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WESLEY POV I looked out at the rest of the members of the audience as I sat in the theater the night of Haven’s and the company’s premiere of The Sleeping Beauty. The excitement in the air was palpable. I could scent it on everyone in attendance. I didn’t realize ballet would be so popular in the city near our pack, but almost every seat at the performance was sold out. Reid sat between Nolan and me, but I wasn’t sure where Seb was. I’d thought I had scented him entering the theater, but then his scent faded and disappeared. A hand waving caught my eye, and I looked down towards the front of the theater to see Shirley waving at me, a huge smile on her face, and Jack sitting next to her, an almost identical smile on his face. I waved back at them, happy to see them supporting Haven. They had become like family to us since they moved here, and I knew just how much they missed Haven, just how much they regretted the way everything went down when Jack had his stroke. For them to find h
HAVEN POV“Ah ah,” Wesley teased, lifting the bag up and out of my reach. “First, you have to tell Seb he’s a terrible friend for forgetting to buy you flowers.”I glared at him, then looked at Sebastian, then looked back at Wesley. I held the four bouquets out and Nolan took them from me with a small laugh and a shake of his head and a smirk at Wesley.I stalked closer to Wes, watching as his face went from teasing to nervous.“You know, that’s not really your color, Pal,” I murmured, sliding my hands along his chest on top of his light gray suit jacket.“Really?” He quirked a brow and looked down at his suit. “I’ve always gotten compliments when—”“Not the suit color,” I told him, smirking and shaking my head as I leaned closer to him. “Green,” I said pointedly, glancing over my shoulder at Seb for a moment.His brow furrowed, and he looked over at Sebastian and then back down at me. Then the little lightbulb went off over his head and he chuckled, his arm wrapping around my waist, a
HAVEN POVI walked out of the door and into the garden, and right away Maya looped her arm through mine, the bright yellow silk of her gown standing out against the lilac of mine. She had her dark coils smoothed back into a low bun, a rhinestone comb slid snug up against it, and she’d added just enough makeup to her face to give herself a subtle shimmery glow.“I never thought I’d see the day when the wolfketeers would come to the ballet. Voluntarily. And enjoy it,” she said as we walked through the garden under the stars, winding our way through the tables laden with candles, eucalyptus and floral arrangements, and the planters filled with jasmine.“Wait, the what?” I asked, turning to stare at her, a small laugh spilling from my lips. “Did you just call them the ‘wolfketeers’?”She blinked for a second, then pursed her lips and shrugged and said, “Yeah.”“Like the musketeers?”“Yeah. But when we were growing up, they were like a little pack of wolves, always running around the forest
WESLEY POV“Gone? What do you mean, the Wainwrights are gone?” I growled, my nails lengthening to claws and digging into the arms of the chair. Receiving this news after the high from Haven’s premiere and the gala the night before was like a punch to the gut.“I mean gone,” my dad replied, leaning forward and resting his arms on his desk. “House is dark and closed up, and their car is gone. The neighbors haven’t seen them in a few days.”“Okay, but what about their credit card records? Surely those are showing something? CCTV at the airports? Or gas stations?”“Their credit cards show no transactions at all. Their bank records too. They must be using cash that they had saved in their house or something.”“But what about the facial recognition in the CCTV?”“With the limited searching we can do legally, we haven’t found them. It’s likely they didn’t fly though, since their car is gone. I can only assume they took back roads and are using gas stations that are out of our reach.”“Fuck!”
WESLEY POV True to my word, I went to see the ballet every night of Haven’s performance run. Some nights I went alone, other nights I came with one of the guys, or Jack and Shirley, or whoever happened to be interested in attending with me. I leaned against my truck outside of the theater Sunday afternoon waiting for her to come outside, kicking rocks with the toe of my boot while I tried to be patient. All the dancers had to clear out their dressing rooms so everything could be cleaned and readied for the next ballet, and Maya had offered to take all of Haven’s bouquets back to their apartment so I could take her out for a late breakfast. Or “brunch,” as Maya liked to call it. And Haven had a lot of bouquets. Because, one, I had bought her a bouquet of roses for every performance, a different color each night, and two, she had flowers from every single person who knew her and came to see her, as well as some from other admirers of her performance. Was I jealous that people who did
HAVEN POV As much as I hated giving in to Wesley’s bossy requests, my body couldn’t help but listen to him when he told me to rest. I really wanted to protest, to fight back against his stupid request. But the exhaustion I still felt from the two weekends of performances and rehearsals in between finally caught up to me, and before I knew it, I was snoozing in the front seat of his truck, my legs curled up under me and my hand in his. When I opened my eyes again, we were no longer in the mountains surrounded by redwoods. I sat up straighter, blinking, disoriented, as I took in our surroundings. Rolling hills. Small, colorful houses. Beautiful Cypress trees I had only ever seen pictures of when researching California when we wrote to each other as kids. And beyond it all, white sand and the blue ocean stretching out as far as I could see, until it connected with the sky and you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. The beach. He had brought me to the beach. I barely
HAVEN POV Once we had everything we needed, Wesley paid for it all — including the swimsuit I had on under my clothes from earlier — and we made our way onto the sand. He had a giant bag filled with all kinds of supplies, including sunscreen and several very large beach towels, and I had my purse and a straw sun hat I had found right as he was paying for everything. I waffled on it, trying it on in front of the mirror it had been hanging near, and when Wes saw me in it, he pointed at me and said, “Also ring me up for her hat.” Between the time he had left me in my fitting room and I’d met him at the register, he’d changed into his own new swimsuit and a pair of flip-flops, which he kicked off of his feet when we reached the sand. I paused at the spot where the cement ended and the sand began, and took a deep breath to prepare myself for this momentous occasion. Wesley paused his steps to turn and look at me, heaving the bag further up onto his shoulder. I kicked off my birks and be
WESLEY POV Our beach day flew by. Once Haven adjusted to the temperature of the water, she was more than happy to splash around in the water without me holding her. Much to the chagrin of my Lycan. His whimpering and whining after she left the safety of our arms was so insistent it gave me a headache. He kept bugging me to go grab her and keep her close. He was getting attached; she had him wrapped around her finger, and she didn’t even know it. But the pure joy on her face as she experienced the ocean for the first time — well, it forced me to keep my distance and let her just enjoy herself. Seeing her smile like that was worth not having her in my arms for a moment. However, my lycan was thrilled when she’d said she’d had enough of the water and wanted to soak up some sunshine on our towels. She read a magazine she’d picked out at the store, and I worked on some sudoku puzzles, our comfortable silence interspersed with light conversation. I realized how easy it was to just be wi