The Wedding His Wolf Refused

1

Ava

Please, Ava, just let me fix your headlights.

My phone lights up with the message from my ex while I’m driving, and like the last four times he’s offered, it stabs me in the chest. I wince and lock the screen, trying not to let it add to the things ruining my night.

The only thing worse than the sweetest, nicest guy ever breaking up with you is when he keeps re-opening the wound with offers I should really say yes to, because I can’t afford a trip to the mechanic. My truck is legally old enough to drink. I can’t bring it in every time another piece falls off.

I needed the free service he offered, but the part in the conversation where he couldn’t balance both our relationship and his job, while insisting that he still loved me, was too much to handle. I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting another minute, and I just needed to leave.

I’ve spent the last six months since driving around mostly unpaved, utterly unlit back roads on the steep Mystic Falls hills with one working headlight.

To my credit, I did call the local mechanic today, before I left the wedding.

I left a message at 6:45 p.m. They were closed, but if they call me back tomorrow, then I’ll finally make an appointment to bring it by.

Which is honestly better. After a full, sweaty day of setting up flower displays and pinning boutonnieres on party guests, I just want to go home and shower.

Dusk is disappearing behind the black tree line, and the radio signal dips in and out with every hill the truck crests over. There’s some news bulletin interrupting WGBH, mumbling on the radio:

“. . . we have contacted the local wolf sanctuary at Ipswich, but all their rescues are accounted for . . . ”

There aren’t any wild-roaming wolves in Massachusetts, but there have been a few coyote sightings lately. I’ve already heard about it, so I turn the radio off. I’m not one for reruns.

The autumn night is cool and crisp; I roll down the window, letting the wind tear through my hair, laying an arm out the side.

Nothing calms my nerves like the night air, listening to the crickets.

It’s still warm enough that you can sleep with the windows open without waking up shivering, still cool enough for a light sweater.

A couple of guests were a little short with me, but it happens. I’m pretending I’m not taking it personally. I had to leave early because I didn’t want to cry at another job site and for my boss to get another call about how unprofessional I am.

A howl, not quite as distant as I’d like it to be, startles me as I take the truck down a steeper curve in the road. The engine makes some questionable noises as it stammers. I’m trying not to ride the brakes too hard, but it’s extra dark out with half the amount of light I normally get.

I’m still trying to squash all the jittery nerves just from being in the Hayes House.

I’ve heard about the place since I was a kid. It isn’t nearly as spooky as I imagined on the inside, but it does have an antique stateliness to it that makes it hard to get comfortable in.

The Hayes family is well known in Mystic Falls, mostly because of the brewery. I guess a lot of people who work there know the boys from when they were growing up, all the trouble they got into fooling around, playing pranks on each other.

I don’t really know them; they were a few years ahead of me in high school. I’ve heard a couple stories about them being strange folks, but it’s nothing compared to the way people talk about the brewery.

My truck crests over a ridge and I catch a view of the horizon: The steep hill is silhouetted against the sky, and on it, the Aconite Ales Brewery.

It looms over the whole fucking town, wreathed in campfire stories of screams and strange noises emitting from the woods around it. I’ve heard the sounds myself driving up this way before on a full moon like tonight.

Not that I believe the stories. Probably just a couple of wild animals fighting.

I’d never really met the family before. And at the event I still didn’t, even if my friend Laura tried to give me names to put to faces. It had been such a whirlwind of introductions between getting everything set up.

At this point, only one face stuck with me.

Ugh, he sucked. Even though I’ve already forgotten his name, that awkward moment is seared on my brain, likely going to play on a loop in my head while I’m trying to fall asleep until I die.

I’m going to be lying on my deathbed, thinking about what a full and lovely life I’ve lived, and then I’m going to remember that fucking guy and cringe, and be the first person to literally die of embarrassment.

I’m trying not to ruminate on it, but it’s hard.

It’s important to note that the guy in question was hot, which honestly just makes it all worse. Like, he was exactly my type. Now I’m not going to be able to look at that genre of guy again without wincing.

He had dark circles under his eyes, giving him a drawn, gaunt look; his nose was sort of angled, and he had cheekbones to match. The tattoos peeking out from under his rolled-up sleeves kept snagging my attention, as well as the handful of piercings.

Not that I was salivating over the guy or anything. I caught his eye and felt a bit like an idiot for just standing there.

“Are you in the wedding party?” I asked him, offering one of the boutonnieres meant for the families. I had spent the morning tying up the last of the little bunches of baby’s breath and wild indigo with six-inch cuts of lace ribbon, and hot gluing pins to the back of the tiny bouquets.

He didn’t answer me for several moments, just stared me up and down.

He looked like he needed some extra sleep, but that’s still no reason to just go around giving people the evil eye like he did to me.

It kinda pissed me off, but I was trying not to pick fights with any more customers, so I bit back on my attitude.

After a long moment, his mouth a hard line, he muttered, “Yeah.”

I tried a friendly smile, but it faltered as I told him, “I’m supposed to pin these on everyone.”

His glare didn’t soften any, but after a beat he tilted his head to the side a little. Another beat later, I realized he was giving me permission to do my job. Great. What a fucking diva.

I swallowed and automatically held my breath as I stepped closer. The top two buttons of his shirt were thankfully already undone, and I could slip my hand into the right side, pulling the fabric taut for the pin. The back of my hand grazed his skin.

