Chapter 9
nine
EMMY
I signed my contract the next morning.
During my drive home the night before, I’d admitted to myself that I had no other job prospects and was going to have to stay at the university if I wanted to live by Zoe without being jobless.
Finn didn’t text me until that afternoon, when he let me know that he was going for a run with the other guys. Not coming over for dinner was implied.
I picked up four pizzas, some chicken wings, and a couple tubs of ice cream, then texted Maya and drove the three minutes to Zoe’s apartment.
When she didn’t answer, I used my key to let myself in.
She was sitting on the couch, wrapped in multiple blankets, with a pile of tissues next to her. She’d told me she still felt like shit, but that she’d stopped puking and thought she was on the mend.
She didn’t look like she was on the mend, but I didn’t want to say that.
“You survived the flu!” I exclaimed.
It was taking mega effort to pretend I felt like my normal, cheerful self.
Zoe eyed me with great suspicion. “You’re acting weird.”
Poor thing, she even sounded sick. I didn’t want to imagine how bad of shape she’d been in if she thought this was an improvement.
I had picked up and dropped off food for her most days on my way home from work, but hadn’t risked exposing myself to her flu. Abby had told me werewolves didn’t really get sick the day before, so I no longer needed to stay away.
“I would never.” I kicked her apartment’s door closed lightly.
Maya caught it, stepping in after me and shutting it behind her. “What would you never do?”
“Act weird,” I said.
“You bought a purple couch and painted your house the color of a lemon. Most people would call that weird.” She looked at the stack of pizzas in my arms. Then blinked. “Who the hell is going to eat all of those? I can handle maybe one pizza on a good day, and I have a big appetite.”
“Three of the pizzas are for me, and we know your appetite is because you’re a werewolf,” I put in.
She blinked again. “Stella told you?”
“No one told us anything. We figured it out ourselves.” I carried my pizzas over to the coffee table and dropped them on the surface before taking the ice cream to the fridge.
“It was obvious that they were real before I accidentally mated myself to a werewolf. Now that I’m one too, your werewolfness is undeniable. ”
“We’ve never seen anyone pound as much junk food as you do without getting sick,” Zoe agreed.
Then coughed.
And sneezed.
And blew her nose, while quietly moaning a curse.
“You should’ve brought another box of tissues with you,” she told me, as she added her current one to the pile with a grimace of disgust.
Sometimes, being gross was a requirement for maintaining your sanity.
“I’ll pick some up before I go home.”
“Thanks.”
I blew her a kiss.
“How did you end up mated to a wolf? And who is it?” Maya checked.
“His name is Finn, and he’s the most devastatingly gorgeous man you could’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, he doesn’t want a mate.” I dropped to the couch dramatically, on the other side of Zoe’s tissue pile.
“Most werewolf dudes want mates,” Maya said, opening the first box of pizza and taking a slice. I took two, stacking them together to make a pizza sandwich.
The amount of food required to keep you alive as a new werewolf was truly disturbing. Pizza sandwiches should not have been a thing.
“Not the rejected ones,” I said.
Maya’s eyebrows shot upward. “He’s in the Feral Pack too?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn. How many of us are mated to them now?”
I held up four fingers, my mouth full of pizza.
“What the fuck? I need to move before fate tries that shit on me,” Maya said around her own mouthful of cheesy goodness.
“Well, it’s too late for some of us.” I took another massive bite.
The pizza would fix me. Hopefully.
“I can’t believe you brought that greasy, cheesy mess over here when I’m trying to heal,” Zoe said with a sigh.
She was vegetarian, and really into health food. Especially vegetables. They tasted great when she cooked, and I would never try to force junk food on her, but sometimes even Zoe needed to eat more than veggies.
Silently, I handed her a slice of pizza. There was no meat on it, so I was pretty sure it was safe. I honestly hadn’t researched much, and she wasn’t super strict about what she ate.
“Celery might heal bodies, but pizza heals souls,” I informed her.
With her first reluctant bite, she closed her eyes as if it was too delicious to keep them open.
“Celery doesn’t heal anything.” Maya grabbed her second slice. Unlike Zoe, she didn’t believe in vegetables.
We really should’ve realized something was up with her sooner.
“So what happened with the guy?” Maya asked me. “Do I need to kill him?”
We all knew she wouldn’t actually hurt him. She was a major homebody who hated leaving her apartment at all. She was having issues with one of the professors in her department, too, which just made her stay home more.
“He told me from the beginning that he didn’t want a mate. My wolf bit him because he was having a panic attack, and nothing else was snapping him out of it,” I explained. “I agreed that we could just be friends. He changed his mind and wanted to date, but I think I messed it up yesterday.”
“And you’re catching feelings, which was against the rules anyway,” Zoe pointed out.
I waved it off. “Yeah, yeah.”
“I think I’m going to need the long version of that story,” Maya said.
With a sigh, I launched into it.
They got way more details than they probably wanted, but I knew they’d expected that when I started.
By the time I finished talking, Zoe was asleep in her blanket nest. She’d already heard everything before anyway.
“I don’t know what to do,” I finished. “Finn is a really good guy. We get along. We have fun. I think it could be something special, you know? But he doesn’t really know what he wants, and I obviously can’t let myself get all pushy given his past. I just don’t know where that leaves me.”
Maya nodded slowly.
I reached for another piece of pizza, only to realize that the final box was empty. We’d killed all four of them.
Dammit.
“Can I be honest?” Maya asked.
“When have you ever not been honest? Other than about the werewolf thing.”
“Good point. Well, I think you just need to wait it out. You told him you weren’t going to chase him, so don’t. It sounds like he’s figuring it out, but doesn’t know how to deal with it. Give him time, and he’ll decide he wants to be with you.”
