21
Ava
“And nobody liked Celine?”
“No, nobody,” Aiden scoffs. He’s been very willing to fill me in on the lore, as we recover my truck from the woods. He continues, “I’m surprised you haven’t heard Laura complain about her. Apparently they had some huge falling out at a summer camp when they were like, tweens—”
“Ohhhh, Celine’s the horse girl.” I nod remembering the numerous times Laura’s told me about this girl she had to share a tent with. Gonna be real, this is something I think Laura needs to get over but have kept that to myself and just let her do the rant about the horse girl every time.
Aiden barks out a laugh. “Yeah, so you know about her.”
“It’s not the most detailed picture.” I prod, hoping he’ll give me a little more to work with.
“Yeah, but like, what else do you need to know about her? I think that say it all,” he says dismissively. Before I can continue to bug him for details, he turns his car’s engine on. Aiden’s vehicle lurches once, twice, and finally my truck rolls free from the ditch.
“She lives!” I crow and waste no time hopping back in the driver’s seat as Aiden slides out of his. I give another cheer as the engine turns over and a few less idiot lights than usual come on. Aiden crosses his arms and gives the beat-up truck a skeptical once-over.
“You’re not going to keep driving that thing,” he says, before moving to unfasten the tow.
“Not in the woods, hopefully. But I still gotta get around somehow, for work,” I say.
Aiden looks like he’s going to contest that I’ll be able to even do that but decides against it.
I lean out of the window, taking in the vast, rolling hills. “So, this is all brewery property?”
“Yeah.” He nods, stowing the hook in his back seat. I grimace, thinking about how many times I’ve definitely trespassed.
“What do you need so much space for anyw—oh,” I cut myself off before the end of my question, realizing halfway through it.
“When we were younger, we used to just run around in the woods out here,” Aiden tells me. “When we got big enough to be a real bit of danger, we started staying at the brewery. There’s really only a few nights out of the month that it’s a concern.”
Aiden notices I’ve fallen quiet in contemplation and is quick to assure me. He points at the moon, once again an imperfect circle. “We’re already past the worst of it, I think. You can already see it’s starting to wane. Like clockwork.”
I snort. “Yeah, weird how that keeps happening.”
“I knooooow.”
I follow him back to the service road, then to the Hayes House, park my truck out front. We pick up Elise and Shawn, and then finally move along to the Thirsty Turtle. Apparently Logan asked to meet us all there.
This morning, I ended up getting a few more hours of sleep after calling out from work, and when I finally showered and got some clean clothes, the day was mostly gone, the sun low in the sky. There was a crisp, wintery chill on the air, the night creeping into Mystic Falls a little earlier.
The Thirsty Turtle is reasonably noisy with the usual barflies. Sophie spares us all a wave as we pile through the doors. Logan and Laura are already inside, waving us over.
“Not you again,” Logan greets Elise as she leads the way to a booth in the corner that seems unlikely to squeeze all of us in.
“Ugh, you again,” Elise returns, sliding into the booth to take the seat by the wall.
“It’s me again too,” Shawn sighs.
Logan shakes his head. “You’re doing it wrong.”
“You’re gonna have an inside joke with my wife and not let me in on it?”
“You had to be there, man.”
“It was from when they were replacing the sprinkler system in the brewery,” Elise explains, the context not really adding anything. “So, it’s been going for like . . . three years?”
“This joke is older than your marriage.”
“Younger than the divorce, though,” Elise supplies unhelpfully.
I raise an eyebrow. “You guys got divorced?”
Elise waves it off. “Yeah, it’s a long story, like eighty-thousand words long.”
Shawn shakes his head. “Probably more like seventy-three.”
Laura and Aiden push into the booth, and Shawn says to Logan in what he probably thinks is a quiet enough aside, “What did you say to Mom that made her go back to therapy? I heard her calling for another appointment.”
Logan grimaces and shakes the question off. He pulls me into his side, blows a puff of air at my break-up bangs, before he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I’ll go grab us a drink.”
Elise’s brows pinch together, and she takes a long look at me. “Did you have bangs before?”
“Yeah, I did. I just trimmed them,” I lie, cheeks warming.
“They’re good. Yeah, they’re a good length.” She nods, unable to take her eyes off them. It’s so obviously a lie that I wonder how any of these people managed to keep the werewolf stuff a secret from me.
I fucking knew they were too short. It’s been a rough seventy-two hours, maybe I shouldn’t have trusted that I could make good decisions with a pair of scissors.
