“Whoa, dude, we’re not talking about that,” Aiden dismisses it immediately, his words a hiss as he glances around to make sure no one else in the store heard me.
“We didn’t need to bring you along,” Logan mutters, turning back towards the mirror.
I was in the middle of catching up on work, crouched between the couch and the coffee table my laptop is set up on, when I got dragged into more wedding prep. Some people had come by to decorate the house, and our mom had rounded us up into Aiden’s Jeep and told us not to come back until we all had something appropriate to wear to Logan’s big day.
“Sorry, let me just Google werewolf puberty.” I scoff and roll my eyes to push away my own embarrassment.
“Hate it, hate it, hate this conversation,” Aiden mutters, scooping one of the pretty throw pillows off the waiting room couch. He plops back on the seat, covering his head with the pillow.
“Fine, never mind.”
Logan shrugs out of the suit jacket and pulls another off the rack. He jerks his head to move his hair out of his face as he starts buttoning this one, and glances at me from the mirror. He prompts tonelessly, “And you brought this up because . . .?”
If it were anyone but Logan who had found Elise and me in the kitchen before, I’d have thought they were behaving a little chilly towards me. But with Logan it’s always been a little hard to tell.
He’s well aware I need to keep my hands off Elise. She wants me to. I want me to. Or, she did, but it seems like she’s changed her mind, and now it might just be down to my ability to say no to her, and if that’s all that’s holding me back, I don’t know how I’m going to manage to keep it together for another few days.
Considering the fact that my knot’s been showing up every time I touch her, I’m more than a little confused.
Theoretically, I should be obsessed with finding my mate. I mean, all the stories you hear about it from distant cousins during reunions, that’s how it goes. Maybe it has about as much merit as their urban legends about going feral. Still, it doesn’t make sense that all I can think about is her.
As an experience, as a sensation, these thoughts felt out of place with the rest of the spirituality my parents had impressed upon me. Like a mismatched patch hastily sewn into a larger tapestry. Is it just because we used to have a connection? Not a wolf-y, supernaturally charged connection, sure. But we used to be solid.
I can’t be so much of a fuckup that I can’t get the mystical fated mate thing right, can I?
It’s all a bit much to explain in the middle of a second-hand clothing boutique, however.
“I mean, not that werewolf families are all that pro-sex education to begin with,” I grumble, failing to actually come up with a coherent excuse. Things I could have thought about beforehand, maybe. “All I know is some really uncomfortable points Dad made about the knot, and that whole thing about the church and not spilling any semen, all-life-is-precious kind of thing.”
“Hey, what now?”
I turn back and glance at my brothers, a little perturbed by the mix of concern and confusion on their faces. “Did Dad not give you the anti-masturbation talk?”
“Wow, you really were the trial-and-error child,” Logan says, and while I have always felt a particular kinship with packages that get absurdly dented going through the mail, his remark feels an awful lot like finding a “FRAGILE” sticker that’s been punctured by the corner of something else.
“Whatever. I mean. I hate feeling shitty about wanting to know things. I don’t know about you, I’ve never been with another wolf.”
They both glance away at that, a different sort of energy hanging in the air. I hadn’t put a lot of thought into it before, but there aren’t exactly other packs in our area, and for the number of times I’d seen both of them sneak out of the house, I doubt they’ve fully kept faithful to the pack rules.
“It only happens when you find your mate,” Aiden supplies, not really muffled by the pillow, reaffirming everything I already know and offering nothing I don’t.
Probably in an attempt to change the subject, Logan points out, “Would there be animal attacks happening if finding your mate was an easy thing?”
“We’re not talking about that either,” Aiden grumbles through the pillow, and on that I agree with him. It’s not exactly great conversation to wonder which of us might be running mindlessly bloodthirsty through the woods. He puts the pillow aside and sits up. “Those things don’t have anything to do with each other.”
“Sure they don’t. Mom just married the first wolf she found for no reason after her sister went feral.”
“What? No. You don’t think Mom and Dad were in love?”
I blink in surprise.
I guess Aiden, being the youngest, doesn’t remember the rocky start they had, before they settled into a more amicable pattern. I’d never really thought of them that way. I don’t know how he can know our family history and not think they started as anything but duty and convenience.
