by Terra Wolf
“Can’t Ellis do that alone? This is the third time in two months you’ve sent us to do some chore together.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” Brayden replied. “I thought you two were getting along.”
I couldn’t help but blush. At least Brayden was on the other end of the phone and couldn’t see me. “We get along. It’s just that we could accomplish twice as much if we did stuff separately.”
“Well, I need you both there this time,” he replied. “He’s a real estate tycoon. He doesn’t know the first thing about music.”
“And I do? That’s a good one. I expect Ellis could handle just about anything. The band doing a sound check isn’t exactly rocket science.”
“Please just go with him, Mckenna,” Brayden pleaded. “Both Julia and I wanted to go, but we’ve been so caught up with work we can’t make it.”
“All right.” I pulled out my calendar. “When is it?”
“Friday the thirteenth.”
I almost fell out of my chair. “Now I know you’re pulling a fast one on me.”
He laughed. “Sorry, darlin’. I didn’t even notice it until right now. It’s just a fluke.”
“I am NOT going out with Ellis Johnson on Friday the thirteenth. I don’t care what you say or what you do to me. You know what those boys do on the thirteenth.”
“Yeah Shift, like we’re all supposed to.”
“But not on one day! It’s weird.”
“He’s not such a bad guy. I don’t know why you have to be so down on him all the time.”
“I am not down on him all the time.”
“You are so. You act like doing stuff with him is the worst torture anyone could possibly devise. You act like he’s the devil incarnate.”
“I don’t think he’s the devil incarnate. You know I’ve always liked Ellis.”
“You sure don’t act like it. Is it his money? Is that why you don’t like him? Do you think he’s some kind of rich overlord?”
“Of course not. I would never hold that against him. He’s still the same guy he was when you two were growing up together.”
“What is it, then? Why do you always find a way to diss him?”
“I do not diss him. I like Ellis.”
“You just said you wouldn’t do anything with him on Friday the thirteenth. You said you didn’t care what I said or did to you. If that’s not a diss, I don’t know what is.”
“Can we stop talking about Ellis?”
“Did he say or do something to offend you at the engagement party?”
“No.”
“I saw him following you around. He said you wouldn’t even talk to him. What am I supposed to think?”
I smacked my lips. “I just asked if we could stop talking about him.”
“Then we’ll have to go back to talking about you doing this job with him. Is that what you’d rather talk about?”
I groaned. “Do I really have to do it?”
“You don’t have to,” he replied, “but I sure would appreciate it. I would be your slave for life.”
“Ooo, goody!”
“Come on, Mckenna,” he chided. “you already said you would. What could possibly go wrong?”
I harrumphed. “Really? I don’t know, he strips down and Shifts at the freaking venue? With Ellis around, anything could go wrong.”
“There you go again.”
“I do have other things to do besides running your errands, you know. You and Julia aren’t the only people with jobs.”
“Ellis has the highest stress job of any of us, and he jumped at the chance to help with the band.”
“I’ll bet he did,” I grumbled.
“Please. Pretty please with sugar on top. Do it for me because you love me so much.”
“Oh, you’re impossible. All right. I’m writing you into my schedule, so that should show you how much you mean to me.”
“Thanks. You’re the best. I gotta go now. See you on Sunday.”
I hung up, but I couldn’t stop staring at the calendar. Two whole months since I saw Ellis at that engagement party. Two whole months since we did it. Two whole months since my world turned upside down. Two whole months since I....
I froze. Then I turned back a page to last month and another page to the month before. There was the engagement party marked in a big highlighter heart on my calendar. There, in the week before, five tiny ink crosses marked the days of that month, that fateful month two months ago, when I had my last period.
Shit. I didn’t have to look a second time at the other pages in between. I already knew what they meant. I hadn’t had a period since that day—since that day I nailed Ellis in the closet at my uncle’s house.
I tossed the calendar under my desk, so I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. It didn’t mean anything anyway. So, I was late. So, what? The stress of planning somebody else’s wedding and the tension of meeting Ellis again must have made me late. No big deal. Nothing to panic about. My bear was pacing though. I couldn’t stop her.
That last time at his place after the tasting sure was nice, though. I spent the night with him, just the way he wanted me to. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to, too, and we had a nice long talk about things the next morning before he took me home. We agreed to keep it casual, even though we both acknowledged we couldn’t seem to keep our hands off each other. With Brayden getting married, there was no sense getting mixed up in anything serious.
What could possibly go wrong, I asked? I could get pregnant. That’s what could go wrong. We were both too hot for each other ever to think about birth control. I hadn’t seen the hottest lover of my life in seven years. We both got swept up in the heat of the moment. Who thinks about birth control at a time like that?
Not us, apparently. Apparently, birth control was the last thing on either of our minds the other times, too, because no one mentioned it. Every time Brayden or Julia couldn’t make it and asked us to work together to do some wedding-related task, it always turned into a free-for-all—an unprotected free-for-all.