It’s something that’s happened a number of times on this job. For the most part I don’t even notice it anymore. I looked up only for a second, but it was the second his eyes shifted and caught mine. His jaw tensed; his brows pulled together.

The next thing I knew, his hand was on my wrist, snatching it away from him, the little boutonniere flying out of my grip.

The seconds stretched out: his hand, the long lines of his fingers wrapped around my wrist, the sharp peaks of his knuckles, his dark eyes boring into mine. He held my stare, his grip just hard enough to be uncomfortable, his eyes searching my face.

I don’t know what I missed or what I did wrong. I don’t think I poked him with the sharp end of the pin. Normally I’m really good at not doing that.

He discarded my hand like it was a piece of trash, like he was dropping something disgusting on the ground. He left just as brusquely. I chewed the inside of my cheek a little too hard, reminding myself I had to pay rent. I had to. This is like my longest streak of having my shit together.

I ended up picking up the boutonniere off the ground and pinning it on my wrist, because fuck that guy, I worked hard on these, and I didn’t want him to have one anyway.

In the truck, I glance at the pin still on my wrist, the little ribboned bouquet shaking in the wind against my skin as my arm rests outside the door. After that fucking asshole threw it, it was a little too shabby to pin on the wedding party, but I always make a couple extras in case of mishaps.

It’s whatever, I try to tell myself. The day is over. I’m probably not going to see him ever again. I can’t make everyone like me; as long as I’m not purposefully pissing in anyone’s Cheerios, it’s fine.

I’m most of the way back to the garden center. Every now and then a building pokes out of the hills of foliage: a church, a water tower, the brewery. It’s usually enough to tell where you are on the mountain.

I massage the truck’s brake pedal with my heel, slowing up just the tiniest bit more as the road tilts and curves down the hill. Easy does it, even if I am rolling down the hill a little faster than I’d like to be.

Something grazes my arm in the dark, and I jerk back. I feel it hit the side of the truck. Or the truck hits it, I don’t know. It all happens so fast.

I grip the steering wheel hard and swerve. One of the tires skids off the road, a number of plants smack the bumper. The brakes are unhelpfully squishy, but I manage to stop and throw the gear shift in park.

My heart is hammering in my chest, my throat. I think I’m going to be sick. Oh, not in the truck.

I pop the door handle and slide out onto the pavement, my knees wobbly. It’s so dark out here.

There’s a chunk of fur stuck in the newly formed cracks of the one working headlight. Now I need to get both of them fixed.

Oh, god, I think I hit an animal. Shit. Oh my god.

I don’t know what to do. Maybe I can load it into the back of the truck and drive it to the nearest vet?

I just don’t know that there’s a clinic open this late.

I just got paid last week, so I might have enough to cover a vet trip.

I don’t know what a vet visit costs. I’ve never had a pet.

But I have to try. What if that was someone’s, like, runaway dog?

At least I’ve got plenty of dirty old towels in the truck for when the flower water spills driving on bumpy roads.

Bracing myself and hoping my stomach doesn’t revolt at the sight of roadkill, I peek out behind the truck bed. All I can see is the red glow of the brake lights reflecting off the wet pavement, the nearby brush.

“Hello?” I call out, more out of shock than expecting an answer.

No one’s going to answer me, duh. Well, if I hit a person, maybe. I don’t think anyone would be out hiking the hills at this hour, though.

I shine my phone flashlight at it, arms full of old damp towels. I’m not hiding behind them, I swear.

The dog—I mean, I think it’s a dog. I don’t think the curled over mass of fur is big enough to be a bear, but it’s still larger than most dogs.

My hands are too shaky to remember what I’d heard on the news recently about coyotes in the area.

I don’t think I know enough about coyotes to identify them from dogs.

There’s a decent chance I’m about to be one of those weirdos who brings a kidnapped coyote to the vet.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. It’s going to be ok. You’re gonna be fine, I mean, I wasn’t even going that fast—and I don’t see any blood,” I murmur without even thinking. It’s more to assure myself that I didn’t just maim someone’s pet.

Creeping a step closer, the flashlight reveals more. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog that looks like this. It lifts its head, teeth bared in a growl, and my heart stops.

It lunges at me.

A scream escapes me when its teeth close around my hand.

I thrash, I kick, I fall back on the pavement.

It’s incredibly brief; when the creature opens its maw in another snarl it releases my wrist, catching the cuff of my sweater on its teeth.

My phone skitters across the road, lighting up the underside of some bush uselessly.

It’s so dark. I flail and kick what I can. In front of me I can only feel the beast’s presence, its teeth closing down again, this time crunching down on the boutonniere.

The beast cries out in a pained yowl and forcefully rips itself away from me, yanking hard. I tumble onto the pavement from the force of it tearing a chunk out of my sweater sleeve.

Then it’s gone.

I’m left on the ground, honestly just thankful that was it. When my heart stops thudding in my chest so hard, I push off the ground and go retrieve my phone. My hand stings, I can feel it bleeding, warmth dripping down my arm as I clench a handful of my shirt.

Glad I have those gross wet towels to wrap around it.

I get back into the truck and squint at the torn skin under the orange glare of the cab light. It’s honestly not even the worst dog bite I’ve ever gotten. If that was a dog, I mean. And now I’m going to have to drive myself to the hospital and ask for a rabies shot.