He reminded himself again that Lea was too good for him in every single way possible. Hopefully, he would realize it and not act like a fool in front of her.
He glanced over in the direction where Lea was with Hazel and a few other friends that Finn recognized as other Moonlight Pack shifters. He didn’t know them and had only seen them around a few times. He wondered if she had a boyfriend. She probably did, he reasoned–a girl like that wasn’t single for long.
Finn took a swig of his beer and decided that he was going to be friendly and go say hello. He could just say hi–that wasn’t a crime. So, before Tatiana could tighten the loose grip she had on his arm, he mumbled to her that he’d be right back and quickly walked over to where Lea was across the bar. He moved around the many shifters that were packed into the tiny interior, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Britta and Grant take a shot of vodka together. They both laughed when they were done, and Finn smiled. They were going to be so wasted by the end of this party.
By the time he was only a few feet away from Lea, she looked up and saw him right in front of her. Her eyes lit up in surprise, and he smiled at her as he drew closer. By the time they were in speaking distance of each other, she had a tentative smile on her face. Finn loved it. Even in the dim bar light, she still looked like an angel from heaven.
“Hey,” he said as he leaned against the wall. She turned slightly so that she could hear him better in the loud bar, and Finn saw Hazel and her friends just keep on talking, all of them animated about whatever topic they were discussing. Good. He kind of wanted them to have a chat alone. Together.
“Oh, hey,” she replied, smiling as if she was nervous. “I didn’t see you earlier, or I would’ve come over to say hello.”
“Nah, it’s alright.” She played with her beer bottle nervously as he leaned in closer to hear her. Even with their shifter senses, which were much stronger than regular humans, they both found it hard to hear in the loud bar. “It’s pretty packed here, isn’t it? Britta sure knows how to get every single shifter to come to her party. Hell, I’m pretty sure there are some people from New York and Vermont here.”
“She’s a fun person, what can we say?” Lea laughed, and Finn found himself laughing alongside her. He didn’t know why he was even there. It was similar to what had happened at practice earlier that morning. His body began to act and move according to his subconscious or something, while his brain was mainly saying to be on his best behavior. His body obviously didn’t like to listen.
“I didn’t know you drink,” he replied when he didn’t know what to say. He instantly regretted it, though, when he remembered that she told him this morning that she and Hazel were a bit hungover.
When did he lose all his cool? Why did she make him so flustered all the time? He needed to get his mojo back somehow, though when he stared into her soft blue eyes, he found himself unable to even think. And the way she was wearing that tiny white sundress was making him want to ask her if she wanted to see his record collection back at his place so that they could leave together.
“I don’t,” she told him. “I do every now and then, but not in a consistent manner. I’ve drunk more alcohol in the past twenty-four hours than I ever have in my life.”
She laughed, making him smile right along with her.
“I didn’t know that you and Tatiana were a thing,” she suddenly blurted out before he could say anything else. She took in a deep breath, looking nervous and as if she couldn’t believe that she just blurted out a statement like that.
Finn found himself slightly confused, then realized what it must’ve looked like to Lea and everyone else at the bar. Tatiana was there to put him in his place and make sure he didn’t act like a fool, which he was currently acting like. Obviously, she wasn’t doing her job too well anymore. Finn, for some reason, didn’t want Lea to think that he and Tatiana were anything other than friends. Also, Tatiana was like a little sister to him, and he felt a bit weird and grossed out that people would think they were anything romantic. And he just really didn’t want Lea thinking like that.
He found himself wanting her to know that he was single and not tied down to anyone.
“No,” he told her, repeating the word and shaking his head. “Tatiana is like my little sister. Trust me. We’re not anything like that.”
And then, the weirdest thing happened after he told Lea this. Her eyes seemed to light up in . . . was that happiness? No, Finn concluded. It couldn’t be. Lea instantly looked down and took a sip of her beer, obviously trying to hide the emotion on her face. Finn smiled to himself and took a swig from his beer.
Things had definitely changed in a second, and he hoped that it wasn’t all in his head. He could swear he smelled a hint of . . . was that lust in the air? And was it coming from Lea?
Yes, things had definitely changed. And Finn couldn’t help the smile that seemed to find a permanent home on his face.
“Finn,” a voice said behind him. Finn followed the steely voice to see Tatiana standing there, her arms crossed, and the hint of a smile on her face. Great. Here she was to ruin his fun. “I think it’s time to leave.”
“Let’s stay for a little while,” he replied, nodding his head to the side to get her to leave. He turned back around to Lea, a smile on his face and his back to Tatiana.
That just made Tatiana walk around him so that she was almost in the middle between him and Lea. He sighed and looked at his friend, a bit annoyed but knowing that she was doing exactly what he told her to do.
The multiple beers seemed to be finally catching up with him.
“I want to leave now,” she responded. Finn looked at Tatiana, took in the warning signs she was sending him in her eyes, and realized that she was right. At the rate he was going, he was going to end up regretting a lot tonight if he didn’t leave with Tatiana.
