SADIE
"Shit, this is crazy." Lola has been staring into my eyes for so long that hers are starting to cross. "You’re sure this happened in just a few hours?"
"Yes, Lola. They were brown yesterday."
She catches my chin and turns my face toward the kitchen light. "I’ve never seen anything like this."
"Neither has anyone else. You’re about the fourth person to tell me that already."
"Well..." She lets me go. "I dig the green. Makes you look chic."
I drop the last piece of banana into the blender and seal the lid. "Do you care at all that something might actually be wrong with me, or are we just admiring the new eyes?"
"You still have two hands, two legs, and you’ve been making a smoothie for the past five minutes without collapsing." She leans against the counter. "I think you’re fine."
"Wow."
"And it wasn’t poison." She steals a strawberry from the bowl. "It was an anti-horniness serum. How bad can it be?"
My head turns slowly. "Suppressant."
"For horniness."
"For his Alpha wolf," I correct her.
She pops the strawberry into her mouth. "Which gets horny."
I suck in a slow breath.
There are days when being Lola’s best friend requires more patience than I naturally possess.
Are you scared? Do they hurt? Should we call someone?
Those are the kinds of questions normal people ask when their friend wakes up with green eyes. Lola skipped straight past all of them and landed on a different topic.
In Trey’s apartment too.
You’d think being in his kitchen would encourage her to filter herself a little, but she’s spent the last twenty minutes opening cabinets, admiring the view and asking how much everything costs, so I’m not convinced she remembers we’re guests anymore.
I turn on the blender and spend the next thirty seconds enjoying the rare privilege of not hearing my best friend speak.
By the time the blender stops, I split the smoothie between two glasses, making sure mine gets slightly more on principle, add the straws and hand her one.
"Thank you, bestie."
"You’re welcome, thief."
We move to the living room, and I settle beside her with my legs across her lap.
"I still can’t believe he lives here alone," Lola says after a sip.
"Why?" I ask.
"Look at this place." She gestures around with her glass. "This is a mated man apartment."
I nearly choke on my smoothie. "What does that even mean?"
"It’s too big for one person. And knowing he takes suppressants every month is just..." She trails off.
Annoyingly, I can see what she means. Everything is nice, probably more expensive than I care to calculate, but there’s very little of Trey in any of it.
"It must be hard."
"What?"
"Having to rely on the suppressant every full moon." I stir the straw around my glass. "Why hasn’t he found his mate yet? Or claimed someone?"
Lola scrunches her nose. "Yeah, because he can just put find mate on his schedule for Thursday at three."
"I know he can’t choose when he finds his mate." I nudge her with my foot. "But there are four packs in Boston." I start counting them off on my fingers. "Goldenmoon, Silvercrest, Blackridge and Redhaven. That’s thousands of wolves between them, and you’re telling me there hasn’t been one person he likes enough?"
"Likes enough for what?"
"To claim." I drop my hand. "Alpha wolves don’t have to wait around for their fated mate. They can form a true bond with someone they choose."
"Sure, but why claim anybody?" Lola asks. "I’ve heard some unmated Alphas just have a full-moon hookup. Same person, different person, whatever works."
Okay, that’s a completely different solution to the one I had in mind.
"But Trey choosing suppressants instead..." She sighs. "Gosh, that makes him hotter."
I can’t believe that’s her takeaway.
Worse, I understand it.
Not treating women like convenient solutions to his wolf problem should be the bare minimum, but Trey has more opportunities than most men to do that. I’ve seen the way girls react to him. He could probably crook a finger across a crowded room and have someone following him out before I finished rolling my eyes.
Yet every month, he chooses the suppressant instead.
"Trey is actually quite surprising."
Lola turns to me. "Surprising?"
"I haven’t decided yet."
A smirk starts pulling at her mouth. "You get the hype now, don’t you?"
"Don’t get excited." I roll my eyes. "I said surprising, not dreamy. He’s rude, bossy and seems to think asking nicely will kill him, but then he does things that don’t match any of that."
"Like?"
My mind goes straight to the two things sitting in my room, and I realize I’m actually looking forward to her reaction.
I leave my smoothie behind and come back with the phone in one hand and Trey’s jacket hanging from the other.
Lola’s attention bounces between them before settling on me.
"What did that man do?"
I smirk. "Which one do you want to hear about first?"
She ignores the phone and reaches for the jacket.
"No fucking way." Her eyes widen as she spreads it across her thigh. "This is actually his?"
"QR code and everything."
"Sadie."
That one word contains enough demand for an explanation that I start from the beginning.
I tell her about Dawson, the whole ridiculous argument over whether I belonged in the lounge, Trey sending him outside and then making him come back to apologize. By the time I explain why Trey gave me the jacket afterward, she is holding it like a trophy.
The embarrassing part is that I feel a little like I won something too. Not the jacket itself. Just the story behind it.
It’s been a long time since somebody did something for me that I couldn’t wait to tell Lola about.
"Can I take a snap of this?" She runs her fingers over the jacket, then brings the sleeve closer. "Oh, it even smells like him."
"You can take pictures, but don’t post—"
"Obviously I’m not posting it." She sounds offended that I considered her capable of it. "This is for my cherished album."
She spreads the jacket properly across her thighs, traces her fingers over the seven printed on it, then starts taking pictures from different angles.
I watch her reposition it for another shot. "You know he gave that to me, right?"
"Please don’t ruin this for me."
I give her another minute before deciding she’s enjoyed it enough. "Okay, photographer. Give it back."
She hands it over reluctantly, and I return it to my wardrobe before joining her on the couch again.
"You’re one lucky girl," she says.
"Because I have a borrowed jacket?"
"Because Trey Mercer gave you his jacket." That familiar, suspicious grin starts spreading across her face. "How much do you think Ezra would convulse if he saw you wearing it?"
"Girl, why is that where your mind went?"
"Think about it." She’s already getting excited. "His brother’s jacket. On you. After he dumped you for Paige?" She claps. "You need to wear it everywhere. Class. Library. Grocery store. To bed, just in case he develops the ability to see through walls."
My smile lingers, but I shake my head. "I’m not going out of my way to get Ezra’s attention anymore."
Her expression settles a little.
"I mean it." I pick up my smoothie. "He doesn’t deserve me or my time. If he sees me wearing the jacket, fine. If he doesn’t, also fine."
"Ugh." She sinks farther into the couch. "Healthy growth. Very boring, but healthy."
I’m about to tell her exactly where she can put her disappointment when my phone starts vibrating against the coffee table. Once, twice, then several times in quick succession.
"What now?"
I grab it, expecting the study group to be arguing about something nobody will remember by tomorrow, but the notification sitting at the top of my screen has me reading it twice.
You were added to the group FUTURE WAGs.