I glance at Logan’s reflection as he faces the mirror, fidgeting with the non-pockets of the jacket. His expression shadows over, his mouth grim. “I don’t think it’s something worth holding out for.”
Yikes, dude.
There’s a long silence over all of us, Aiden glancing at me and making eyebrows like should we be trying to unpack that with Logan or just pretend he doesn’t have the most depressing mindset to be going into the rest of his life with?
I hadn’t really put a lot of thought into why Logan was following through with our mother’s wishes, why he’d never wanted more for himself. I’d just assumed after it went so badly for me, my brothers decided that was enough proof for them, that they needed to keep to the tradition of marrying into other wolf packs. I hadn’t considered that Logan didn’t believe romance was worth trying for because of our parents.
I can see why he’d be a little pissy about my flaunting my not-relationship with Elise around the house.
The shop’s door dings the bell hanging on its corner, and the feelings that twist in my stomach conflict wildly. It’s Elise and Laura stepping into the shop, glancing around at the second-hand boutique.
“Wow,” Laura says flatly, wrinkling her nose, before her eyes even find us. “Did we all just have the same idea?”
“Was it ‘I’m not buying a whole brand-new suit for this weekend’?” Aiden offers.
“Or ‘Shit, I don’t have anything to wear, and this is the only place nearby I can probably find something’?” Elise sighs, crossing her arms and looking unimpressed with the three of us, even though she’s clearly in the same situation.
Her eyes fall on me, and something in her posture tightens, almost defensively. It’s almost startling to see her acting like a cat with all its fur standing on end, even as she fights to hide it.
“You’re going to be there? I mean, I know you’re going to be there in the house at the reception, but I didn’t know if you were going to be there at the wedding.” I stumble through the surprise and my sudden inability to coherently form a thought.
There’s something a little too rigid about her stance. This whole crazy situation she’s had a perfect poker face, but now something just feels off. Did one of them say something to make her uncomfortable? Or had the early morning moment between us crossed a line?
She gives a little shrug, trying to be casual. “Just something a little nice. I just didn’t want to be working in my jeans like I usually do when everyone else is dressed up, like professionally underdressed.”
“You never look underdressed,” I offer in what I hope is a neutral voice and not at all trying too hard.
Aiden and Logan are inevitably rolling their eyes and repeating what I said mockingly under their breath, like I’m not bound to hear it. Aiden makes some grotesque kissing noises like he’s twelve until I throw a glare at them and wave a gesture for them to cut that shit out.
It doesn’t really help.
The moment Laura and Elise disappear off to the side of the store where the dresses are, I mouth at my brothers, “I will kill you.”
Aiden and Logan raise their eyebrows at each other, before apparently deciding they don’t care.
“Fucking try it. I’d love a distraction,” Logan sighs, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of the jacket.
“Yeah, you won’t, coward,” Aiden echoes, and I am this close.
Instead of responding, I glance in the mirror Logan’s been standing in front of all afternoon, watching Laura disappear into the racks of clothing when Elise heads for the dressing room, a couple options already picked out.
I swallow. I should stay right here and finish up. But I also want to apologize for the other day. I can’t stand the thought of her being upset about something. It claws up my insides to think I might have done something that hurt her.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell them, not that I think they’re paying attention.
“Don’t do it,” Logan replies without looking over his shoulder. He doesn’t have to say anything to me about my behavior with Elise, for me to know he thinks it’s a bad idea, but he probably enjoys gloating some, and who am I to take that away from him? When I keep walking away, he mutters to himself, “What happened to exercising a little self-control?”
“I didn’t agree to that,” I reply under my breath.
There’s plenty of self-control happening here, demonstrated by the fact that I’m only going over there to talk to her, and not to whisk her away somewhere just private enough for round two. And now that I’ve thought about it, there’s a lot more self-control needed.
Whatever. If anything, when I’m around Elise I feel better than normal. The itch in my bones disappears, and I finally feel like I can think. And at that point, I come back to the conclusion that if I feel fine this close to the full moon, it can’t be me that’s going feral. It can’t. I don’t know who my mate is, but we’ve never been separated like my Aunt Danielle and her mate were, so that wouldn’t be actively driving me off the edge.