“Alright,” he finally sighed as they both seemed to have a silent warring battle with each other. He could only imagine what they looked like to Lea in that moment. He swiveled back around to Lea, a smile on his face. “I’ll see you tomorrow at practice?”
“Definitely,” Lea nodded, smiling back at him.
And then, before he could even give her a hug goodbye, Tatiana was squeezing his upper arm and pulling him towards the door. Finn saw Desmond and Lorelei hold up their own beers in a silent goodbye from the corner where they were hanging out with some Moonlight Pack members. At least they were trying to efficiently fit in.
By the time the two of them were out in the parking lot, the roar of laughter and drunken fights from the bar spilling out into the calm moonlight, Tatiana was laughing. She was laughing so hard, her chest was shaking as if she was having a stroke of some sort, and she couldn’t seem to walk in a straight line.
Finn rolled his eyes. She was so dramatic when she wanted to be.
“I thought I was going to have to drag you out of there,” she finally got out, still laughing. Tears streamed down her face. “Or pry you off of her. Jesus, Finn. You have it bad for the good girl, don’t you?”
“Oh, shut up,” he replied, shaking his head as they began to walk to the car. Tatiana hadn’t drunk an ounce of alcohol–and she normally didn’t–so she was the designated driver for the night.
“You want to know something?”
“What?” He really didn’t, but he knew that she wouldn’t shut up unless he played along for now.
“I never thought it was going to be a good girl like Lea who would eventually tie you down.”
She started cackling again after he told her repeatedly to shut up. She thought the whole thing was the most ridiculous thing she had ever seen in her life.
But Finn couldn’t help but realize that the thought of Lea finally tying him down didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world. He sure hoped that was just because of the alcohol.
Chapter 6
Lea found herself in a daze all morning. First, she was late to get ready before Britta’s class, leaving her late to pick up c
offee at about seven fifteen in the morning. She just managed to walk in before Britta started class, taking her usual place beside Hazel who looked at her questioningly. Their two cups of coffee were in the ladies’ dressing room with Lea’s things, slowly growing cold.
Lea didn’t know why she was so late this morning. She wasn’t hungover, and she didn’t get to bed too late last night. She did think about Finn all night as she laid in bed, thinking of his deep voice and his blond hair shining in the sun. And before she knew it, she woke up with an even deeper crush on the guy, even though they still hadn’t shared that many conversations or moments together.
Last night was something special, though. She felt like she’d outed herself in front of him, something that could’ve turned into the most embarrassing moment of her life. Instead, it seemed to make Finn . . . happy? That couldn’t be right, though. Lea wasn’t his type. Tatiana was his type, though he put those rumors to bed immediately when Lea blurted it out in an embarrassing question.
She was glad she asked it, though. It led them to where they were now.
But where were they now? She didn’t get a chance to talk to him all during class, which greatly annoyed her. He was on the other side of the room with Ethan, who was back in class this morning, and she never even had a chance to stare at his lovely backside.
She wondered if this change she felt between them was a one-sided thing–as in, he didn’t think anything was different. She hoped not. But if she didn’t have a chance to see him, she would never know. Their friendship up to this point had been chance conversations that they would never have had if Hazel hadn’t decided to skip practice that morning. Lea would’ve never given him the coffee, would’ve never invited him to ride in her car to practice. She would’ve never developed this big of a crush, that was for sure.
Before Lea knew it, the class was over and Britta was clapping and yelling about what a good class it was. Lea couldn’t believe she was able to teach. Last night, Lea and Hazel left the bar to her and Annie singing karaoke together, barely standing up. But Britta showed up and made them practice even more scenarios where they wouldn’t have control over all of their senses. While Lea was somewhat good at defending herself without sight, she found that it was harder to fight when she didn’t have her nose to help guide her from unwanted enemies. When she was blindfolded, she used her nose to smell the scent of whoever was her partner. Britta made it hard for everyone by making them smell pepper and some other type of seasoning, filling their senses with only that. But if both her sight and her ability to smell were taken away from her, she had to rely on her hearing.
And that proved to be more difficult than she thought.
Lea and Hazel sighed and got up from the mats they were laying on, worn out and sweaty. Lea hoped that Finn wouldn’t come talk to her just then. She didn’t look cute, her blonde hair was all frizzy, and her face was beet-red from exhaustion and exercise. She was sure she looked like this the morning they practiced together, but at that point in their friendship, she didn’t care. Now, she did.
And she wanted to look, and smell, good. She found she wanted to make a good impression on the bad boy.
Boy, was she in deep. On a guy that wasn’t even her type! She didn’t know how many times she had to think and say this to herself.
Luckily, Finn didn’t walk up to Lea until after she had showered in the gym and changed into her scrubs for work. While she wished she was wearing something cuter and more flattering than her huge scrubs, at least she was showered. It could’ve been worse.
“Hey, we weren’t able to be partners today,” he said as he ran up to her as she walked outside to her car. She slowed down when she saw him begin to jog over to her as she exited the building. It almost looked like he had been waiting for her to leave, but that couldn’t be possible. Could it?
