by Lola Glass
My eyes had only been closed for a few seconds when Arla’s phone rang. She answered it in a hushed whisper before swearing and grabbing my arm.
“We need to go now. Someone told Roman about all the shouting here and now he’s worried you’re hurt. You need to be in wolf form when he finds you so he doesn’t see those.” She gestured at my neck.
“I’m sleeping.” I grumbled.
“Sleep in wolf form. Come on.”
She dragged me out of my bed, but I let her. We were in the elevator when I glanced down and realized I was still wearing the boob stain shirt. And now I was self-conscious about it.
Damn it.
Damn it all.
“Your mom sucks.”
“No kidding.” Arla glared at the elevator. “She’s been trying to set me up with the Washington Alpha since I was sixteen.”
“Marcus? He’s not horrible.”
“Who the hell wants to mate with someone who isn’t horrible? She could at least throw me at someone decent.”
The elevator doors opened on Kyler, whose eyebrows lifted in surprise. Arla stared at him in horror and he had the same expression when he saw the multicolored bruises on my neck.
“Is he with you?” she whisper-yelled.
“Maisy did that?”
“Hold the elevator.” Roman shouted from down the hall somewhere.
“I’ll distract him. Get to the 4th floor.” Arla ordered, dashing out into the hallway. The elevator doors closed on Kyler looking sick to his stomach as he turned to follow her.
A bunch of unmated dudes were getting dressed behind the bush everyone dropped their clothes at—which I’d started thinking of as the naked bush. They all stared at me, and I recognized a few of them from the slip ‘n slide. I saluted them and ducked behind a tree off to the left of the naked bush.
Ditching my clothes at the newly-coined Naked Tree, I swapped my skin for fur and took off. I ran hard and fast, leaving a scent trail that twisted and swirled across the whole floor. The longer it took Roman to follow my trail, the more time he’d have to cool down after whatever Arla did to piss him off for the sake of buying time.
Tired of running, I flopped to the dirt and shut my eyes. Five minutes later, Roman poked me with his nose to wake me up. I growled at him, and he swapped his fur for skin.
“Shift, Henley.” Roman didn’t put any Alpha power into the order, but in wolf form, I wanted to listen to him anyway. I was kneeling on the dirt in the nude a fraction of a second later.
“What the hell?!” I demanded, wrapping an arm around my boobs.
He didn’t hear me. His eyes were glued to my neck, his face turning red and then purple and then a blue-green color that had me worrying he was either going to explode or turn into the Hulk.
“Who hurt you?” He snarled, grabbing my upper arms and pulling me toward him. Though he was pissed, his grip was still gentle.
Somehow, he’d managed to forget that we were both very much naked. The arm covering my boobs was the only thing separating our bodies, not that he’d noticed.
“Henley, I am hanging on by a thread.” Roman’s jaw was clenched. His Alpha power pulsed from him in small shockwaves, each one hitting me in the stomach and making me queasy.
“Control your power.” I choked out. It vanished immediately.
“Who hurt you?” He snarled.
Was he getting even angrier? Shit.
“Can’t remember.” I blurted. It was the first thing that came to my mind.
Not one of my better lies.
“You can’t remember who tried to strangle you?”
Now he looked like he wanted to kill me instead of whoever hurt me.
Progress.
“Nope.” It was an obvious lie but I’d take it to the grave. I wasn’t about to be the reason he killed his own mom, however insane she was.
“Fine.” He pulled my body flush against his, making me all warm and tingly. His skin on my skin felt a hell of a lot like heaven to me.
A girl could get used to that.
Roman pressed his nose to an unbruised part of my throat and inhaled deeply. When he caught his mother’s scent, he roared and spun around, depositing me on my feet before stalking toward the elevator.
“Wait.” I yelled, throwing myself at him to stop him. He didn’t catch me, and I slid partway down the side of his back as my arms and legs struggled to find a hold. Roman didn’t pause, a man on a mission. He didn’t even seem to care that I was hanging naked off his back.
He grabbed a pair of sweats off the dirt and pulled them on. Since I intended to follow him and couldn’t very well do so naked, I went to the tree to find my own clothes. Leaving him alone didn’t bode well for my following him so I pulled on my underwear and made up a distraction.
“Stop staring at my ass, unmated dickwad!” I yelled as I yanked my stained shirt over my head.
Of course, there was no real dickwad nearby that I could see. But I thought it would work anyway.
And what do you know—it did.
Roman was beside me in a flash, looking for someone to slice up with those already-shifted hands of his.
“There’s no dickwad. But you can’t kill your mom.” I grabbed his upper arms.
“She strangled you.” His eyes blazed. I expected him to add something, but it seemed he considered that fact alone enough to warrant her death.
“She gave birth to you.”
“And I’ve spent my entire life being manipulated by her for it. She went too far this time.”
He stalked toward the elevator. I rushed after him.
“She wasn’t trying to kill me, just threaten me. And I provoked her.”
The excuses I tossed his way didn’t stop him, so I threw myself in front of him and grabbed his arms. Stepping up close, I lifted my chin so my hazels collided with his blues.
