by Roxie Noir
Fuck.
There was a note on the table, and Calder finally saw it when he put his glass down.
You have a suit in the closet. Box labeled SUIT.
For the first time, Calder looked at the clock. Almost eleven in the morning.
Something else in his brain clicked.
I think I was supposed to be there an hour ago. In a suit.
By eleven-fifteen, Calder was showered and dressed in the suit, the tie haphazardly draped around his neck. The suit still fit, even though it was about eight years old, and as Calder looked in the bathroom mirror, he remembered what Sam had said:
You look exactly the same.
Calder swallowed. He felt like someone had taken out his eyes, stuffed cotton into the sockets, and put them back in. Every heartbeat thundered through his head.
Sam was right, though. He was the same.
With the terrible clarity of the hungover, Calder stared into the mirror at his pale face with bloodshot eyes, and realized the truth: that he’d substituted motion for change. He’d gone to a new place every month, every week, but there was no way he was ever going to escape himself.
“Shit,” he muttered at his reflection.
It was the worst possible goddamn time to have this sudden insight, when he was shattered and hungover and late as hell to his sister’s wedding to boot.
Then he went to the kitchen, found Sam’s land line, and dialed the only number he could remember: his parents’.
After three rings, a strange voice answered.
“Waltz residence,” the man said.
“Yeah, hi, this is Calder,” he said.
“Where are you?” the man said. Calder was pretty sure it was one of Ingrid’s mates.
“Someone’s house,” Calder said, not sure what else to say.
“What’s the address? I’m coming to get you.”
“8503 Sawgrass Road,” he said. “It’s a long driveway and the house is at the end. And, uh, thanks.”
“See you in fifteen,” the man said, and hung up.
When the car drove up, Calder was sitting on the front porch steps, not far from where he’d stood when Sam found him. He didn’t have shoes, but hoped that someone had rescued his from the parking lot the night before.
Sam still hadn’t come back. Calder wished he would but he knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on. At least Sam had given him the suit.
The sedan pulled up and Calder got into the passenger side. The driver looked faintly amused, and looked at the house before pulling away.
“Thanks for the ride,” Calder said.
The guy laughed.
“I got stationed at your parents’ house to wait for your call,” he said. “Ingrid and Greta figured either you’d show up at the wedding or call, and your phone was in the pocket of the jacket you left in the parking lot. They figured your parents’ house would be the only number you’d know.”
“Ah,” Calder said. “How late am I?”
“It’s not too dire,” Ingrid’s mate said.
“Is Greta pissed?”
The guy laughed.
“It’s Greta’s wedding day,” he said. “Of course not. I’m not sure she remembers you exist.”
Right, Calder thought.
Chapter Seven
Annika
Annika got to the venue early. She didn’t need to — after all, the wedding wasn’t for a couple of hours, and dessert wasn’t until that night — but it was her first job and she wanted to make sure everything got done right.
Doing everything right took about an hour, and then there was nothing to do.
Greta and her mates had rented out a big gold rush era mansion, currently owned by the Ponderosa County Historical Society, and so Annika decided to take a walk around the grounds, just to have something to do before the ceremony.
As she turned the corner to the front of the house, admiring the roses, a car pulled up.
A barefoot Calder got out, holding an empty Gatorade bottle in one hand, his tie completely undone. He saw Annika and waved.
“You seen Greta?” he asked. The car left for the parking lot.
“She’s in her dressing room,” Annika said.
Calder looked at the big house.
“Where is that?” he asked, as Annika walked closer. From a dozen feet away, she could see his bloodshot eyes and the circles underneath them.
Then he turned his head, and she spotted one of the biggest, darkest hickies she’d ever seen on his neck.
Her stomach sank.
I guess he found someone else after I left last night, she thought. She made herself keep her head up, though.
It just proves I made the right decision. No more projects.
Just nice, normal guys who have their shit together.
She was still disappointed.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
Annika heard Greta laughing from down the hall, and the sound made her smile. She knocked on the door and stuck her head in.
“I found Calder,” she said.
Greta sighed.
“All right, let him in,” she said. “Let’s see the damage.”
Annika turned and looked at Calder in the hallway, where he leaned against the wall. He screamed disheveled sex appeal, even with no shoes, and Annika hated herself for it.
“You’re in,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said with a quick smile.
Annika stepped back and Calder went through the door.
“Jesus tap-dancing Christ, Calder,” Annika heard Greta say.
