Chapter Twelve
Destiny’s hair rose on the back of her neck.
She narrowed her eyes at the front door. Dodger was here again.
She lived on a street of duplexes, and hers was on the very end, near a few empty lots that led to a creek.
Sunday and Monday night, she’d seen Dodger’s truck pull up, and then pull away. Now, she recognized the throaty sound of his engine. He hadn’t shown up last night that she knew of, but he was here now.
Unlike the other nights, this time was different though. He stopped in front of her house instead of at the edge of the cul-de-sac near the woods.
He was taunting her. Teasing her. Ignoring her by being just close enough for her to feel him and then disappearing again.
Not this time.
Anger flared up inside of her and she shoved her feet into her snow boots and yanked open her front door.
The wind was bitterly cold, but she didn’t care about that.
Her skin was on fire with her fury. Sure enough, he was parked across the street.
He was getting out of his truck, and damn him, he was even hotter than she remembered with his cool guy beanie, and powerful legs that were ten feet freaking long, and his muscles showing through his tight blue sweater, and his cologne that was already filling up her senses from here.
He looked up, and his face lit up. He held out his arms, and right before she reached him, he said, “Why do you look so mad?”
“Because I am mad!” she yelled, shoving him as hard as she could in the chest. And that wretched man insulted her by not moving an inch. So, she pushed him again. And again.
“Stop, stop,” he said, backing up finally. “What are you doing?”
“You are the worst! You are so mean!” she yelled.
“I’m mean?” he asked. “Come on woman, you can do better than that.”
“You’re…you’re…a chocolate chip cookie with raisins instead of chocolate!”
His frosty eyes cooled as he stood just inside his open doorway. “I thought you were running out here to hug me. Not push me.”
“Why would I hug you? I should kick your shins right through your legs, and…and…laugh at you.”
“Laugh at me?”
“Yeah!” God, she was not good at insulting people. “Laugh at you while you roll around in the dirty snow with boneless legs. And kick snow on you!”
“You’re a violent little creature,” he accused her, and why was he fighting a smile right now. It pissed her off even more.
“You deserve it!” she griped as she backed away from him. A wind gust lifted the hem of her nightgown and showed her panties to the world, and his eyes went right to her thighs, and this was too much.
“What on earth are you wearing?”
“A nightgown!”
“That’s what you sleep in? You look like a little old lady.” His eyes were dancing now and she hated everything.
“You’re not allowed to make fun of me. I’m sure someone will appreciate this…this…” she held the hem of her oversized nightdress that actually did have a floral pattern and look a little geriatric on her. “This effort. Some man will appreciate my body in this. I’m not wearing a bra!”
His dark eyebrows shot up, and his eyes darted to her upper shelf.
“Don’t you look at me,” she griped, covering her chest with her arms.
“Fuck, okay, what?” he asked in a panicked tone, turning away and holding his hand in front of his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Are you back to torture me some more?”
“Torture you? What are you talking about? And why does it smell like werewolf out here?”
“You mean like you? Why does it smell like you?”
He frowned at her and she jammed her fingers at him. “Don’t look at me,” she barked out.
He turned away again. “It can’t smell like me. I know what I smell like, and also, I’ve never been to your house before—”
“Liar!”
“Look, this reunion is not as fun as I imagined it. I can’t do the crazy stuff.”
“Oh, okay I’m the crazy one? I’m the one who is crazy? You block me, and break my heart, and then you show up here two nights in a row and then just leave as soon as I come outside to talk to you. And you piss on my bushes!”
His face looked truly baffled as he dropped his hand to his side. “Come again?”
“Why do you come see me if you don’t want to talk?”
“I haven’t! This is the first time I’ve been to your house.”
“Yes you have! Aaaah!” She screamed. “I’m not doing this. I don’t need a man making me feel this crazy. It’s too early in this non-relationship for the gaslighting. I’m going to have a good day,” she said, heading back for her house.
“Destiny, I haven’t been here before.”
“Oh yeah?” She jammed her finger at the camera on the eaves of her roof. “I’ve got proof. Want to try that again?”
He stood there baffled. “You’re saying I was here? In my truck? You saw me?”
“Every night but last night, but lo and behold, you show up this morning. Don’t want to break your streak. Are you hunting me?” she asked suddenly. “Is this some sort of game? Hunt the human?”
“What? No! Look, can I see the camera footage?”
She crossed her arms over her chest again. It was getting really cold out here.