“Don’t do this, Roman. It’ll only hurt you.”
His eyes darkened and he pulled his arm away, storming into the elevator. Our eyes maintained contact until the doors shut and the light above the elevator began moving up.
Most of me wanted to turn tail and run back into the man-made forest, hiding out in wolf form. But a tiny, guilty sliver of my conscience had me watch until the elevator stopped on the fourteenth floor and then started back down.
I went back for the rest of my clothes and got dressed completely before heading up to the same floor Roman had gotten off on.
Loud shouting practically shook the entire floor. Kyler stood outside the door to the left of the elevator, his arms folded as he leaned back against the wall wearing a deep grimace.
“Why do you look like you’ve done this before?” I strolled over to him, wearing my stained top with confidence. If people judged me for it, that was their problem.
“Because Ellis family drama is nothing new.” His eyes lifted to the sky. “One of these days they’re finally going to kill each other or split apart for good.”
Since I could hear the yelling and it didn’t sound like Roman was ripping anyone’s head off, I leaned up against the wall next to Kyler.
“Roman seemed pretty set on option one a few minutes ago.”
“Arla helped him see the light. They’re used to dealing with each other when it comes to their parents.” He nodded toward the apartment door.
It was ridiculous, but I was a bit self-conscious that she’d been able to chill him out when I hadn’t.
Why did I want to be the person he turned to, the one he needed to calm him down? And why did it upset me that I wasn’t?
My stomach churned.
What was I doing? Roman and I weren’t together. I didn’t belong in front of his parents’ apartment during his family’s civil war, regardless of me being the reason for the argument.
“I need to get ready for work.” I told Kyler, leaving without waiting for an answer. My shift wasn’t for a couple hours so it wasn’t a good excuse, but at least it wasn’t a lie.
Sometimes I got tired of lyin
g to people. Whatever tiny bit of hope still lived in me wanted to believe that eventually, I’d find people who actually want to know my truth.
FOURTEEN
I tried and failed to go back to sleep after the conversation in the hall with Kyler, so I spent the morning doing what I’d told him—getting ready. I curled my hair with the iron someone had left in my bathroom and put on the foundation and eyeshadow I’d picked up when I first got my job but had been too lazy to actually wear.
After I finished my makeup, I decided my hair looked shitty and threw it all up in a high ponytail. The thick scarf I added to my outfit was purely to hide the bruises on my neck.
London and Gunner had been banned from the nightclub by Kyler and Roman, so my entourage had been reduced to just Jamie and whichever two guys were on the rotation. Oliver was one of them more often than not.
“Aren’t you bored of sitting here for hours every day?” I asked Jamie, sweeping my rag up and down the bartop. She shrugged.
“Not really. I like it here.”
A guy called me over and asked for a complex drink I hadn’t made in years. After I checked with him to make sure it still consisted of what I thought it did, I stepped back behind the bar and mixed it up. It took a couple minutes to gather everything and get the drink made, but when I handed it over I was pretty proud. That thing was a freakin masterpiece.
“What was in that one?”
I started listing the ingredients and then paused. Jamie and I had this conversation almost every time someone asked for a drink we hadn’t already dissected.
“You know what? Come on, I’ll show you.” I gestured for her to come behind the bar. Her cheeks reddened.
“Oh, that’s okay.” She shook her head.
“Why not? You obviously want to learn.”
She glanced back and Oliver and then bit her lip.
“Worried your mate will think it’s silly? You guys are barely friends. If he says bartending is stupid, tell him to suck it.”
Jamie laughed, though she still looked embarrassed.
“Alright, I’m coming.”
She came behind the bar and I walked her through the process of making the drink. The next time a customer came up, she took the girl’s order and with my help, made the drink.
We went on like that for hours. It made my shift a lot more entertaining, and Jamie had this glow in her eyes that I’d never seen from her before.
An hour before the end of my shift, a cute human guy in his twenties came strolling up to the bar. I say cute because although most girls would call him hot, he looked like a puppy compared to Roman.
Who I really needed to stop comparing all men to.
“Two beautiful women working the bar? I should come here more often.” The guy slid onto the stool. In a crisp white button-down with a navy suit and tie, he looked expensive. Jamie laughed. I bit back an eye-roll. She hadn’t spent enough time in nightclubs to know that was just how rich human men talked when they wanted to get in a girl’s pants.
“What can we get you?” She smiled.
“Whiskey sour.”
“Coming right up.” She winked and followed me down the bar a bit.
“Too friendly.” I shook my head at her. “If you treat all the guys like that, they’re going to think you want to sleep with them.”
She scoffed.
“People tip more when you’re friendlier.”
“False.” I said. She mixed the whiskey sour and brought it to the guy, giving him a big bright smile before coming back over to me.
“Alright, let’s have a contest. We’ll do half the customers your way and half mine and see who leaves with the most tips.” She paused. “You’ll have to make most of the drinks though.”
“What are we betting?”
A slow smirk twisted her lips.
“Loser walks home her bra and underwear.”
Devious. I liked it.
“Who says I’m wearing a bra?” I kept a straight face.
“Your boobs.”
