by Kat Bostick
Liar. Mari mouthed to him.
Aubrey was surprisingly polite when she turned to them. “I think Mari and I could use some girl time. It’s months overdue. Thank you for welcoming me into your home.” It was a dismissal and Charlie knew it. Would she be so bold if she knew who she was talking to? “What’s the bar scene like in…Humbletown?”
“There really isn’t—” Mari was interrupted by the front door banging open.
Snow covered boots clomped through the foyer and from somewhere upstairs Deak could be heard shouting, “Boots, Teal!”
Teal’s chuckle was deep and rich, the kind of laughter that drew everyone’s attention his way. There was a soothing quality to his voice, a warm, misty rain that cooled the tempers flaring at the bottom of the stairs. “I heard we have a guest.” Brilliant white teeth gleamed between his dark lips. “Hey, darlin’. You here to celebrate with us?”
Teal brushed past Mari and Jasper, giving each a friendly nudge of greeting. The smile he sported was so disarming that Aubrey lost her stubborn pout. She blinked, once, then twice, before taking Teal’s offered hand. When she tried to pull away, he gently patted the back of her hand in a way that Mari was learning was an amicable southern gesture.
At least one of them had good manners.
The jarringly normal exchange was ruined when Teal flared his nostrils, inhaling deeply. It was just about the least subtle thing he could have done. Besides, it wasn’t like Aubrey was hard to smell. From where she stood, Mari could feel whatever candy flavored perfume her best friend wore coating the lining of her lungs. Months of living in a household completely void of scented personal care products made them cloying and distinct.
Why she expected any amount of normal, Mari had no idea. Teal had barely dropped Aubrey’s hand before Cash came thundering down the stairs, taking them two at a time and landing at the bottom with a loud but graceful leap. He dove for her and Jasper, wrapping his arms around them both and squeezing tight enough to choke her.
“You’re home!”
Mari couldn’t stifle her laughter. “And since when does that make you so happy?”
“Since Clementine told me I wasn’t allowed to come downstairs until you got here. I almost died of boredom.” Cash flung his head back dramatically, making Jasper lose his footing. His arm still tight around Jasper’s neck, Cash jerked a thumb at Aubrey and said, “She’s as bricky as you, showing up here unannounced. I like it.”
Aubrey’s mouth was too agape to respond. At a foot taller than Mari’s five foot seven, Cash could be intimidating. Muscles packed tightly against his shirt and jeans. Broad, broad shoulders made his height seem even more looming. The boyish smile and ridiculous demeanor nullified some of the impact of his size, but there was no distracting from the scars. The worst were the most visible, thick white lines striking across his throat and peeking out from beneath his black beard.
“Where are my manners?” Cash pushed away from Jasper, knocking him into Mari a second time. Unlike Teal, he didn’t wait for Aubrey to accept his hand, he simply grabbed hers and brought it to his lips with a slight bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mari’s friend.”
“Pleasure?” Aubrey repeated in a whisper.
It was the wrong word to pick out of his sentence. Cash waggled bushy eyebrows, a flirtatious and probably crude response ready on his tongue. Mari killed the response by prodding him with her elbow.
And then, as if it couldn’t get any more chaotic or awkward, Cora raced up from the basement. Sweat plastered strands of blonde hair to her forehead. The taut planes of her stomach were on glittering display as she strutted toward them in nothing but leggings and a sports bra. Her eyes landed on Teal first.
Not that it was any of Mari’s business. Unlike some members of this household, she afforded everyone as much privacy as they deserved.
“Is Jasper finally killin’ Cash? Or is someone teachin’ an elephant to waltz.” Cora looked surprised when she didn’t see one or more brothers mid-fistfight. That was usually the cause for so much commotion. One flare of her nostrils and she whipped her head in Aubrey’s direction, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“What do they put in the water up here?” Aubrey broke her silence and her stare, turning it from Cash to Cora. “And can I please have some if it will give me abs like that?”
Cora’s smile was feline. “Sorry sugar, it’s genetic. Now who the hell are you?”
Charlie braced his hands on Cora’s upper arms. “Coralee, this is Mari’s friend, Aubrey. She’s here for the holiday.”
“A houseguest?” Cora looked pointedly at Jasper. “Aren’t you worried someone will eat her?”
“I didn’t plan on staying.” Aubrey matched Cora’s venom. “I’m just here to see Mari.”
“Well, you’ve seen me. Here I am! Are you sure you’re not tired after such a long drive? We have plenty of guestrooms upstairs. You can take a nap! Get some rest while Charlie and I handle some quick business. Lodge business. Very important stuff.” Mari was attempting to diffuse the situation. Instead, she was spewing moronic ramblings.