She started to walk away, and then the door opened again and one of Greta’s bridesmaids poked her head out.
“You want some champagne?” the girl asked. “We’ve got like ten bottles in here and the ceremony’s not for another two hours.”
“I’m at work,” Annika pointed out.
“You’re not at work for hours,” Greta called. “Come have a glass.”
Annika shrugged, then went into the dressing room. She accepted a glass, then sat on a couch under a window, watching everything happen. Another bridesmaid sat next to her and introduced herself as Jessica.
From the corner of her eye, Annika watched Ingrid deal with Calder. Calder kept looking at her, and Annika kept trying to pretend that she wasn’t watching him.
“You at least showered, right?” Ingrid asked.
“Yes, I showered,” Calder said.
“Where were you?” she asked. “Michael said he had to pick you up at some cabin in the mountains.”
“It’s a long story,” Calder said.
“You have a hickey the size of Wyoming,” Ingrid said, her voice dropping.
Calder’s face dropped, and inexplicably, Annika nearly laughed.
“I do?”
Ingrid stared at it, biting her lip and thinking for a moment.
“I’ve got foundation,” she said at last. “Take your shirt off.”
“But there’s ladies around,” Calder said.
The look she gave him could have cut glass, and Calder obediently took off his jacket, shirt, and undershirt.
Annika stared pointedly at the floor, sipping at her champagne.
“So,” she said to Jessica. “What do you do?”
“I teach high school math,” Jessica said. She also seemed to be pointedly looking at the floor. “Mostly algebra and pre-calc, though sometimes the other stuff. You?”
“I own a bakery,” Annika said.
She sneaked a peek at Calder.
The man had abs for days.
“You made the cake!” Jessica said. “Greta raves about your baking.”
“Thanks!” said Annika.
Another sneak peek.
He was jacked, and just standing there as Ingrid dabbed concealer onto his neck.
“Did you fuck a vacuum cleaner?” Annika could hear her mutter.
Calder didn’t answer, and Annika looked back at the floor.
“He’s a look, don’t tou
ch, kind of situation,” Jessica confided.
“Calder?” Annika asked.
She peeked again, but this time he was looking, so she looked away.
Jessica nodded.
“I heard,” Annika said.
“The looking is good, though,” Jessica said.
“No kidding,” said Annika. “It’s like a bad cliché: the brother who shows up hungover to the wedding, all devil-may-care.”
“I think he even rides a motorcycle,” said Jessica.
Annika laughed.
“Of course he does,” she said, feeling a little better about everything.
“I think one of the men has your shoes,” Ingrid was saying to Calder, still dabbing away. “After you left them in the parking lot.”
“Got my phone, too?” Calder asked.
“Probably,” said Ingrid. There was a long pause as she reviewed her handiwork. “It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough,” she said, capping the bottle. “You ever going to tell us where you went last night?”
Calder didn’t say anything.
“Or do we just have to guess?” she said quietly.
“It’s better if you don’t,” Calder said.
“Where’d you get the suit? It looks familiar.”
“Come on, Ingrid.”
Annika drained her champagne glass and stood.
“I should go,” she told Jessica. “Nice meeting you.”
The wedding went by in a flash, the way weddings do: everyone smiled and laughed and cried. Then they took pictures and got drunk and danced.
In the kitchen, plating a million cookies, Annika and Scarlet could hear the beat coming through the walls.
“What happened with Calder last night?” Scarlet asked. She placed two shortbread surprises just so, overlapping on the plate.
“Nothing,” Annika said.
“Nothing?”
Annika shook her head.
“He was super drunk,” she said. “It was tempting.”
“But?”
“But no more sleeping with guys who need to be fixed,” Annika said. “I don’t need another project.”
“I was a project,” Scarlet said.
“That’s different,” Annika said. Scarlet just shrugged.
“He found someone else, anyway,” Annika said. “There’s a giant hickey on his neck, so he got some from somewhere.”
Scarlet didn’t say anything, just looked very, very thoughtful.
“You said someone picked him up from a cabin in the woods?” she said.
“I think so,” Annika said.
“Sam lives in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.”
“Oh,” said Annika. She stared at the cookies, blinking. “I guess that’s better than some random girl.”
“You told him to get his shit together,” Scarlet said.
“So he goes and fucks his ex? That’s not what I meant.”
Scarlet just laughed, and Annika looked at her, confused.
“You’re thinking in twos,” Scarlet said, her eyes dancing. “This is shifter country.”