I wade through the overstuffed racks of clothing over to the other side of the store by the dressing rooms, where Elise is, digging my hands in my pockets. After this morning we should probably talk a little, considering how we definitely crossed a line we said we wouldn’t at the start of all this. I dunno, maybe there isn’t all that much of a line between a little light fingering and sticking your tongue inside your ex-wife, but I feel like there is.
Elise steps back when she sees me, and it kills me that she looks afraid.
“Hey,” I offer softly, a gentle, verbal olive branch. After this morning I’d have thought she’d have warmed up to me a little more, but there’s something in the way she’s looking at me that wasn’t entirely there before. Did I just not notice because we weren’t exactly making a lot of eye contact?
She glances around for Laura, for the others. She’s clutching the clothing hangers of the dresses she picked out like they’re for protection.
I try to catch myself before I frown in reaction. For the record, no one’s ever liked me less for eating them out before, including Elise. If I remember correctly, that’s usually the kind of thing that inspires more touchy-cuddly feelings in her.
What the hell did I do?
“I’m, uh . . . sorry about this morning,” I start off, hopefully quietly enough that my brothers won’t hear, or at least not loud enough to catch their attention.
Elise just shrugs and pretends to return her attention to sorting through a rack of dresses, but she doesn’t even glance at some of the ones she adds to the pile draped over her arm, keeping a wary eye on me. “What’s there to be sorry about?”
The words “I’m sorry I ate you out specifically after I said I wasn’t going to do that” just aren’t going to happen while my brothers are here, but I’m sure she has to know that’s what we’re talking about. And all the other moments I haven’t been doing a great job at staying away from her.
“Uh, well. Y’know. I’m just trying not to make this whole ordeal harder for you, crossing lines we set pretty firmly at the start of this and all that,” I remind her, just in case she’d forgotten that whole fight we’d had about it just a few days ago.
She glances at me warily and starts walking away to the dressing rooms. “You didn’t make it harder for me, it’s fine.”
The way she darts behind the safety of the thin plywood door and quickly locks it says otherwise.
I follow her and ask over the top of the stall door, “Really?”
She waves an empty plastic hanger at me, and I back off a few feet. I can see her kick off her pants in the few inches of space under the privacy screen, and the top of her head over it.
Right. Stay away, sit still, no touching. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I jam my hands in my pockets and wait for her answer.
“I’ve made my peace with everything that happened between us. Found the closure I was looking for. I’m good now, Shawn.”
I frown. “When?”
“I don’t know . . . I overheard you talking to your brothers the other day. About the way you lied to me. It made me upset at first, but the longer I think about it, that was never really the issue.”
Sometimes I forget humans can eavesdrop too. “It wasn’t?”
“No.”
She doesn’t elaborate, of course, just shimmies out of one dress and into a different one. I catch myself biting one of my knuckles, staring hard at the sliver of her I can see between the door hinges and the wall. After this morning, the need to touch her is overpowering. My cock twitches at the barest glimpse of her shins under the door like some kind of repressed Victorian.
“Hang on. If me lying to you wasn’t the reason we got divorced, what was? No, for real. Why’d we split up then?”
“Shawn, we can’t keep doing this. There’s nothing left between us to repair, I don’t know why you keep digging. We’re not . . . we’re not going to get back together, or anything. Obviously.”
She sighs and leans against one of the dressing room walls.
“Obviously, pssh, yeah,” I repeat, because yeah, we’re totally on the same page. I hadn’t been hoping that she’d just fall into my arms after a couple of orgasms, wanting to see if we could make it work one more time, or anything else along those lines. Not at all.
“I’m leaving after this whole wedding is over,” she says pointedly, a little bit exasperated, like she doesn’t believe I’m agreeing with her.
“I’m leaving too,” I add, and honestly, it does now sound like we could just happen to leave in the same direction, if she wanted to. Apparently, I don’t actually know the reason she doesn’t.
Whatever idiot thing I’m about to say next dies on my tongue when she opens the door and I get to see what she’s tried on.
That is not just fancy work event clothing. I’ve seen the early stages of Elise’s attempts at professional catering clothing, the black dress pants and button-down shirts. But this is something else entirely.
It’s a little black cocktail dress that hugs her middle a little too well, and my mouth goes dry at the way the fabric clings to her hips, her legs, highlighting every curve and movement.
