by R. E. Butler
She laughed. "I'll try to keep that in mind."
"So, I just wanted you to know that you're coming over to my house after work tonight so I can fix you dinner."
"Oh?" She laughed again. "I didn't know you could cook."
"I'm a damn gourmet, baby. You like spaghettio's, right?"
The man made her laugh, what could she say? "I don't know when I'll get off here."
"Doesn't matter. I get home at 5. You remember how to get to my condo, right?"
"Sure. I'll try to be there by 6. I have a lot of work to get done here."
"Messy files?"
"Among other things." She sighed. It would take her weeks to get things sorted out to even a semblance of working order. She had no idea that Jason was in over his head so badly. She agreed to go to Chris' and hung up. When Jason invited her to lunch, she felt bad that she made plans, but he'd acted like he was just trying to be nice, so she didn't give it much thought. Suddenly she was quite the popular girl.
At lunch, she and Renee talked and laughed about their shared past, reminiscing about when Chris and Cadence had been young and what Renee remembered of her mother. She hugged Renee goodbye at her car. "You've always been like a second mom to me and I just wanted you to know that I appreciate you, and I love you."
"I love you, too, honey." She kissed her cheek with a sweet smile and they parted ways.
About 5, she walked back to where Jason was ankle deep in motorcycle parts and said, "I'm going to take off, unless you need me to stick around."
He seemed sullen. "You can go."
"We should talk, about the finances, tomorrow."
He gave her a calculating look from where he crouched next to the bike. "Why not tonight?"
"Because I have plans."
His jaw ticked. "Fine."
He turned his back on her and she felt strangely disappointed. As she left, she thought about how much fun she’d had teasing him on Sunday night about his bed, knowing full well that the only scent in that room was his. It seemed like he was eager to see her this morning, but once lunch hit, that was it. He was acting jealous. Weird.
She showered quickly to get the garage smell off her and put on a jean skirt, ankle boots, and a long sleeved wrap shirt. When she arrived at his home, Chris handed her a glass of wine after giving her a quick peck on the lips hello, and she sat on the stool at his counter and watched him cook. "Can I ask you something?"
"You can ask me two things." He grinned, scraping cut herbs down into a skillet of pasta.
"It feels like your dad's pack is being more, accepting, of me than they used to be. I'm not just imagining things."
He tossed the pasta skillfully and put it down, adjusting the burner and taking a drink from his own glass of wine. "Probably because you're sticking around. You are, right? I mean you took that job at the garage and everything."
"I plan to stay, I guess. You don't approve of the garage?"
"You're too smart to work at that place. You should come work for me at the credit union."
Did everyone want her to work for them? "Jason needs help. The garage has been in his family for several generations, I don't want him to lose it."
He looked like he was going to say something and changed his mind, and then finally said, "You're very sweet, Cadence."
They ate at a pub table in the kitchen, overlooking a small back patio. The pasta dish was delicious, full of tender chunked chicken and a sauce he made from scratch. They laughed and talked while they ate, and he let her help him with the dishes. With a gentle nudge, he urged her to go relax outside, and she went out onto the patio to sit on one of the Adirondack chairs. He came out with two grape popsicles and she laughed so hard she almost fell off the chair.
She'd never been with a guy that was so thoughtful. When he walked her out to her car, he kissed her and she kissed him back, opening her mouth against his. He folded her into his arms, pressing the long length of his body against hers, and it was the most comforted she'd felt in a really long time. She felt oddly guilty and confused as she drove away, but it had been a nice kiss.
The next morning, Jason sat across from her at the desk while she explained how he'd so royally screwed up his finances that it would takes weeks for her to come out on the other side of them. He looked tired and he also looked pissed off.
"You can make payroll this week, but just barely. I can fiddle with some of the bills and I think you'll be okay while I'm digging through things."
"Don't pay me this week."
She frowned. "What?"
He shrugged. "It's more important to pay the others, they've put up with a lot of my creative financing over the years. I can't keep doing that to them. Not when they're loyal."
