Chapter 23 #2
Coach’s eyes flick once to me and then back.
“You knew the rules. You knew them when you proposed this arrangement, and you knew them when you slept with her. So now you choose. Go to the Council through the proper channels and petition for her openly. Or end this charade and let her live her life somewhere far enough from you that the bond can’t reach. You don’t get a third option.”
He walks away, but I don’t look at him. My eyes are focused on Grayson. He sinks onto the chair, his forearms on his thighs and his head down, hair falling over his forehead.
“Were you really not going to tell me?” My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
He lifts his head. “I wasn’t.”
There is a flat anger in him I haven’t heard before. It isn’t aimed at me but at something I can’t see.
“Excuse me?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you, Miranda.” His jaw works. “We were going to get married. I was going to give you everything I had. And I was never, ever going to give you the mating mark.”
“Why?”
“Because the Council has to approve any human mating, and they don’t always approve. They approved my brother’s, and then his mate died in an accident on an empty street four weeks later. Coach can call it a coincidence. I don’t. I am not putting your life in danger.”
His voice is hard, and I realize this is one of the rare times I’ve seen him pissed. I sit there for one breath, then a second. Then I reach across the gap between our chairs and smack him on the back of the head.
He yelps. His head jerks up. “What was that for?”
“That,” I tell him through my teeth, “is for lying to me.”
“I was trying to protect you!”
“Don’t ever protect me by lying to me!” My voice climbs, and I drag it back down.
“I don’t like being lied to. Grayson, if you and I are together, then you stand by my side, not in front of me.
I don’t need to be protected like this. I’m not going to leave your side no matter what your Council says. So at least be honest with me.”
His eyes find mine, and the wolf is right behind them now, very close to the surface.
“If the Council says no, I take you and Ethan and I run. We go somewhere far enough that they will never find us. I disappear from hockey, from this pack, from all of it. I’ll do it tomorrow if I have to.”
I stare at him.
“Fine,” I say. “Then there’s no problem.”
He blinks once, slowly.
Then he sinks back into the chair and starts laughing, a tired and helpless sound, his head tipped against the wooden slats, one hand coming up over his eyes.
“What’s funny?”
“You.” His shoulders shake. “I cannot keep up with you, Miranda Carver. When you wanted nothing to do with me, you had a reason for every minute of every day. The second you decide you want me, you won’t let me give you an out for love or money.”
“No, I won’t.”
He drops his hand from his eyes and looks at me, and the laugh has softened into something else, his amber eyes warm and steady on my face.
He reaches across the small space between us slowly, giving me time to pull away.
His fingers curl behind my neck. He tugs me toward him until my forehead presses against his.
“Come here.”
“I am here.”
“I need you closer than that.”
I let him close the rest of the distance.
He kisses me slowly. Not the heat of the lake, not the heat of last night, something quieter. His thumb moves once against the corner of my jaw. The breath he lets out against my mouth is shaky in a way I have never heard from him.
I have my own breath to worry about because mine has gone uneven.
How am I supposed to walk away from a man who looks at me like that?
How am I supposed to be apart from him and Ethan, after everything?
I’m not. I can’t. The realization settles into me with a calm I should probably find alarming. Two days ago, I was applying for hospital jobs in three states. Now I’m sitting on a patio in Grayson’s shirt deciding I’d run with him if it came to that.
I pull back just enough to speak against his mouth.
“If we go on the run and you can’t find work, I’ll find a job at whatever hospital is nearest and I’ll cover us until you do.”
A startled laugh shakes out of him. “Miranda.”
“What?”
“I have enough money to last us a lifetime.”
“That’s fine. You can use yours, and I’ll use mine.”
“You don’t have any.”
“I will, once I’m working.”
He shakes his head, still smiling, and his thumb traces my cheekbone. “Sweetheart, I keep telling you. I’m never going to stop you from doing what you love. But you don’t have to support us. Ever.”
I tug his chin with my fingers, narrowing my eyes at him. “Since when did you become such a smooth talker?”
“Since you came into my life.”
I groan and drop my forehead back against his shoulder, and his chest is shaking with quiet laughter. I should cringe. I want to cringe. The line is appalling. Somehow I am laughing into his collarbone instead, my chest loose for the first time since Coach walked through the front door.