“It’s a two and a half hour dive.” Aubrey said dryly.
“Right.” She barely refrained from ringing her hands together. “Are you hungry? We have sandwiches.” Only, Aubrey was a vegetarian and Charlie’s sandwiches were usually made with roast beef and a side of roast beef. “And cookies. I baked some cookies.”
“You’re welcome in my home, Aubrey.” Charlie cut Mari off before she could get any weirder. “Stay for the afternoon. Stay for Thanksgiving. It’s your choice.” The side eye he gave Mari made her shudder. “We’re very busy preparing for the holiday, if you’ll excuse us. Mari, we’ll get out of your hair and give you some privacy.”
Ha! Mari almost scoffed. Privacy her ass.
“Jasper!” Clem smiled the innocent smile that earned her just about anything she wanted from her brothers. “Could you please help me get the turkeys out of the freezer downstairs?”
The conflict was evident on his face. Mari didn’t wait to see if he would oblige or try to follow her, grabbing Aubrey’s hand and tugging her to the stairs in a rush. “Let me at least show you the guestrooms. You’ll love them. There are two showerheads! It’s like a freaking human car wash in there.”
Aubrey didn’t resist as they bounded up the stairs. She didn’t falter or speak a single word until they stepped into the first guestroom—Mari’s old room—and shut the door. “Are you pregnant?”
Mari startled at the bluntness of the question. “What? No!”
“Then what the hell, Mari?” Aubrey thrust the invitation at her again.
“What the hell yourself! What are you doing here?”
“Do you remember when you moved into your house and you loved me so much that you gave me a spare key so I could drop by whenever I wanted because I’m your best friend?”
“I lived alone then. And you were six minutes away! This isn’t even my house, Aubs.”
“But you live here!” She flung her arms out. “You live in this Goddamn mansion. And I had no idea.” The heat evaporated from her voice, replaced by a hurt that sliced at Mari’s heart. “You live in this giant house with a giant family and you told me nothing. Nada. You’re getting married and all I got was some fancy formal invitation in the mail. Not even a text with a freaking wedding ring emoji.”
“Aubrey—”
“Are you cutting me out of your life? Is that what this is?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why won’t you come home?”
Mari sat on the edge of the bed. “Klein isn’t home anymore. My house burned down! Do you expect me to move back in with my dad and Vee?”
“Um, yeah. That’s kind of the normal thing to do. I lived with my parents for six months after college. I didn’t run off to a faraway corner of the state and shack up with some rando and his rich family.” Aubrey plunked down on the bed next to her. “This isn’t you, Mari. Not the house, not the wedding invitation
. Since when do you even want to get married?”
Well, since about nine days ago when I realized it would keep my werewolf boyfriend from eating someone. That wasn’t the whole truth, though. Mari did want to marry Jasper. She just hadn’t expected to quite so soon. Their timeline was a little rushed. As usual.
“Since I met Jasper.” Mostly true. Mari was okay with a few white lies if they were laced with truth.
“If he’s so amazing, why have I heard almost nothing about him?”
“I…I don’t know what you would want to know!”
Aubrey shook her head, scowling. “This is weird, Mar. Super weird. All of those people downstairs? Weird as fuck. Who are they?”
“Jasper’s family. They’re not that weird. They just make bad first impressions.” Okay, that part was a flat out lie. There was nothing normal about anyone in Charlie’s household.
“His family? Is a single one of those people related?”
“Jasper is adopted. I would have told you all of this on the phone. You didn’t have to drive out here.”
Aubrey pinned her with a hard stare. “Your phone was off. It has been for days. Probably because you knew everyone was going to flip out over these invitations and you didn’t want to deal with it. That’s such bullshit, Mari.”
“Yeah.” Mari replied. “I’m a coward.”
“There are so many red flags that I can’t even count them. You shouldn’t be afraid to tell the people you love that you’re getting married unless you know that all of them will disapprove. If every single person you know thinks your sudden and barely planned wedding is a bad idea, they’re probably right.”
“I didn’t invite everyone I know. Only you, Dad, and Samuel.”
“Red flag number seventeen!” Aubrey stuck a finger in the air.
Mari shoved the finger back down. “Stop it. Plenty of people have small weddings. I could have eloped and not told any of you.”
Silence. Then more silence. Long, uncomfortable silence that felt like a weighty judgment. A condemnation of her choices. Mari could never do anything right. Not by anyone else’s standards.