“I know,” she replied, smiling at him, as he fell into step beside her. She didn’t know what else she was supposed to even say. She desperately wanted the conversation to continue, though she didn’t know what she could say to keep it going.
She felt like a flustered idiot standing next to him. She looked over at him as they slowly strolled down the steps of the gym, getting goosebumps on her arms as she saw him smile at her, the sunlight reflecting off of his tan skin and dirty-blond hair.
“I didn’t see you before class,” he added, putting his hands in his pockets as they walked. Lea wanted to pull his arm and interlace her fingers with his.
“Yeah, I was running late this morning,” she told him. She didn’t want to explain that she’d been in a daydream since last night, imagining all sorts of scenarios and things that could happen between them. She knew it was a little crush, almost like a schoolgirl’s crush, but she couldn’t help it. Those daydreams were the sexiest moments she’d had in a while. And they were all in her head.
How depressing was that?
“How did you do in class?” he asked after there was a slight pause in the conversation. It was like they both were slowly strolling together, trying to come up with little conversations, so they could stay around each other without both of them blurting out their feelings.
Lea had to remind herself again and again that Finn really wasn’t into her. He couldn’t be. It was that simple.
“Not very well,” she sighed, hating to say it but knowing she had to admit it. “It seems I’m not the best when I have more than one sense cut off from me.”
“I could help you if you want.”
Lea looked up at him, trying to hide her surprise. There it was: the way they could both hang out with each other without admitting their feelings. While they could’ve just asked each other out, or mentioned meeting up at the café or the bar, they both felt like they almost couldn’t.
Which was a bit ridiculous, but something they both felt.
“Really?” Lea hoped she didn’t sound too excited. She had to play it cool. Make him want more and not give him everything at once.
“Really.” He smiled at her, and her heart quickened in pace, even though their stroll didn’t pick up speed at all. “We can meet after you’re done with work, later tonight, if you want.”
“Yeah, that would actually be great. You never know when I would need to be prepared like that, so I want to practice as much as possible.”
“Exactly.” He nodded, and they made plans to meet at the gym later on that night. Finn left after they exchanged some awkward goodbyes, and only when Lea got into her car, did she let out the breath she was holding.
How did she get in so deep? How did her crush blossom into this feeling? She felt like she couldn’t even breathe when she was around him, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to just get over a crush like this. She hadn’t felt like this in a while, and that scared her more than she wanted to admit to herself.
Because Finn wasn’t going to be good news for her. He looked like he used and then bailed on girls all the time.
Lea’s anxiety kicked into a full-blown silent overthinking process she went through as she drove to work. What if that’s exactly what Finn was looking for? Just a girl to have sex with and then leave? Was that what she wanted? There was no doubt that she felt sexually attracted to him. She would have to be blind to not be attracted to him. But was her crush just sexually stimulated, or was it something more?
She was confused, that much she knew. She didn’t know how many times she told herself mentally that Finn wasn’t her type in the last few days. But it was the truth! Finn wasn’t the type of man she was used to dealing with. She felt like he was so out of her league in every way, and it was like flirting with him was new every step of the way. It wasn’t like Lea was an inexperienced woman–she just wasn’t as experienced as she thought Finn would like.
Maybe he was looking for something different from her. Maybe he was just looking for sex. Lea truthfully didn’t know how she felt about this. In the past, she had longed for relationships from steady men that she would never have to question about where
they were or who they were with. She felt like her jealousy would eat her alive if she and Finn continued this flirtation–just look at how she acted with Tatiana!
She didn’t know what Finn was looking for. Hell, she didn’t know what she was looking for.
But she sure as hell couldn’t wait for tonight when she could see him again.
Chapter 7
Finn finally managed to meet up with Ethan after not hanging out in the last few days. He found that he missed his friend.
While Ethan wasn’t a huge outcast like Finn seemed to be recently, he still wasn’t as accepted within the community–and he was an alpha. Tensions were still high, and Finn didn’t know when he’d get the approval of every single shifter in the Moonlight Maine Pack. He hoped soon. And he hoped that Lea approved of him, at the very least.
Just thinking about her made him miss her more, which was crazy because they hadn’t even become good friends until recently. And were they even good friends? They’d only talked to each other a few times. Finn didn’t know. He just knew that he loved being around her. He loved the way she made him feel just from the slightest glance. It was like she was his drug, and he never wanted to quit this new addiction.
“I’m not prepared to be an alpha, man,” Ethan told his friend over lunch at the pack bar. “I have my older brother taking care of things back home, and I kind of want him to just take over at this point.”
Ethan became alpha as his father’s last dying wish a few weeks ago. He was young, one of the youngest alphas around, in his early twenties. Shifters didn’t normally become alphas until they were a bit older. Ethan and about half of his pack were in Maine now, training and trying to help out Hann and the Moonlight Pack as much as they could. The other half of his pack were back in their hometown, with Ethan’s older brother–who really didn’t want the alpha job, according to Ethan–who was taking care of things back there.
Moonlight Wolves Box Set Page 39