I lift my head after a moment, and the laugh fades.
“What about the body?”
He sobers. “I don’t know yet. Coach was pissed enough that he didn’t get to the details. I’ll talk to him later. This was just a courtesy call, since it was found on my territory. Don’t worry too much about it. Humans tend to bury bodies in the woods all the time.”
I press my lips together. “You’re pretty laid back over the whole thing. I would be freaking out. Exactly how many bodies have been buried on your territory?”
He shrugs. “Plenty. If Coach thinks it’s murder or something, he informs the human authorities.
Otherwise we don’t disturb the bodies.” His hand stays at the back of my neck a moment longer before he releases me, and when he leans back in his chair, the wolf is settled behind his eyes again, only him looking at me.
“There’s one more thing,” he murmurs. “I forgot until just now.”
“Why does that sentence always go badly when you say it?”
He grins. “I invited Derek over for dinner tonight.”
“Derek who?”
“My brother’s childhood friend. You met him briefly the other day. I haven’t sat down with him properly since he came back to town.” He watches my face. “Is that all right with you?”
I stare at him. “Why are you asking me for permission to invite a friend to your own house?”
He leans forward, and his hand catches mine, threading our fingers together where it rests on the arm of the chair. “Because this is your house now. You’re the one who runs it. I have to ask you for everything from here on out.”
My face goes hot. “Stop it.”
“I’m serious.”
“Grayson.”
He brings my knuckles to his mouth and kisses them. His eyes are smiling above my hand.
“Do you like being bossed around?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“By you? Always.”
I push his face away with my free hand. He lets me. His grin has not budged.
“Come eat breakfast,” I tell him, getting to my feet, “before I burn the second batch as well.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He follows me into the kitchen with that ridiculous grin still in place.
Derek is easier company than I expected.
He arrives at seven with a bottle of wine and a small box for Ethan that turns out to contain a wooden whistle carved into the shape of a fish. Ethan, who has been suspicious from the moment the doorbell rang, takes one look at the whistle and forgets that he doesn’t know this man.
I watch the two of them at the kitchen island while I finish the salad.
Derek is tall and rangier than Grayson, dark hair starting to go silver at the temples, a quiet face that breaks easily into smiles when Ethan says something.
He laughs at all the right places in Ethan’s monologue about the swimming bear he saw on television.
He asks the boy follow-up questions that Ethan answers with deep seriousness.
By dessert, Ethan has decided Derek is acceptable.
By the time the plates are cleared, Ethan is tugging at my sleeve.
“Miranda. Can we play outside?”
“What about your dad’s friend?”
“He’s boring.” Ethan glances at Derek and corrects himself with great solemnity. “He’s nice. But Daddy is making him boring.”
Derek snorts into his wine.
“Go on,” Grayson says, smiling at me over Ethan’s head. “I’ll bore Derek some more.”
I scoop Ethan up on one hip and grab the foam baseball and small plastic bat from the basket by the back door.
The yard at dusk has gone soft blue, the grass cool through my socks where I kick my shoes off on the back step.
The tree line at the edge of the property is maybe forty yards out.
Staying closer to the house feels right, within easy sight of the kitchen window where I can see Grayson and Derek through the glass, two dark shapes at the island, Derek leaning back on a stool with his hands behind his head.
Ethan plants the bat on his shoulder.
“Pitch it slow,” he instructs.
“How slow?”
“Slower than I can hit it.”
“That defeats the purpose of the game, buddy.”
“Slow,” he insists.
I lob the foam ball in a high arc. He swings, misses, swings again, and clips it on his third try. The ball loops a few feet and lands in the grass behind him. He chases after it with shrieking laughter, scoops it up, and throws it back at me as hard as his small arm can manage.
The ball rolls about six feet.
I retrieve it and pitch again. This time, he connects properly, and the foam ball sails out in a wobbling line toward the edge of the lawn. He’s off after it before I can call his name, sturdy little legs pumping, his laugh echoing across the yard.
I laugh with him without meaning to. The sound takes me by surprise.
When was the last time I laughed in a yard?
When was the last time I was happy?