“Preferably inside before you freeze to death?” he asked.
“You don’t get to just invite yourself inside and act like you didn’t ghost me, Dodger. That was messed up. You hurt me!”
Some emotion she didn’t understand flitted across his face but was gone in an instant. “Look, I was trying to stay away from you.”
“Not successful.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, looking around. He frowned at a tree on the edge of the cul-de-sac. “Did I piss on that tree?”
“Three times. You can go look if you don’t believe me. The snow is still yellow. You pissed on my landscaping too, and on that curb over there.”
“Fuck. Okay.” He nodded, his troubled gaze on the tree. “This is starting to feel familiar now.”
“You really don’t remember?” she asked, starting to feel uncertain as her anger began to fade.
“I haven’t been feeling well. I think the wolf is sick or something.”
“If this is the part where you told me you were sick, and that’s why you blocked me, save it, Dodger. It’s fine.” She shook her head, disappointed. “I have to finish getting ready for work.”
“Right.” When she reached the door, Dodger said, “Hey, Destiny?”
“Yes?” she asked softly as she turned around.
“My wolf…” He ran his hand down his jaw. “My wolf is kind of messed up. I’m not blaming my ghosting you on being sick. I have my reasons though.”
“Why?”
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “You’re cold, and I can see you shivering from here, and I can’t talk about this if I think you’re uncomfortable. Either let me come in or let me talk to you in my truck where I can get some heat on you.”
She was indeed shivering. She couldn’t hide it now. “Okay. You can come in while I get ready for work.”
“Thanks.” He turned and made his way to his truck, and when he got there, he pulled out a big paper bag and a drink holder with four coffees in it.
“What is that for?” she asked.
“You. I barely know you. I don’t know what you like for breakfast, so I got options.” Dodger pushed the door handle and let himself in while she stood there staring after him. Huh.
“That was very thoughtful of you. It’ll take more than a couple of bagels for me to forgive—”
“Ollie’s breakfast burritos,” he said, holding up the bag, and now she could see the logo.
Okay so this man was good. Ollie’s was infamous around here. The line was usually out the door and down to the corner. “Well played, sir.”
“I shouldn’t be here,” he said, setting the food on the small dining table near her kitchen table.
“If this is the breakup speech, you can save it,” she murmured, feeling drained. “I already figured it all out.”
“Figured out what?”
“That it’s not the same for you.”
He cocked his head and studied her face. “What is it like for you?”
“Oh, no. I’m not doing that. I’m not telling you how invested I am so you can call me crazy for my feelings being too much too fast. You can think whatever you want.”
“Did you cry?” he asked suddenly.
Gads, that question caught her off-guard. He stood in her living room, unnatural blue eyes boring into her, feeling like he took up so much more space than he actually did.
She refused to answer him and padded toward her bedroom. “I’m going to get ready now.”
He followed her and leaned on the open doorframe. “I’ve been a mess.”
“This is what boys do. They ghost girls and then go on dates with other people and then come back to the nice ones as some kind of challenge to see how many times they will let them in. I don’t want to play your games.”
“That’s what you think I’m doing?”
She shrugged and pulled a pair of jeans from her closet. “I don’t know what you’re doing. You just…poof. Disappeared on me.”
“Clearly, I didn’t just poof disappear, because unbeknownst to my human side, my wolf was dragging my ass to your territory at night to mark it. He was marking you. I don’t even remember driving here.”
“How does your wolf know where I live?”
“You said you live on Hanover that night we had our date. He probably just looked for your car.”
“Oh. Right. So, you just like…sleep-walked here? Or…sleep-drove?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. I’ve been fighting with my animal and it’s been a little…intense.”
“Why are you fighting with your wolf?”
“Because of you.”
Destiny had been pulling her jeans on under her grandma nighty but stopped before she had them buttoned. She straightened her spine. “Why?”
“Because he just wants to be with you and wants to protect you and that’s that. There is no logic. There’s just want. He wants you, and the more I fight it, the more he undermines me.”
“So your human side doesn’t feel that for me?”
“My human side understands the danger and understands our differences. I understand the risk you would be taking if I keep pulling you in.”
“So, you like me, but you don’t want to like me,” she guessed.
He nodded. “Something like that.”
“What am I supposed to do with that, Dodger?”
He inhaled deeply and leaned back on her bed on locked arms. Her frame creaked under his shifting weight. “I don’t honestly know.”