Isla
Any minute now, she’d ask me about the breakup and I’m at a loss of what to say.
Should I tell her I was working on it?
Working on making her son love me again?
I cringed.
I had asked Jason the other day why you don’t visit anymore, and he said you’ve been busy,” she said, sounding hurt.
“But surely you can make time.
Even if it’s not for your boyfriend, what about me?
Especially when you know you’re like a daughter to me.
Boyfriend?
Did Diane not know that Jason had found his mate and had broken up with me.
It suddenly explained why he was still in the school dormitory even though school was on break.
That must mean he was keeping Jasmine a secret.
Which translated to my chances of winning him back being exponentially better.
I was the one who looked better on paper with him.
Even as I thought it, I felt my stomach sour at the fact that I’d become the kind of girl who subconsciously compares myself with Jasmine and perks up when I feel like I’d one-up her.
“I’d make time to come visit you soon,”
“I’ve missed you way too much to wait.
How about you come home with me?
Remember the yearly fundraiser luncheon I’m always tasked with planning for the pack?
You always come over to help me plan it, and I’m already going crazy doing it all by myself this year.
I was planning to go to the grocery store next; you should join me, just like old times.”
She glanced at Amy and Riley.
“That is, if your friends don’t mind.
I’d hate to intrude.”
“Of course they wouldn’t,” In seconds, I was back after informing Amy and Riley that I was leaving with her.
Then I grabbed her shopping bag and moved to fall in step behind her.
She paused and pursing her lips she took me in from head to toe, “I was hoping you’d change first before we leave.”
I felt my cheeks flame as I remembered that I was still wearing the dress that Riley had picked out for me.
The cinch at the waist and the length already made it scandalous enough without the neckline that left most of my chest on display.
I immediately found the floor particularly interesting, my hair covering my face, “I’d wait for you in the car while you change,” Diane said after a beat of silence, mercifully.
She turned on her heels to leave, but hesitated, “I hate to say this, but that dress doesn’t suit you.”
Then she left while I was hoping that the ground would open and swallow me whole.
Ryder
I was smiling at Reid.
We were both laughing as he drove while I sat beside him, on our way back home.
It felt like a dream.
Especially since I had been so worried, mere hours ago when I was going to the pack house to meet him.
He must have been twice as worried since we had ended up not camping together because he had forgotten to pack a tent.
We had instead spent the day in a café, with nobody drinking and just talking about regular stuff.
Like a normal father and son.
I snuck a glance at him and realized, with a sobering thought, that it was the happiest I’d seen him in my company for a long time.
And suddenly, I didn’t want to go home any time soon.
I felt like I might blink and my wolf would remember that he was supposed to hate him.
“I don’t want today to end,” Reid suddenly said like he could read my mind.
I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant.
“I could still hang.
I’ve nothing to do this afternoon.”
He glanced at his watch, a crease forming on his forehead.
“I want to, but I’ve got a fundraising luncheon I have to show up for, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
How about you join me?
I’ll drop in for a couple of minutes, greet the host, then we can go home and perhaps play video games?”
My brows pulled together before I smoothed my expression.
I hated pretentious events like that.
They were always packed with equally pretentious, snobby, self-important members of the town who believed they were better than everyone else.
I understood that Reid, as Alpha, had to stomach some of these people since they mostly consisted of important members of the pack—like a few advisors, betas who served the previous Alpha, and a handful of current betas and key enforcers—but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Or like that I’d have to stomach them for a few minutes.
But I could do it.
I’d just grab a champagne flute and nod along to classical music while pretending I couldn’t feel their disapproving stares burning a hole in the back of my head either judging me for my very nature or for my infamous philandering ways.
I mean, it could even be fun, watching them have to prostrate and cater to me because of what I was, while some of them knew I’d been with their wives weeks ago.
“That’s fine.”
I can hold my tongue and lie for a few minutes.
I’ve been doing it all my life.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong?