Pushing the door closed softly behind me, I collected my cell phone off of my nightstand and dialed Kristy’s number. I was excited to hear her voice; it was like sunshine on a cloudy day, always making me smile. I needed some of that “rainbows and unicorns” energy of hers to feed off of. It was the medicine for all that ailed me.
“Hello?”
“Kristy? Hey, it's me.”
“Oh. Hi.”
“I was wondering if you maybe wanted to go and spend some of your husband's hard-earned money. Are you up for it? I haven't gotten to see you for a while now with you being out of town to help your mom and me with my upstairs renovations. I really miss you.”
“Well, you seemed to have a lot going on after your return,” she replied, sounding reserved. There was no sunshine in her tone.
“That would be an understatement to say the least, Kris. I'd love to catch up if you have time. You can bring Louie if that makes it easier. I miss my chubby little man.”
“I can't. He's not feeling well,” she bit out quickly. Too quickly.
“Oh no! It's not serious, is it? Do you want me to come over and help you out? You sound tired, Kris. Are you not sleeping? You just don't seem yourself.”
“I don't want you coming over,” she replied hurriedly before softening her tone slightly and expanding on her response. “I mean, it's just, with Louie sick, I haven't had time to clean up. The house is a disaster, and I don't want you to get sick too.”
Something was wrong―I could feel it with every cell in my body―but I had no idea what it was. Whatever was getting to her was bad, and it was eating her up. She was never secretive with me.
“Kris, you've seen my house. Nuclear meltdown sites have looked more organized than my room at times. I don't know anyone who cares less about things like that than me. You also know that I never get sick. I have a gazillion accidents and am clumsy beyond belief, but I never catch what everyone else has.” I hesitated for a moment. “Do you want to tell me what's really going on?”
“I don't know what you're talking about, Ruby. I don't have time for this right now. I have to go.”
The call was ended.
I sat on the edge of my bed totally dumbfounded. Never, in all our interactions, had Kristy been anything other than totally transparent with me. She was a kind, sweet, bubbly person and a genuine, loyal friend. However, I heard none of those things in the person I had just spoken to. Worried, I called Alan, hoping he knew what was up with her, or at least that I could tell him that she wasn't herself today and that maybe he should check on her. I could never remember his ever-changing shift schedule, but I was pretty certain he was on duty. I dialed his cell phone, waiting nervously while it rang. I didn't know exactly what to say to him. How do you tell someone that their better half sounded as if she was falling apart at the seams?
When I heard the line pick up, I blurted his name into the receiver, only to be met with the same silence I'd heard only moments earlier. Frazzled, I pulled the phone away to look at the screen. I hit redial and waited for Alan to pick up. The precinct had dodgy reception on the lower level where the computers for filing reports were located. I figured he must have been down there trudging through a pile of paperwork when the call was dropped. Trying again seemed a reasonable thing to do.
But when the phone picked up and cut out again, I questioned if that was the case at all. Being the stubborn ass I am, I tried the number a third and final time. It rang several times. Right before it should have gone to voicemail, someone picked up and the line went dead again. But this time, I heard something—voices. More specifically, Kristy's voice. And she was shouting.
She had intentionally hung up on me. Why she had answered his phone in the first place, let alone why she was yelling, was beyond me. Perhaps I was persona non grata in the Beauchamp household.
Feeling dejected, I slumped over my lap, leaning my elbows on my knees for support. My day of forced cheeriness was off to an epically shitty start. When I heard the light tapping on my door, I prayed that it wasn't someone else coming to deliver more bad news while I was still down. Instead, Lyla walked in with a plate of food for me.
“I thought I'd bring you this so you could eat while you figured out what you were going to wear,” she said with a faint smile. “Cooper said you take forever to pick out clothes when given the luxury of time.”
“Thanks,” I replied, taking the plate she extended toward me. “He's right. I'm horrible at choosing an outfit when I'm going out, but that seems a moot point at the moment. It seems my plans for the day have fallen through.”
“Well,” she started, hovering in the doorway. “Maybe you should find another reason to go out. I might be out of line saying this, Ruby, but it seems like sadness likes to reign supreme in your life—or at least that's what I've gathered from Cooper. Perhaps it would do you some good to find a little happiness within yourself. The kind that can't easily be taken away.”
She'd hit the nail on the head. Letting whatever had just occurred with Kristy bring me down signified my failure to change my outlook at all. My initial reaction had simply been more self-pity in response to an external situation. What I needed to do was find some inner-derived peace. Otherwise, I would forever be a victim of my environment and the circumstances I found myself in. I thought I had figured that out a while back, but apparently some lessons were harder to learn than others.
While she made her way out of the room, I called after her, an idea having just struck me.
“Lyla?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you like to go out today? Maybe check out some stores in Boston? Leave the boys on their own to do...I don't know...man-type things?”
She returned to my doorway, a smile overtaking her face. A real one. It looked good on her.
“I'd like that.”
“Sweet. I'll be ready in about forty-five minutes. How long do you need?”