It’s cheesy, but I like her in satin. I recognize it instantly, a memory blooming from the shiver of fabric as she turns. She had another skirt like that when we lived together. Every time she wore it, I found myself worshiping with my head between her thighs.
She hovers in the doorway apprehensively, before turning around and pulling her hair aside.
My jaw physically aches at the sight of her bare neck and shoulder. It’s more than just the want to kiss, to carve into that spot that always makes her breath hitch with the blunt edge of my teeth.
Momentarily I forget where I am, until she asks, “Can you get this zipper for me?”
I blink, and finally notice the open back of the dress, the way the zipper is caught in a tangle of thread halfway up.
I stand next to her and help, cutting through the threads with a claw that pushes out of my skin all too easily. I try not to move at all when my knuckles graze her back, making her shiver.
“I’m just now realizing what a sin it is that we never went to any nice places together,” I murmur, my other hand finding hers and immediately tugging her into a little twirl before me.
She glances at me, still wearing one of the suit jackets from the other side of the store over a worn T-shirt.
“You don’t clean up so bad yourself”—she laughs, finally looking less tense—“but when you elope in Atlantic City, the dress code is flipflops and tie-die shirts.”
“I’m serious. Clear your calendar, we’re crashing galas and black-tie events for the next . . .” I trail off and clear my throat, stop spinning her around.
I’m struck by the thought of what could have been. That in a more perfect set of circumstances, we could have stayed together, driven up here for the wedding together, my hand on her knee the entire trip, been welcomed at the house together. We could have had entirely different lives and found ourselves back here, if only I’d made it work. I could have brought her home, tried harder to make my mother listen. We could have done things right.
Elise comes to a standstill, facing me.
I stare at her, willing myself to not fall in love with her again. Even as I think it, I know it’s too late. Ten years too late.
“Did it ever upset you that we never had a big fancy to-do . . .?”
Elise’s eyes widen just the tiniest bit, and I hear her heartbeat quicken, I feel it as if it’s my own. I watch for a too-long moment as she fidgets a handful of the fabric of her skirt.
“No, never. I was happy with . . . what we had,” she finishes a little lamely.
Her answer doesn’t sit well with me, but I can’t tell if I don’t believe her because it doesn’t sound like she believes it herself, or because I don’t want to believe it.
“I wish we’d done things differently.”
“It is what it is, Shawn.”
“No, I should have tried harder to make it work. I knew my mom would love you if she just got to know you. I knew it. And look at you, you fit in better here than I ever did.”
“Shawn, no. I’m happy we divorced. It was the right decision.”
“What?”
Elise turns away from me, stopping in front of the mirror, moving as if she’s testing out the dress, but her eyes are unfocused as she speaks, not really watching her reflection.
“We were too young. I didn’t know how to calm myself down when we started fighting. All I wanted to do was hurt you the way I was hurting. I needed time to grow, to learn how to be better. I don’t think I could have learned that if we had stayed together.”
She stays quiet a long moment, letting the truth of that statement sting and reverberate throughout the air.
My gaze falls from her to my shoes. Eventually she moves back to the dressing room, and I hear her start to unzip the dress. I take that as my cue to leave her alone, but she starts talking again. It’s quiet, almost a mumble. I’m not entirely sure she’s speaking to me, but I halt and listen.
“Sometimes people get divorced. Sometimes it’s a clean break, and they can just move forward with their lives and forget about that little blip. They can go on to find new partners, make new families. I think that’s really the best-case scenario for everyone involved.”
I find myself standing right outside the dressing room door, my palms pressed against it. If only it was just a flimsy plywood door that stood between us, and not miles of an emotional gorge I carved myself.
“How is that the best-case scenario?”
The tips of her shoes in the gap between the door and the tile appear, nearly toe to toe with mine. I feel her head knock slightly against the door, and can feel her presence so close to mine, depending on the door to hold us apart.
I know too well what Elise crying looks like. Sometimes it slips into my dreams, the way her face crumples a little, her lower lip wobbling as tears start to creep out over her eyelashes.
I can hear it all in her voice as she speaks.
“Because the other option is that it isn’t a clean break. Sometimes there’s a little girl who was supposed to have a family, and she gets left behind for the new families. And, god, I can only imagine what it’s like to have someone choose you over everything else, to think you’re worth it.”
I don’t ask her what idiot would ever think she wasn’t worth it, I already know.