We both lost it and laughed so hard our eyes watered.
“You’re on.” Another guy came up to the bar. “Watch and learn, rich girl.”
I pasted my best bored-face on and swept over to the stool he’d claimed.
“Bourbon on the rocks, please.” He held out a twenty.
“Sure.” I was careful to take the money with my wonky knuckles in his view.
“Whoa, what happened to your hand?”
I shrugged.
“Punched a rapist in the face and couldn’t afford the hospital bill.” I left him with that and got his drink, feeling his eyes on me. When I brought the drink back, he threw it down quickly and handed me a fifty.
“One more?”
“Sure you don’t want two?” my lips curled upward and the dude grinned. He opened his wallet and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. “Why not?”
I saluted him with his money and went to grab his drinks.
“Did you just make a hundred and twenty dollars off one dude?” Jamie gawked at me as I slid the bills in my bra.
“Nope.”
She relaxed.
“I made one-twenty-five off one dude.”
Her eyes practically popped out of her head.
“How?”
“I made him care.” I tightened my curly ponytail. “That’s how you make the big bucks in a crowd of rich people. They don’t need the money; make them care enough to give it to you.”
“Show me.”
I sashayed to the uptight-looking woman who’d walked up to the bar. It was rare for me to make extra money off of women; I’d really have to try, and I didn’t often bother.
“Can I get three shots of vodka?” She sat in a stool and pulled her hair out of its tight ponytail, shaking it out as I left to get the drinks. People doing shots alone at night were typically looking to escape. I could definitely relate to that.
While I poured the shots, she watched silently.
“Long day?” I kept my voice casual and my face neutral.
“Long year.” She threw two of the shots back and made a face. “Man, I hate alcohol.”
I lifted an eyebrow and waited for her explanation.
“My husband has been trying to talk me into a divorce for the last year. I convinced him to try therapy. Felt like things were getting better until I found him having sex with his receptionist on my couch an hour ago.”
“Damn. I’ve got a crowbar in the back if you want to borrow it.” I gestured over my shoulder.
“Might take you up on that.” She drank the last shot. “The worst part is that I actually fell back in love with him.”
“I get it. I finally started considering letting a guy into my heart for the first time in my life and realized I’m not enough for him. Wish there was a way not to care.”
“Men are the worst.” She dropped her head in her hands and groaned. “What am I going to do?”
On a whim, I grabbed the bottle of vodka and two new shot glasses, filling them both.
“Tonight you’re going to drink. You can worry about tomorrow when it comes.”
“That shot’s for you, right?” she gestured to the second one.
“Nah, alcohol makes me mean. But five shots will put you in the right mindset; take my word for it.”
She grabbed the shots and clinked the glasses together before drinking them both, one right after the other.
“You’re the best bartender I’ve ever had.” She already was starting to sound drunk.
“You rarely drink.”
“So?”
With a chuckle and a shake of my head, I made my way back to Jamie, who was struggling with a cocktail shaker. I helped her with a couple more customers, our competition the last thing on my mind. After seeing that woman’s heartbreak and realizing that I’d actually started caring about Roman, all I wanted to do was lock myself in the bathroom with an entire bottle of cheap vodka.
“Roman told you you’re not enough for him?�
� Jamie asked when the crowd slowed for a second.
“I don’t want to talk about this.” I went to help the next customer and noticed my Alpha leaning over the table the male enforcers were seated at.
Since when did he hang out here?
“Need a shot to loosen your tongue?” Jamie wiggled the bottle of tequila in her hand.
“If I drink with you, we won’t be friends afterward.”
We separated to take orders, and then Jamie delivered the first drink while I made the second.
Roman strolled up to the bar, leaning his forearms on the granite. His eyes tracked me until I acknowledged him.
“What’s your drink?” I pushed a curl off my shoulder, rocking a cocktail shaker in my other hand. “Wait, don’t tell me. It’s—”
“I don’t drink.” He interrupted. I lifted an eyebrow.
“Since when?”
“Since my dad and grandpa become abusive assholes with alcohol in their system and I’m not willing to risk turning out like them.”
I stopped shaking.
“When the hell did I say you’re not enough for me?” his eyes were narrow, pissed and offended at the same time.
“Is that done?” Jamie rushed over and reached for the cocktail shaker. I moved it from her grasp and gave it a few more hard shakes before handing it over.
“I can’t talk now.” I told Roman, glancing out at the crowd. It was a weekday, but there were still too many people for Jamie and the other bartender to take care of alone considering Jamie could only pour shots and mix like three drinks. “I’m off in an hour. I’ll meet you at my apartment.”
Roman didn’t get up.
“I’ll wait.”
“You’re going to wait at a bar without drinking?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“For you, yes.”
I grabbed him a glass of water.
“Don’t glare at dudes who flirt with me. I want their money.”
I headed back to Jamie, who was pouring shots and making a mess of it.
“These count on my tip-tab.” She pointed to the drinks. It took me a minute to remember the bet.
“Oh, whatever. I’ve got this in the bag.” I said.
Jamie laughed.
“Prepare to walk home in your underwear, pinky.”
