After Evelyn said grace, we all tucked in. The food was delicious, and the company, besides Mr. Broody in front of me, was delightful.
“Were you at The Den on Thursday night, August?” Jeb asked.
“No. Why? Were you?”
Jeb smirked. “Me? I’m way too old to hang out in a place like that. Ness went, but they turned her away at the door.”
I took a swig from my ice-cold water, and it went down the wrong hole. I coughed so hard Evelyn rubbed me between the shoulders. The lie I’d told Jeb was that the bouncer hadn’t allowed me inside, thus embarrassing me. Thus making me cry. I would never have cried about it, but Jeb ate it up.
“I told her she should’ve phoned one of the boys. That they would’ve gotten her in.”
August narrowed his eyes. “That place is full of college kids. Besides, doesn’t that friend of yours dee-”
I kicked his shin under the table. He couldn’t blow my cover.
One of his eyebrows arched high. “I guess they’re stricter in the summer.”
I stabbed a piece of quesadilla. The golden shell crackled from the impact of my fork.
“Any more Creek spottings?” I asked Frank before I stuck the morsel inside my mouth. I was desperate to change the subject, but I also thought that if anyone was up to date on pack information, it would be the elder.
“It’s been quiet.” Frank darted a worried glance at Jeb, who was concentrated on his plate.
Perhaps me bringing up his son’s murderers had been indelicate. “Is Liam going to send anyone to Beaver Creek?”
A small, vertical groove appeared between August’s eyebrows.
Frank took a sip of wine. “I was thinking of going out there myself. I know Morgan. I know the way she thinks.”
Evelyn went whiter than the glaze atop the cinnamon rolls. “Frank… no.”
He took her hand in his and gave it a firm squeeze. “I’ll be fine.”
“I could go,” I volunteered. “Maybe the Alpha would take well to a girl.”
August’s freckles darkened. “Ness, that would be completely-”
“No, no, y no.” Evelyn squeezed my wrist so hard she cut off my blood circulation.
“Some women feel less threatened by members of the same sex,” I said.
Frank scratched his wrinkled neck. “I don’t think it would be wise. The Creeks are… well, they’re very in tune with their other nature, which doesn’t make them very civilized.”
“They killed Everest, Ness,” Jeb whispered. “I won’t lose you too.”
I pressed my lips together. For Jeb’s sake, I stopped fighting.
No one spoke of pack politics after that. They talked summer Olympics and tax reforms. When Little J left to meet up with his friends and the men started talking politics over cigars and whiskey, I cleared the table. Evelyn and Isobel tried to help, but I told them to go sit down, that I was happy to move after all the food I’d ingested.
“Honey, help Ness,” Isobel told her son as she went to take a seat on the sofa.
August pushed off one the wooden beams and reluctantly made his way to the kitchen.
“I don’t need your help,” I said, slotting plates into the dishwasher.
But I got it anyway.
We didn’t talk as we cleaned up the kitchen, didn’t even look at each other.
At some point, he asked, “Why do you look like you cried all night?”
I licked my lips. There was no point in denying something that was so blatantly visible. “Because I did.”
“Why?””A couple days ago, you send me a harsh email, and now you’re concerned about why I cried?”
He frowned. “Harsh email?”
“Not to mix business with pleasure. For your information, I didn’t ask Liam to come over, just like I didn’t ask him to make you leave Boulder, just like I’m not dating Liam, okay? So there was nothing personal or remotely pleasurable about his visit.” I poured in the dishwasher powder, then smacked the door shut. “Besides, you must’ve misunderstood him, because apparently he didn’t ask you to leave. He asked if you’d be leaving.”
August grunted.
“Can you stop grunting all the time? Seriously, you’re twenty-seven. Even Little J doesn’t grunt as much as you do.”
He blinked at me, and then he crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the kitchen counter. “Any other compliments you want to lob my way?”
“I’m sure I can think of more if you give me a few minutes.”
He had the audacity to smirk, which just infuriated me because he was obviously not taking our conversation seriously. “You get very flushed when you’re angry.”
“And that’s funny?”
“When you were a kid, you’d get beet-red when things didn’t go your way.”
“Still don’t see why that’s funny.” I washed my hands, then dried them on the kitchen towel and started covering the leftovers.
August pressed off the counter and took the Saran-wrapped dishes to the fridge. “Want to tell me why you lied about not liking zucchini bread and cinnamon rolls and all that other stuff?”
“Because I don’t like people assuming they have me all figured out.”
“Since when am I people?” There was a twinge of hurt in his tone.
I looked up from the platter topped with scraps of smoked salmon. “You think you know me because I get red when I’m angry, or because I still eat all that stuff I pretended not to like, but I’m not that little girl you ferried around in your truck and brought to the ice cream parlor for a scoop, okay?”
His frown deepened, brought out lines on other places of his face.
“You’re ten years older than me. You’ll always be ten years older. That’s never going to change, but every time you call me Dimples, I feel like I’m six. I don’t think you mean to make me feel like a kid, but that’s the way it comes out. I’m tired of people thinking I’m childish. Or expendable.”
“Expendable?” August’s eyes were the vivid green of the leaves dotting the tree outside the kitchen window. “When did I make you feel expendable?”