She shrugged.
“I don't really have the wardrobe challenge that you face. I only have a few things to pick from and the rest of me is good to go. I just have to finish eating and brush my teeth.”
“Okay. I'll try to hurry then. You can tell Cooper about our 'girl day' shenanigans. He seems to let you get away with things more easily than me.”
She smiled yet again.
“Don't take it personally. He's been letting me get away with things since I was a kid. Old habits die hard.”
She closed the door to allow me to dress in privacy, and I got right to it, diving into my mini walk-in closet to find something suitable for shopping and schlepping around the city. The weather had been dreary lately, which left me with far fewer footwear choices, but a pair of tried and true Frye boots could tackle anything. Tossing a pair of them out into the middle of my bedroom, I then found a pair of acceptably clean jeans to toss on and an off-the-shoulder sweater in a gorgeous gray merino wool. Once dressed, I ran to the bathroom, knowing my hair would take forever to dry if I didn't get some product in it to tame the curl and help draw the moisture out. Thirty minutes later, I emerged and ran back into my room to scarf down the ice-cold breakfast Lyla had made for me. It still tasted amazing.
With a mouth still full of food, I ran down the hall, grabbing my winter coat off the hook by the front door.
“You ready?” I slurred, trying to swallow back the last chunk of waffle.
“Yep.”
I eyed her tightly. She didn't have a winter jacket that would be suitable to brave the windy streets of Boston when the cold air whipped off the ocean. I frowned, trying to figure out what I had to lend her that would be big enough to accommodate her rather enormous boobs.
“Why are you staring at my chest?” she asked earnestly, looking at me like she was having second thoughts about going anywhere together.
“Sorry,” I replied, shaking my head slightly. “It's just that it'll be too cold out for the jacket you have, and I think your girls are a little too formidable to fit into anything of mine.�
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“She can wear this,” Cooper called out from his bedroom. He walked out with a heavy leather jacket, lined perfectly to combat the cold. “Although you have to remember, Ruby, she doesn't feel the cold like you do. She'll probably be fine in what she's wearing.”
It was a facepalm moment. One day I would remember that I was different than other wolves. Somehow that still hadn't fully sunken in.
Maybe the realization that I was actually fey would help.
“I was just going to tell her that,” Lyla said with a grin.
“But you can wear it if you want to,” Cooper continued, staring at the chest I had been assessing only moments earlier. She didn't seem nearly as concerned about Cooper's attention to that region.
“I'm fine, Cooper.”
“Maybe you should...”
“Seriously. I'm good,” she protested weakly. “I'm not a little kid anymore. You don't have to watch out for me.”
“No. You certainly aren't,” he muttered, not realizing he'd said the words out loud. “And I do have to watch out for you. You are under my protection now.”
“From the cold?” she asked, a smile tugging at her lips.
“Maybe...”
“Ruby, let's go,” she said, taking the jacket from his hand and throwing it casually over her shoulder. A concession of sorts. “See you later, Cooper.” Having been dismissed, Cooper just watched her walk away in silence. I couldn't help but think that I would never have gotten the last word in that easily with him. How it made my mind wonder.
“See you later, Coop. I have my phone on me in case you need to reach us. And before you say it, I promise to stay out of trouble—as much as I can.” I slammed the door behind me to the sound of his smartass retort. Lyla seemed to be even more amused by what he'd said. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have her hearing.
“So what are we going to do to cheer you up?” she asked, heading down the stairs.
“Well, I do love to shop. Perhaps we can remedy two problems at once while we're out today.”
“Really? What problems would those be?” she asked, turning to face me while she pressed the exterior door open.
“I love to shop and you need a wardrobe. Win-win situation right there.”
Her eyes seemed to roll involuntarily in her head.
“I'm not sure I'm girly enough for you, Ruby.”
“Believe me, my 'girly' factor has gone way down in the last year or so. I'm Practical Patty now, fully equipped with comfortable 'getaway' shoes, dark-colored clothing that's relatively stain resistant—for all the inevitable bloodshed―and a plethora of hats and hair accessories that are sure to cover up whatever fleshy bits get blown my way.”
“Wow, that's going to really narrow down the list of places we can go.” The twitch at the corner of her mouth let me know that she was playing, and it made me smile in return. Lyla was slowly dropping her guard and emerging from the bulletproof persona that she'd had to develop. I realized that I was really starting to like her.
And I thought that maybe she was starting to like me too.
Chapter 23
We spent the entire day making our way through downtown Boston on foot. Despite the chill in the air, we walked everywhere, taking in the historical sites that abounded in between my wardrobe-seeking efforts—Lyla bowed out of that endeavor. She was far too taken with the city to care about clothing.
I was surprised by the depth of her knowledge of American history. I looked on in total awe while she nearly recited what sounded like chapters from a high school textbook, describing everything from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War in astonishing detail. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn that she had been alive back then to witness the events firsthand. The fact that she hadn’t been only further illustrated how smart she was and how deceptive her appearance could be. I bet she'd fooled a lot of people in her life, taking full advantage of her outward appearance. Something about that notion reminded me of Ronnie. Those two had far more in common than I would have bargained for.