Still, my embarrassment doesn’t last. I’m surrounded by a bunch of people I like. My werewolf’s butt looks really nice in those jeans.
I watch as Logan heads toward the bar, waiting until we’re separated by the chatter of the room before I turn to Laura, and mutter, “Hey, uh, I’m sorry I got real mean when I was having feelings about your cousin ghosting me.”
She pauses, mid-sip, raises her brows. I watch as she swallows, contemplates. “Mm. Well, if he breaks your heart again, don’t yell at me.”
“Take my side when it happens.”
“Of course,” she scoffs, shrugs. After a moment, she leans into my side, and says, “I thought you didn’t like dogs.”
“The furball distribution system got me.”
“Well, that’s something you can use that stupid dog crate for, now.” She giggles, and I shove at her shoulder.
One of the bar patrons flips through the channels on one of the TVs hanging in the corner, and manages to stop on the local news channel, where a tired Jackson is being interviewed in front of a beat-up Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Department van.
The windshield is cratered, the crumpled cage still sticking out of it, a few long scratches down the side of the body, one of the rear tires shredded.
Laura’s eye follows mine, and she switches gear immediately. Her stare bores a hole in the side of my face.
“What happened there?”
“Nothing. And he better not say anything either if he doesn’t want me to report him T-boning my truck in the woods,” I mutter, glaring at the TV. It’s too loud to hear what he says, and the channel changes after another moment of un-subtitled lip-flapping.
Logan returns with a round of Aconite Ales for everyone, and an IPA for me. I grin all through the kiss I give him as he takes the seat next to me on the very outer edge.
The bottles are dispersed among our group, tightly fitted in the booth. There’s a moment of not quite silence as people take a sip from their drinks.
Just as I realize there’s still one long-necked bottle still unclaimed, Elise nudges Logan and asks, “So what’s this about?”
Logan glances outside the booth, answers, “We’re not all here yet . . . ”
I can’t think of who he might mean. Across the table from me, Aiden’s head turns sharply, and I follow his stare.
I hold back a choke when I recognize the woman from the photo on Logan’s desk. Her hair is longer than in the photo, and instead of the cap and gown she looks well-put together, with an intimidating red lip.
I’m not so secure in my newly minted werewolf soulmate status that my hand doesn’t land on Logan’s thigh and squeeze, a gesture perhaps more panicked than hotly possessive.
Celine approaches, all clipped steps and wolfish grin, and offers a pleasant wave to everyone around the table.
“Oh, hey, girl,” Laura says, and I frown at how unexpectedly warm her greeting is. Aiden had made it sound like everyone hated Logan’s ex-fiancée.
Perhaps he is the only one who does, because he hisses to Logan, “What is she doing here?”
The she in question motions for him to scoot further in, and Aiden glowers in response. He channels his displeasure in trying to bar Celine from sliding into the booth. He stubbornly holds the edge territorially, but she pushes between him and the table for the middle seat.
“So, wait, she’s just gonna sit with us, as if the wedding never happened?”
“What are you talking about? That was Shawn’s wedding. Shawn! I expect you to send me a thank you card for the gift. Some of us are rather traditional.”
“Gift?”
“Not tearing your throat out with my teeth.” She smiles wide and claims the last ale for herself. She turns her attention to Logan, and with an almost fiendish enthusiasm says, “Alright, gimme the keys. I wanna take the tour.”
“What?”
“You’re looking at the owner of Aconite Ales,” Celine announces to the table with a big smile.
Surprise and shock colors their faces all around. Aiden looks visibly upset about this.
“. . . I was going to lead up to it a little gentler than that.” Logan sighs as incredulous looks all turn to him. He gives his head a little shake, takes in a breath, and delivers flatly, “I’m selling my share of the brewery.”
Half of the table erupts in shocked outburst. Laura and Aiden are, as usual, the loudest offenders. I’m a little surprised that Shawn doesn’t react at all.
Between us in the booth, below the table, I squeeze Logan’s hand.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t want to be doing that anymore,” he says flatly, and in true Logan fashion, doesn’t provide any more details. “Uh, anyway, press conference over.”
“Hey, hey! Hold on! You can’t just, I mean, can you? Think about like, the family recipe, man,” Laura protests. “That shit’s been coveted for literally a century.”
“Technically, it’s still within the family. Aiden has a share. I offered it to Shawn, he said no.”
Shawn nods, and for once he adds nothing. He’s chewing hard on the inside of his cheek, looking like he’s trying not to smile.