Now here I was, two months later without a period. What would happen if I really got pregnant? Getting pregnant would be one thing. Getting pregnant with Ellis Johnson? That would be another thing altogether.
Heaven knew he could pay for it. He was razor sharp when it came to business. I heard him on the phone with his agent and his team a few times. Man, I wouldn’t want to cross swords with that guy over a lucrative commercial contract. Just being in the same room with him during those phone calls made my palms sweat. No wonder he got what he wanted. Anybody who was anybody caved at his feet and did exactly what he wanted, and I did the same thing.
I remembered last time Brayden asked us to meet Sam and Helena, Julia’s maid of honor, to finalize plans for the bachelor and bachelorette parties. The two parties were supposed to be separate, even though everybody was driving to Vegas together and staying at the same hotel. Of course, Brayden and Julia couldn’t know anything about it, so they delegated Ellis and me as their designated representatives.
After Sam and Helena left and Ellis escorted me to his car to take me home, he just started the motor when he got a call. I didn’t understand half of what he said, but when he hung up, he glanced over and saw me staring at him. “What?”
I shuddered. “Is it always like that?”
“Always like what?”
“Always like you cracking the whip and making them sit up and beg.”
He leaned across the seat. “I’ll crack the whip and make you sit up and beg if you don’t behave yourself.”
I felt my core get hot as the inside of my thighs got wet. Everything was a sexual invitation to him. He knew he could make me crawl at his feet with the snap of his fingers. He knew he could order me to my knees, and the harder that glint in his eye flashed, the more turned on and complacent I would be.
Thinking about sex with Ellis always made me squirm. Thinking about getting pregnant with him made my blood run cold. How was I supposed to w
ork with him on this wedding with this hanging over my head? What if he found out?
Well, he wasn’t going to find out because there was nothing to find out. I wasn’t pregnant, and I wasn’t going to get pregnant. I was going to get my period any day now, and I would have nothing to worry about.
No cubs for me, not now anyway.
11
ELLIS
I rang the doorbell and waited on the doorstep until Mckenna came out. I held out the roses to her. “These are for you.”
She sniffed them. The red matched her cheeks. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I wanted this to be our first official date. No sneaking around. No guilt.”
She flashed her exquisite smile. “Thank you. It’s very nice of you to think of me.”
“I’ve done nothing but think of you these last few weeks,” I told her. “I know we agreed to keep it casual, but I can’t stop thinking about you. This seemed like the next logical step.”
She set the roses inside her house.
I walked her to the Porsche and sat her in the passenger seat. I drove her to the restaurant and got a table in the back where we could talk. I ordered a bottle of wine and scoped out the menu. “The filet mignon is really good here. That’s what I usually get, but since this is a special occasion, I might get something different. What do you think you’d like?” She kept looking around. “Is everything all right?”
She waved her hand. “This place...It’s kind of.... you know, expensive for my taste.”
“Do you want to go somewhere else? I know a really good hamburger stand down on the corner. We could get a couple of paper bags and eat in the park.”
She laughed. “No, I don’t want that. This place is really nice. I’m just not used to it. I’ve never been to a restaurant this nice. Then again, I’ve never been on a date with a guy as rich as you.”
I shrugged. “Don’t think about that. Just think about going on a date with the guy you used to sneak around with in college. I’m still that same guy. I had money then too, I just hid it better.”
She winced. What did I say to set her off? “Look, Ellis, I don’t want to go on a date with the guy I used to sneak around with in college. That guy really hurt my feelings. I wouldn’t be sitting here now if I thought you were the same as that guy.”
My eyes snapped open. “Really? What did I do to hurt you so badly? I always thought we were going pretty good back then. You said before I dumped you, but I never did anything of the kind.”
She fought hard to keep her voice calm. “You did so. You say we were going pretty good, so what happened? You just disappeared out of my life one day. I texted you to find out what happened, and you never even replied. What happened? Did you find a better girl?”
My stomach ached from this conversation. “You know I could never find a better girl than you.”
Her voice cracked with pent-up emotion. “You say that, but you’ve got one hell of a way of showing it. Do you know what you did to me? I actually cared about you. I actually started in my deluded state to think we might have a future together.”
“That’s what I thought, too. That’s what I always wanted.”
She bent across the table and snarled under her breath. “Don’t you dare say that. Don’t even think about saying that after the way you treated me.”
I clenched my teeth. So, this is what it came down to? She thought I dumped her and refused to return her texts? I never wanted to tell her the truth, but now I could see I had to. I bent forward, too. Our noses almost touched in the middle of the table. “You want to know what happened? Do you want to know what made me stop seeing you? Celeste fell apart and refused to Shift. That’s what happened.”
She stared at me with her mouth open. I always knew she’d react like that if she found out. I couldn’t stand to see that stunned look on her face. It reminded me too much of how I felt back then. “Oh, my God.”