She shook her head. "It won't come to that, Jason. There's no reason for you to not take your salary. Don't you have bills of your own to pay?"
He shrugged and looked bored. What a prick. She was trying to help; couldn't he get that through his thick head? She ground her jaw. "Look, I just wanted to let you know what I'm dealing with. I won't let you go under, but it's going to be a tough couple of weeks while I get things straightened out."
"Well, that's what I'm paying you for, right?"
"What the fuck is your problem?"
"I have no problem." He ground out.
"You're being a prick."
He growled under his breath but said nothing. "Just get out." She said evenly, trying to control her temper.
"It's my office. I don't have to go anywhere." He smirked and folded his arms.
"Fuck you, Jason. It's my office; that was part of our deal."
He snorted and put both hands on the desk and leaned out of his chair until he was towering over her. "I can do whatever I want with my business, Cadence. You're an employee. Mine. Remember that."
"Fuck. You." She said, gritting her teeth against the sob in her throat that threatened. Why did he have to be so cruel?
They stared at each other, everything she hated about him roaring to the surface. Why had she thought that she could ever be around him like this? She must have been on drugs. She was about to lose it, staring into his eyes, so she gathered every ounce of courage she had and said, "Get out or I walk."
His lip curled into a snarl and his eyes narrowed. He looked like he might want to punch her as much as she wanted to punch him, but instead he spun without a word and left, slamming the door with such force that the glass insert shattered. Fantastic.
For her lunch break, she sat on the hood of her car after getting a cinnamon bagel and an iced coffee from the mini-mart down the street, and groused about her current situation. She couldn't have been more furious at Jason, but also more broken. He just had no clue how much he hurt her, and he'd been hurting her for a long time.
"Go away, Michael."
He approached her slowly with his hands up, like she was going to shoot him and the way she was feeling right then, if she had access to a gun she might have considered it. "Listen, about Jason."
"I said 'go away'."
"I heard you, darlin', but you need to hear me out."
She popped the last part of the bagel that she hadn't really even tasted into her mouth and hopped off the hood. "You know what sucks? I've known both packs since before I can remember. Jason and I used to be really close, even closer than you and me, and now I can barely stand to be in the same room with him when he has a tantrum. I must be some kind of idiot for coming to work here. Chris was right." She wadded up the napkin and grabbed the empty iced coffee cup.
"What exactly did Chris say?" His voice tipped angrily.
"He said I was too good for this place. I didn't think so, originally, I mean it's important to me that the garage stays open and everything, but I can't help but feel like I'm some kind of horrible burden to everyone in the Tressel pack. That's the funny thing about my life lately. Everything I thought I knew is just disappearing."
"Is this about Jake's pack?" His tone was accusatory.
As
she put her hand on the door to go back into the garage, she turned, just for a moment and glared at him. “I am not a fucking trophy to be won!”
He looked confused. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Jason has been treating me like the red-headed stepchild of the town since I was like 11. Now that Jake’s pack is opening up to me, warming up to me, suddenly everything is shifting and changing before my eyes. It’s…pathetic.” Opening the door, she let it slam shut behind her, effectively ending the conversation.
She went back to the small closet-like office to clean up the glass, and it was already cleaned up. Shrugging to herself, she went back to work, trying to dig Jason and his business out of the hole.
For the remainder of the week, Jason barely made an appearance to her but she spoke to Chris every night after work. On Friday, the checks for payroll were cut and she skipped her own check and paid for her own gas. She didn't need the money yet, and she'd been wrong in her original calculations that the business was okay. When he finished his one project, he'd be flush again, but right now he wasn't. Truth was, she had taken a handful of accounting classes, but wasn't an accountant, so she wasn't as clever with finances as someone with more training.
Michael took Jason's check so she didn't have to see him. Everyone had been acting strangely towards her, and she was once again feeling like she didn't belong. Chris stopped by her house after he got off work and she made dinner for them. She was feeling out of sorts, and he was smart enough, or knew her well enough, to let her be quiet and unhappy and just hang out. He drove her to the bar, which was nice, and invited her to sing with them again.
