Chapter 7

DOMINIC

It was when Selena burst into tears that I knew I had to find a different strategy for making Lunacy pay through this girl. I can’t keep bullying her outright, I don't have the stomach for it.

I'm really not a bad guy. I'm just in a dark place.

Besides, Tristan said he wanted something poetic. Maybe I can manage that without really hurting this girl. I'm not about to get a guilty conscience over separating Nox from any girl. He can't be good for her.

“Abby! Hurry up, I'm starving!” I'm eating dinner out with my sister before escorting Selena to her evening English elective. Abby is taking her sweet time getting in the car.

“C'mon, Abbs, don't be like this. She meant nothing to us.” Abby's dipshit roommate–one of three, all male, all dipshits–is whining about some miscommunication between them. This happens a lot.

I honk the horn.

“Okay, Dom! Listen, Rafe, you guys know I'm moving out next week. Fun time is over. Let's just all agree to be platonic friends from now on.”

“Abbs, you're killing me,” Rafe says, practically on his knees.

“Abby, I swear to goddess if you don't get in the car…”

She opens the passenger door and says, “Gotta go, Rafe. We'll talk when I get home.” Then she gets in and slams the door shut.

“You'll talk when you get home? Really? You need to just cut them off.”

“I know, don't you think I know that? It's just not easy.”

“Wait, you don’t have feelings for those assholes…” I say.

“It's complicated, let's just leave it at that. So how are things with the new girl? Is she getting settled in?”

“They’re fine,” I tell her, eyes on the road.

“Oh yeah? No hazing?”

“I mean a little, of course that's going to happen.”

“Oh, of course,” she says sarcastically.

“Well, you asked.”

“Knowing you and Tristan, you have some plan between the two of you to use this for your advantage.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, and this topic is officially over.”

She rolls her eyes. “Billie has her hands full with you two. How's Fleming?”

Fleming was…himself.

“He seems to be making connections at Lunacy. I don't know what he has up his sleeve, but he's got them eating out of the palm of his hand.”

“Weird.”

“Right? I don't know how he does it.” I turn off at our exit to the main drag in town. “How are you and Dad?” I ask cautiously.

“Oh, you know. I'm the world's most disappointing daughter, I can’t or won't get a mate that would advance our social standing, I'm an embarrassment to the pack. The usual.”

He was getting worse. “I'll talk to him.” Just as soon as I solved my hundred other problems.

I get back to the house after dropping Abby off after dinner, just in time for Selena’s evening class. I head up to the attic. This time, I knock.

She opens the door. She's wearing a ribbed knit black dress with a slit up the back and a turtleneck. Her hair is piled on top of her head and she's been playing with her new makeup. Her eyes have the prettiest tinge of pink eyeshadow, lined in brown with huge lashes. Her lips are wine red, almost black. Her cheeks are pink.

She looks beautiful.

“Do you want to skip class and get some coffee?” I ask her with no preamble whatsoever.

“Um…sure,” she says, putting her books down but keeping her bag. “At the Student Union?”

“Yeah, let's go.” I grab her by the wrist and pull her along. She carefully disconnects herself from me, but follows.

I have no idea what I'm doing. The invitation just came out of my mouth, so I'm winging it.

We walk along in the early autumn evening towards the castle-like Student Union, not saying much. I ask her if she's ate and she says yes. When we get there, I get her an oatmilk latte and myself an Americano. We sit in an isolated corner and eat biscotti.

“So how did you and Nox meet?” I ask her, dying to know.

She clears her throat. “I'm a foster kid. I live with his family.”

Holy shit, they grew up together.

“How do they feel about the two of you?”

“We haven't really told anyone. It's not a big deal. So do you have a girlfriend?”

She's changing the subject. Interesting.

“I've never had a girlfriend,” I tell her. “I mean, I do okay. But I've never had a relationship like that.”

She nods her head, probably thinking I'm incapable of being civilized towards a girl. I don't blame her.

I want to know so much more about her, but I don't know where to start. “Where are you from?” I ask lamely.

“I was born into the Frost Pack of Northern Maine. We don't have any colleges in the wilderness…not werewolf schools, anyway.”

“Makes sense.”

“What about you?” she asks.

“We're all from Tidepool Cove, about 20 minutes from here. A bunch of us grew up together.”

“That must have been nice.”

“Right. Like you and Nox.”

She averts her eyes and takes a long drink of her latte.

“So can I ask you this?” I say. “Does Nox take this truce seriously?”

She gets this look on her face like she was expecting me to ask something else. “Yes, absolutely. He's really serious about cleaning up Lunacy's reputation.”

“Okay, well, that's good, then.”

This entire time, I've watched her, fascinated, as she carefully dipped her biscotti into her latte and nibbled off tiny pieces of it before laying it back down on her saucer, then doing it again. She is the most fastidious eater I've ever seen, as though she thinks she'll never have the chance to have a treat again. It makes me want to buy her all the biscotti in the Student Union.

“So can I ask you a personal question?” I ask her.

“Go ahead.”

“What…what do you see in him? Like I get that you grew up together, but surely you know he's not a good guy.”

She fiddles with a piece of biscotti, making crumbles on her plate. “It’s complicated.”

“I get that, I've been in complicated situations before.” Unbelievably complicated, inextricably hopeless, my bittersweet feelings for Billie still stung a little. But I am a grown man. I can handle it.

“Let me get you another,” I tell her after she's crumbled the rest of her biscotti because of me and my questions. I get up without waiting for an answer and get her a chocolate dipped piece this time to see if she likes that even more. When I sit back down and put it on her saucer, her eyes go wide. Chocolate was a good choice.

“Th-thank you,” she says quietly.

I wonder if she's ever had biscotti before. She eats this piece like it's the morning of the Winter Solstice, the season of Yuletide in our pack's tradition. About halfway through she slows down, back to meticulously nibbling piece after piece.

“So can I ask you a personal question, too?” she asks.

“Ask me anything.” I may not fully answer, but I want her to get more comfortable with me if I'm going to have a chance at breaking up her and Nox.

“What about you?” She looks at me straight with those enormous blue eyes. “Why don't you have a girlfriend?”

I shuffle in my seat. “Just never happened for me. I've never found anyone who I could commit to like that. I like keeping things friendly.”

“Oh, okay,” she says.

“What?”

“Your parents fought a lot, right? Mine did too, before they died.”

I shake my head. “You’re right, they did. Then my mother left, and it was just me and my sister Abby with my father.”

“That really sucks,” she says. “But you shouldn't let it scare you off from relationships.”

“I'm not scared,” I say defensively. “I'm just smart.”

She smiles at me like she doesn't believe it, and her smile is both breathtaking and contagious. I feel myself smiling back at her.

This isn't how this is supposed to be going.

Soon after that, I take her home.