“Your dad called me.” Aubrey confessed on a whooshing sigh. “He thinks you’re in some downward spiral and making reckless decisions. I don’t disagree with him.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“In part.”
It felt like a betrayal. Aubrey was right to be worried and maybe Dad was right to be worried too. They meant well. She was keeping secrets and she probably was in a downward spiral—she and Jasper both—but that didn’t mean her best friend should be siding with the enemy.
Always. Aubrey always took her side. Always came to her defense when Vee was being vindictive, when Dad was ignoring her, when Samuel left for college and Mari was practically abandoned even as she lived under the same roof with her only parent.
Now she was a turncoat? When Mari was struggling between feeling lost and found all in the same heartbeat, when she needed someone to see her, to believe that she could make her own choices and handle the consequences, Aubrey was bailing.
Mari couldn’t blame her. What had she done to deserve loyalty in the last six months? What had she done to prove herself to the mundane half of her world? If she was looking in on her own life from the outside, she would probably think she’d lost her mind too. She was living her own life and still wasn’t sure that she wasn’t losing her mind.
“How long have you even known this guy? Like five days? And you want to spend the rest of your life with him! Think about that for a second. You’ll be sleeping with the same person forever. One dude. Wouldn’t you like to test drive a little more? See what else is out there? You’ve been on like three dates.”
“Unlike you, I don’t get tired of someone after sleeping with them one time!” Mari snapped.
Aubrey’s jaw dropped. “What are you trying to say?”
“You wouldn’t know how to commit to someone if they were paying you to do it.”
“And you wouldn’t know a creep if they were inviting you to an empty park in the middle of the night!” She stood, clenching her teeth.
“Wow, that’s really low, Aubs.”
“So is calling me a slut!”
“I didn’t—that’s not what I meant. Ugh!” Mari flopped backward onto the mattress and covered her eyes with her forearm. “I told you so, I told you so, I told you so.”
“You told me so what?”
“No, I told me so. I knew something like this would happen and I sent out those invitations anyway.”
Aubrey sat stiffly on the bed beside her, arms crossed. “I don’t know what kind of reaction you were expecting.”
“I didn’t think you would drive all the way here the day before Thanksgiving!”
“I’m worried about you. Don’t sound so ungrateful.”
“Are you worried about me because I’m getting married, or because of what my Dad told you?” What did Dad tell her?
“Both. This isn’t you, Mari. You’re spontaneous about a lot of things, but marriage? You wouldn’t even go on a date with someone unless you were in love with him and now you’re marrying some guy who lives out in the middle of nowhere?” Aubrey tossed her arms up. “In this house. What’s with this? No one has a house like this in the boonies, Mar. It’s sketchy. Are they smuggling drugs to Canada or something?”
“Since when is being fiscally responsible sketchy? Charlie works hard and invests his money. And Canada is at least two hours away!” Mari sat up, taking her friend’s forearm and drawing it down from where it was dramatically gesturing at the ostentatious furniture. “Look, Aubs. I’m a different person than I was at the beginning of the year. Things happen in your life and they change you.”
“Things happen? What things?”
“Gran died! The same day my childhood home burned down with all of my belongings inside.” Mari fought back the sudden urge to cry. The topic of Gran was still a very tender one and she didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s been a rough year, okay? But the bright side is that it’s given me clarity about myself and who I want to be. Where I want to be. And that’s with Jasper. He’s not just some guy.” She covered her eyes, as if not seeing Aubrey would give her the bravery to utter the next words waiting on the back of her tongue. “He’s the love of my life. I love him.”
It was the very first time she’d admitted it aloud—or maybe at all—and it felt wrong not to have said it to Jasper. But Mari was a coward only where relationships were concerned and she wasn’t ready to say it to his face. As soon as the word love was in the mix, it became real. Not just real but solid—permanent. There was no going back from being mates and it wouldn’t be easy to end a marriage but to love someone was an entirely different game.
All Mari knew of love was that it made her vulnerable. As soon as she gave her love to someone, she was at their mercy. They had so much power over her. Logically, she knew Jasper already had that power over her. She could pretend all day that she was independent of him but it was a complete and total lie. For him, she would make the world stop spinning. Mari didn’t love lightly. When she was in she was all in.
Her father used that to keep her in check for years. Gran used it to spoon feed her lies about her heritage. Even if they were well intentioned, the people she loved most used that very emotion against her. Maybe there was a part of her that still didn’t trust Jasper not to do the same.
“Earth to Mari!” Aubrey must have been talking, but she hadn’t been listening because she was so wrapped up in the stranglehold that her vine-shaped thoughts constantly had on her brain.