"Chris?" She looked out the window of the truck as the darkness sped by. "Why haven't you ever picked a mate? Every girl in the Garra pack would love to have you."
He took in a slow breath and let it out on a sigh. "I guess the simplest explanation is that I'm not interested in any of them. I don't think any of the wolves in the pack right now are future alpha material. It takes a special woman to lead a whole pack, to be alpha."
"When your dad steps down, if you're not mated, then they'll be throwing themselves at you."
He laughed. "Hopefully I'll have convinced some unsuspecting woman to be mine by then."
She unclicked her seatbelt when he turned off the engine. "You're a very sweet guy, Chris. I'm glad that I've gotten to know you better."
"Me, too, sweetheart. I'm just sorry that you haven't had a good week. Offer still stands," he held his hand out to her as she got out of the truck and she took it, "to come work for me at the credit union. Or you could always be my love slave."
It was her turn to laugh. "Does that come with dental?"
While she filled drink orders, she mused over Chris and his thinly veiled flirting, and liked it. He was so different from Jason. Last week, she couldn't picture him as anything more than what he had always been, just a friend. But now, with Jason being so blatantly horrible when he wasn't hiding in the back of the shop, and Jake's pack being so outwardly accepting of her, she couldn't help but indulge in her fond feelings for Chris. He was sexy as hell, funny and smart, and he was going to be alpha. The only thing that he didn't have going for him, was that he wasn't Jason. And damned her betraying heart, but when she turned her thoughts to Chris, Jason clouded her mind.
Chris' band was up on stage and they called her up, and she went at Jake's urging, singing a handful of songs and enjoying herself. She was very aware of Jason in his normal booth, angrily drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Sweaty from the stage lights and slightly breathless, she hopped off the stage and walked through the crowd to get back to work when she heard a very familiar voice say a very familiar and tiresome insult.
Lindy said, "What a fucking mutt." The girls with her, all from Jason's pack, laughed like it was the funniest thing they had ever heard, even though she'd been hearing it since kindergarten. Bitches.
Acting like she hadn't heard, Cadence went behind the counter and Jake happened to have his back turned to her, and she took the opportunity to grab the ball bat stashed underneath and hop over the counter. She heard three different men - Jake, Chris, and Jason – say almost simultaneously, "Oh shit!”
Slamming the bat down in the middle of the table so that the wood split with the force and their drinks spilled, she grabbed that bitch Lindy by her hair and snatched her off her seat. "I am so fucking tired," Cadence said, dragging her behind her through the bar as both Chris and Jason scrambled towards her, "of hearing that snarky little mouth of yours with your mutt-this and mutt-that." Cadence tossed her against the wall by the exit where she crumbled to the floor in a heap, kicked the door open, grabbed her by her neck and shoved her through.
Lindy stumbled on her hooker heels on the gravel and spun on her, snarling. Cadence pointed the bat at her. "You need to keep your fucking mouth shut, or I'm going to shut it permanently."
"You're not pack, you can't touch me."
"Fuck pack, this is personal."
The crowd spilled around them from the bar to the back parking lot, and Jake came around to her view. "Cadence, don't do this. She's not worth it."
"I think I've put up with more than enough bullshit from the Tressel pack." She darted a glance to Jason who looked almost proud of her. Chris grinned at her in encouragement, a few paces away from Jake.
Lindy righted herself finally, and said, "You're so tough with that ball bat."
She chucked it at Jake, who caught it deftly, and Cadence took a menacing step towards her, glad she was wearing leather pants instead of a skirt like her. "Think it through; you don't want to tangle with me." Cadence said in a low voice, dialing into the part of her that had been waiting to hurt Lindy for years.