When we ran out of monuments to take in and stores to raid, I suggested we head home. I was getting hungry but wasn't in the mood for eating out. I wanted some of Cooper's famous veggie lasagna, which he had promised to make, and there was no way I was going to spoil my appetite for that. Lyla agreed easily, and we made our way back to the car, stopping to get her yet another bag of salt and vinegar chips and an iced latte. The girl had a seriously unhealthy relationship with caffeine and fried potatoes. She was going to blend in at my house beautifully.
Our drive home was quicker than usual because we didn’t run into any traffic on our way. With the interstate gods smiling down on us, we were left instead to fight over the iPod the entire way. We had decidedly different tastes in music, and Lyla was far from shy about sharing her thoughts on what I attempted to play during our trip. Eventually I turned the radio off entirely, shooting her my 'are ya satisfied now?' look when I did. I was met with a look of disdain.
Scarlet didn't enjoy it.
A growl echoed through my mind before she spewed forth a few choice phrases about Lyla, her dirty looks, and exactly where she could stuff them. Scarlet volunteered to help her out with that if she needed it. Thankfully for me, none of those sentiments were heard by Lyla.
“So,” I started trying to defuse the growing tension in the car. “Tell me what Cooper was like growing up. He doesn't seem to enjoy talking about those years very much. I do my best not to pry, but it's hard not to wonder about someone you're so close to.”
Her icy expression softened slowly, as if the memories springing to life in her mind were thawing the frozen shield she had thrown up only moments before.
“He was great. He and my brother were inseparable.”
“And where did that leave you?”
“Tagging along behind them wherever they went. Billy protested for the longest time, but Cooper always stuck up for me, telling him that it was fine if I joined in their football games, water gun fights, or whatever other fun they were having.”
“So Cooper was over at your parents’ place a lot?” I asked, hoping to gauge just how bad his family life had been when he was young.
She hesitated slightly.
“Yeah. He was always over at our house. He slept over constantly, ate most of his dinners there. Like I said, they were inseparable.” I could tell by the discomfort emanating from of her that she was uneasy with my question. She didn't want to betray Cooper; she was protecting him like I would have. It made me like her even more.
“Lyla, I know that Cooper left home at a relatively young age. I also know why. You're not shelling out information that you shouldn't be, so you can relax.”
“How did you know I was tense?” she asked, turning to face me.
“I guess Coop hasn't filled you in on everything about me yet. Especially not my...gifts,” I said with some measure of reservation. “I'm influenced by things―emotions and energies. I can tell what someone is feeling without seeing them. I've always been able to do it. I just assumed it was a product of my blindness―that I had a heightened awareness or connection with emotions or energies that sighted people didn't. I'm starting to question whether or not that is the reason, though.”
“You were blind?” Her words were blurted out without reservation. Apparently Cooper had been more tight-lipped about me than I'd given him credit for. Perhaps he had been as cautious with my history as Lyla was with his.
“Yep. The night I Changed I gained my sight. I also gained Scarlet. It was a twofer of sorts.”
“That's intense,” she muttered, turning again to stare out the windshield.
“Yep. It was a bit of a crash course on the seeing world for me for a few months, but it all worked out.”
“How did you meet Cooper?”
“That's a long, loaded story that I don't particularly love to rehash,” I sighed. “You're not the only one who has suffered because of both who and what you are, Lyla.”
; “No,” she said softly. “I don't imagine I am.”
Silence pressed heavily against us while I drove on. I hadn't meant my words to sound so accusatory, but they had, even to my own ears.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “That didn't come out right.”
“Maybe not, but your point is valid. I suffered at the hands of many before I found Deacon. Then I suffered some more after his assassination. But that pain doesn't set me apart from others, nor does it trump yours. What you are garners attention that I can't imagine, even if it isn't widely known.”
“I think we may have more in common than our opposing tastes in music and fashion would lead us to believe,” I said, forcing a tight smile. “But, to answer your initial question, I met Cooper because I was sold to his pack. They wanted to make more RBs and had a very misguided idea of how to do that. Cooper didn't like what they were doing, so he risked his life to get me out of there. We've been together ever since. I can't imagine my life without him in it.”
The car went silent for a moment; both of us were lost in our own thoughts.
“I guess his Change really didn't alter his personality,” she said thoughtfully. “He always was a knight in shining armor. I'm glad to see he didn't lose that.”
“He didn't. Not one bit.”
“Ruby?” she started with hesitation. “Has he been happy since you've known him?” Her voice was heavy and sad, and it forced me to pry my eyes from the road ahead to assess her visually, even though her guilt affected me enough to indicate what she was feeling.
“I think so,” I replied. “He's had some ups and downs, just like the rest of us, but he doesn't seem to want to leave the life he has now, if that makes you feel any better.”
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