I sat back in my chair and tossed my wadded-up napkin on the table. “There. Now you know. Okay? It threw a massive wrench in our whole family. She had to go to rehab and everything. And then she had Harper…”
“Wait. Your sister has a kid?”
“Yeah and now Benjamin has custody of her. It’s a real mess. And we try to keep it out of the papers. I mean no one needs to know what type of rehab she’s in.”
“One made for people like us you mean. If she doesn’t ever Shift…”
I still struggled to wrap my mind around it. I had gotten strong enough to only run as a bear a couple times a month. But never? That could kill you. Mckenna understood that.
“She could die. Yeah we know. But everything kind of fell apart back then. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. It took everything I had just to stay in school. I almost dropped out, but I coped by cutting myself off from everyone. I couldn’t talk to anybody, especially not to you, Mckenna. You would have actually understood, I realize that now. I’m really sorry, but I did what I had to do to survive it.”
She swallowed hard. She closed her eyes and bowed her head. “I am so sorry. I never knew, but I wish now I had known. I wish I could have helped you somehow instead of hating you all these years.”
I stared down at my plate. I had to keep myself together right now. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I really wish I could have reached out to you back then. Losing you hurt a lot worse than all the shit with Celeste, but I couldn’t do anything else. I was young and stupid. I should never have let you go, but I didn’t know then what I know now. I did it, and it cost me seven years I could have spent with you. That’s the worst part of the whole thing. That was my punishment for handling it the wrong way.”
She peered up at me. She opened her mouth to say something, but she closed it again. “I understand now why you stopped talking to me. It might not have been the best way to handle it, but it helps to know you didn’t turn your back on me. That’s what upset me most.”
My head shot up. “I would never turn my back on you, again Mckenna. Never!”
Her hand inched across the table. “Do you mean that?”
I grasped that hand for dear life. I clutched it for all I was worth. I could never let her go, now that I had her. I had to find a way to keep her for good. “Absolutely. You’re the one thing I always knew I could count on. Even when I couldn’t face you, just knowing you were there, helped me. It gave me an anchor to hang onto. You were always the one true and solid thing in my life, even when I couldn’t see any hope anywhere else.”
Her face lit up, and her eyes misted over with tears. “I never stopped thinking about you. That’s what really hurt. I always thought you found somebody else.”
I shook my head. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”
She tried to smile, but her lips twisted the wrong way. “I’m just relieved. I’m just happy that now I finally understand.”
God, I wanted to hold her right then. Clinging to her hand would never be enough. I should have told her in a quiet cafe instead of this noisy restaurant, somewhere I could put my arms around her and kiss her like she needed.
She blinked the tears away and raised her shining face to me. Now she really did smile, a glorious smile like the one I remembered from her early days. All the icy frost that separated her from me melted away, and the sun shone out of her eyes.
I could see she wanted to hold me, too. Her lips twitched, and her eyes danced around my face. She didn’t know where to look or what to do. She smiled at me so long I got embarrassed. Me! I never was embarrassed around women before, but just then, we should have been alone together in a private room. Anybody looking at us could see our most private, intimate moment spread out in public.
I let go of her hand and sat back. This wasn’t right, and I didn’t want to step on her toes by making it any more intense than it already was. She understood and withdrew her hand into her lap. We both turned to our menus and said no more about it.
She said almost nothing for the rest o
f the meal. When the waiter came, she waved her hand. “You know this place better than I do. You order for both of us.”
I ordered her the filet. I’d had it enough times before, and I wanted her to have the best. She beamed at me from across the table. Every time I looked at her, I caught her giving me the same shining look. I didn’t have to hold her hand. I didn’t have to put my arms around her. She was right there, with me. She always would be. My mate.
12
MCKENNA
Neither of us said anything on the drive back to my place, but I couldn’t stop my mind whirling. I never felt closer to Ellis than now. He really did care. He didn’t dump me back in college the way I always thought he did. He suffered a lot worse than I did, and he came through it strong and sure. He came through it still caring about me after I turned my back on him.
What was I going to do now? I couldn’t lie to him, not after what he told me at the restaurant. All the barriers between us, all the old resentment and hostility—none of it meant a thing now. If I looked him in the eye, if I kissed him or touched his skin, I had to come clean. I couldn’t face him otherwise.
The Porsche purred through the streets. The headlights swept right and left when Ellis turned corners and angled off the freeway. That silence stretched on and on. It would never end until one of us said something, and I wasn’t about to be the first.
It was a comfortable silence, a silence in which everything that needed to be said had been said and would be said. We could live in that silence for years, decades even. That silence accused me more than anything. I hadn’t said everything that needed to be said, and I should have.
He came clean. Now it was my turn. Somehow, though, that silence just got longer and longer. One intersection and one street corner after another passed by, and I didn’t say it. The silence got heavier and more oppressive until I couldn’t sit still anymore. I had to get away from Ellis, even as I longed with all my heart to hold him and take shelter in him.