Lindy launched herself at Cadence, but her aim was off because of her heels, so she sidestepped and smashed her fist into Lindy's back, sending her to the ground. Lindy was fast and strong, but she was no fighter, and Cadence was able to get her into a headlock without any trouble and force her to submit. Which she did. Readily. Cadence shoved her away and she whimpered, sporting scrapes on her palms and knees from when she went down, and a long scratch on her jaw from where she had hit the concrete. Cadence cracked her knuckles. "Don't ever call me a mutt again."
She brushed her hands together and turned to Jake, "I need a drink."
Everyone left pitiful Lindy on the ground. It had hardly been worth the effort, but Cadence was not in the mood to take any more crap from anyone else in the Tressel pack. Chris and the band went back up to play after Chris kissed her cheek and tugged a lock of hair, whispering that he was proud of her, and Jake told her he was going to take the table out of her paycheck which she said she expected.
After a while, Jason approached the bar and asked if he could talk to her. She stepped into the back with him, expecting him to be mad. "I’m really proud of you, Cadence. I've been waiting for you to put her down; she annoys the hell out of me." He laughed nervously.
"Glad I could entertain you." She smirked.
"Listen, about this week. I, I'm sorry. I know you're helping me out, but it's hard for me to admit that I was hurting the business because I didn't know what I was doing. I would never forgive myself if I let the business go under."
"I won't let that happen, Jason."
He sighed and rubbed his temple. "Michael told me that you said you feel like I’ve mistreated you since you were 11. Is that true?"
"Kind of. I think that was when I started to really feel like I didn't belong. You just have no idea what it's like for me with one foot in each world. I wish that things were simple, like I could just be pack or just be human, but neither is really home for me. It's getting old, chasing a tail I don't have and trying to please people that don't want me around."
"The pack, my pack, the reason they act like that is because you're single, you're a threat."
"Yeah, Chris told me that. But Jake's pack doesn't treat me like that, and," she sighed, "it's just nice to have things be simple. I k
now you don't like Chris, but he's easy to be around. He doesn't make me feel inadequate." She glanced at her watch. "I should get back. Thanks for not blowing your stack." She kissed his cheek quickly and walked back out to the bar.
Chris drove her home and kissed her at the door, and she fell asleep thinking about how strange her life was turning out.
Chapter 6
A lot bothered Jason as he went home Friday night. Cadence had been angry at work the whole week, clearly his fault of course, but he hadn't been able to tell her on Tuesday that he was embarrassed about everything, how he'd nearly ruined his family's business. The revelation from Michael had hit him like a ton of bricks, because of course when she was 11 he had turned his back on her. He hadn't realized until that moment how vulnerable she must have felt even though he had watched her more closely from that point on than he had even before. He was practically a stalker until she went to college, shifting and keeping watch on her house at night, even sleeping out in the woods, just to be near her. Her safety was the most important thing to him and until she confided in Michael, he hadn't realized how much she had missed him, how much she valued him. Once again he was angry that he'd not handled things right back then.
He'd been so proud of her for kicking Lindy's ass, and she'd done it like a true alpha. She had put her down, made her submit, and then threatened her to try it again. She'd been graceful and incredible, and there wasn't a female in either pack that was going to insult her anytime soon. Of course, if she actually became alpha she'd probably have to do it again, just for good measure, but that was part of being alpha. And she would be a great alpha.
The weekend passed incredibly slowly. He went into the shop on Saturday; desperately trying to finish the bike to bring the money in that he had known was more than needed. He went into the office, telling himself that he needed to check over the books and see what she had done, but he really wanted to smell her scent in the small room. Sitting in the more than comfortable chair, it was like her scent called to him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, tasting and scenting the air for her, the scent of her combined perfume and skin like an aphrodisiac. The flowers were gone, thankfully, he hadn't been able to look into the office without wanting to hunt Chris down and tear his throat out. As he flipped on the computer and waited for it to boot up, he opened the desk drawer to find a pen and found the card that came with her flowers. He frowned as he read it, because he didn't know what it meant, but clearly it was something that she and Chris had done together, maybe when they were kids? What bothered him more was that Chris had signed the card "love".