“How do you know he’ll decide that?”
She gave me a small smile. “Because if there’s one thing I know about werewolf dudes, it’s that they’re clingy, possessive fuckers. If he can’t figure it out on his own, his friends will teach him the ways. He’ll probably figure it out, though.”
“Do you really think so?” I couldn’t believe I was actually hoping a guy was going to turn into a clingy, possessive fucker, but I kind of was.
“Yup.” Maya crossed Zoe’s apartment and grabbed all five of the ice cream tubs I’d brought with me out of the freezer.
She handed me a spoon wordlessly, and I turned on a murder mystery (Maya didn’t like romcoms) while we dug into our dessert like the animals we had inside us.
When Zoe woke up coughing and sneezing, she used the very last tissue. I brought her a roll of toilet paper to use as backup, then grabbed my purse from the kitchen.
“I’m going to buy more tissues. I’ll probably pick up some snacks while I’m out, and just spend the night here,” I told Maya. “Are you heading home, or tagging along?”
She never tagged along.
She always went home.
The hesitation on her face alone was enough to surprise me.
She was actually considering it.
“I’ll come,” she finally agreed. “But you’re buying.”
My trust fund wasn’t a secret. Nor was her culinary school debt.
“Deal.”
Maya insisted on driving. My vehicular skills were indeed legendary.
“So, your wolf rejected your mate?” I asked her.
“We’re not talking about that.” Maya’s jaw clenched, her grip tightening on the steering wheel.
“Okay.” I nodded. “Have you met the Feral Pack?”
“No. I hope I never do, either. Especially if fate is trying to pair us all up.”
“At least everyone seems pretty happy so far. You’ve seen Abby and Nico together.”
She nodded grudgingly. “They’re sickeningly perfect for each other.”
“I know. It’s adorable.”
“And disgusting.”
“You don’t actually think it’s disgusting, Maya.”
She sighed. “I guess not.”
We reached the grocery store, and Maya parked. It didn’t take long to pack our cart full of snacks and candy, and I threw in fruit and veggie trays to leave in Zoe’s fridge. She would eat one slice of pizza, but she wasn’t going to touch the candy or potato chips.
Maya and I laughed about the ridiculous quantity of junk food as we loaded everything in our car, and I wiped a few happy tears from beneath my eyes when we hit the road again.
Back at Zoe’s house, we dragged her sickly butt to her bed, leaving her with a fresh tissue box.
I fashioned a glove out of one of our grocery bags and used it to sweep Snot Mountain off the couch and into another one. Maya loaded the dishwasher. I wiped down the countertops, and we cleaned up the living room together.
When we plopped down on the couch with our junk food and turned another movie on, we wrapped ourselves in blankets.
Comfortable silence stretched between us as the opening credits played.
“If I had a pack, I’d want it to feel like this,” Maya said quietly, as the movie’s title covered the screen. “Cleaning each other’s messes, sharing food, having each other’s backs.”
“Honey, we’re already your pack. Whether you like it or not.”
She smiled, just a little.
Partway through the movie, I hit the pause button so I could take a pee break and grab a glass of water. When I came back, I found Maya sitting with her knees to her chest, and a faraway look in her eyes.
“You okay?” I checked.
It was past midnight, but she didn’t look tired.
“Hmm?”
“Are you okay?” I repeated.
“Oh, I’m fine.”
I lifted an eyebrow at her.
Her expression was defiant as it met mine.
After a moment, she let out a slow breath and looked at the TV screen. “I’ve never told anyone about him.”
She was talking about her mate, obviously. The one she’d rejected. She must’ve been thinking about my question, in the car.
“Stella knows a little, I guess. She just kind of figured it out. I didn’t tell her.”
“You don’t have to tell anyone, if you don’t want to. It doesn’t change our friendship.”
“I know,” she admitted. “But maybe I want to. Or… maybe I should? Would it help?” She met my eyes, and I could see that she was genuinely asking me.
“Talking about things helps me work through them, but I can’t say for sure if it would help you.”
She nodded, looking back at the TV. It seemed like she’d decided she was just going to leave her past alone, and that was okay. I understood.
I gave it a minute, though. In case she changed her mind.
“He was… charismatic. Aiden. My ex. My mate.” She said the word like she hated it.
Like it hurt, too. “Everyone loved him. Our relationship was… explosive. We fought as intensely as we fucked. It was violent and all-consuming. I thought that was normal for werewolves. I thought the violence meant he loved me.”
I scooted closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders so I could pull her in for a hug.
She leaned against me.
Her face was a little pale.
Her voice was soft when she continued. “He was pissed that my wolf hadn’t bitten him as time went by.
The fights got worse. It wasn’t until I was sitting on a hospital bed with his mother crying next to me that I learned even werewolves don’t physically hurt people they love.
My wolf rejected him that day, and he was gone that night. ”
“Dead, gone?”
She nodded. “Most men don’t survive rejection.”
Finn had said that too.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, side-hugging her even tighter.
“It was a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No. it doesn’t.” She leaned her head back, resting it on the couch’s cushions. “Why was Finn rejected?”
“His mate was abusive. I haven’t asked for details, and I don’t think he plans to give them to me, but I think it was mostly emotional.”
Maya nodded. “Just be smart about it. Fight with him and make sure he doesn’t lose his temper with you. Tell him what you’re feeling, and make sure he cares enough to listen. Get to know him really well.”
“I will. Thanks.”
She yawned, and I got the message that the conversation was over.
We turned the movie back on, and fell asleep on the couch while it played.