She grinned. Annika turned deep red, and Scarlet grabbed two plates full of cookies.
“I cannot date two men at once,” Annika whispered.
“Never say never,” said Scarlet.
She stepped closer to Annika and whispered into her ear.
“And if you really feel that way, try not to imagine Calder and my hot boss Sam naked together,” she said.
Then she was through the kitchen doors, carrying cookies into the reception.
She could barely look at Calder for the rest of the night without thinking of Scarlet’s suggestion, which inevitably made her forget what she was saying and nearly drop plates.
I don’t even know Sam, she thought. I talked to him once and thought he was hot.
For that matter, I don’t know Calder either, other than they’re both projects.
It was late when she was finally finished carrying all her equipment to her van, and the wedding was mostly over. Annika took one last, long look in the back of her bakery van, then slammed the doors shut.
“Annie,” said a voice behind her, and she whirled around.
“That’s not my name,” she said.
“Sorry,” Calder said. He walked out of the brightly lit house and into the dim parking lot. His tie was undone and he was holding an almost-empty whiskey glass in one hand, his shirt untucked.
Cliché, Annika reminded herself.
It didn’t matter. He was still fucking hot.
“I heard they’re opening up the Tooth and Claw for an after party,” he said.
“Are you propositioning me again?” she asked.
“What would you say if I were?”
“I’d say you’re drunk again, and you’re leaving Rustvale tomorrow, and I stopped involving myself with men who disappear a long time ago,” she said.
Not that I don’t want to see you naked, she thought.
“What if I don’t leave?” he asked.
“I’ve heard that one before,” Annika said.
He drained his whiskey, then put the empty glass on top of an AC unit. Annika frowned at it, but didn’t say anything.
“You saw Sam last night,” she said.
Calder frowned, then laughed, then shook his head.
“Does everyone know?” he asked. “Is it the giant hickey?”
“I don’t think everyone knows,” Annika said. “But people can put two and two together. Scarlet figured it out and told me.”
“Right,” said Calder. “Yeah, I went and saw Sam. And when I woke up he was gone, and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I deserve.”
Annika sat down on the back bumper of her bakery van and patted the space next to her. Calder came over and sat down.
“I’m not really sure why I’m talking to you about your ex-boyfriend,” she said. “But did you tell him how you feel?”
“How come you’re not sure?” Calder asked. “You jealous?”
“We’re not talking about me,” said Annika.
“I didn’t tell him, no,” Calder said. “I got dead drunk and then I ran miles through the woods and tore tooth holes in my only suit, only to show up on his doorstep with no idea what the fuck I was going to do if he actually answered his door.”
“And he answered it.”
“Yeah,” Calder said. “He answered it, and I was drunk and horny, and we talked exactly enough to figure out that we’re both single, and then I got this hickey.”
Annika raised both her eyebrows and swallowed. She tried not to think of Calder and Sam, both naked, Sam’s mouth on Calder’s neck.
“And then he was gone in the morning,” he said. He turned and faced her, his eyes searching hers. “You jealous now?” he asked softly.
“No,” Annika said. “Do you want me to be?”
Calder moved closer and put one hand under her chin. Annika let it happen, the rough skin on the pads of his fingers tickling her.
“Not at all,” he said.
Then he kissed her, and his lips were soft and warm and surprisingly gentle. Annika knew she should back away, but instead she found herself leaning into him, her hand coming up to cup Calder’s cheek as she moved her mouth against his.
Instead of deepening the kiss, he pulled away. His hand was still on her chin.
“You’ve never been with a shifter before,” he said.
“You can tell?”
“You called him my ex-boyfriend, for starters.”
“So my terminology is wrong.”
Calder ran a thumb along her cheekbone.
“I don’t want you to start something with me that you can’t finish,” he said. “For my sake.”
Annika laughed and stood from the bumper of her van.
“Calder,” she said. “When I’ve started something with you, you’ll know. Fix your shit.”
He leaned against the van’s closed doors and looked at her.
“Okay,” he said.
&nbs
p; Chapter Eight
Sam
Sam knew that it hadn’t been fair of him to leave before Calder woke up, but he’d done it anyway.
It wasn’t that he wanted petty revenge, or that he thought that Calder deserved it. Deep down, he knew he was afraid of what Calder was going to do, going to say sober. He didn’t want to hear the other man say that it had just been a drunk fuck. He didn’t want to hear Calder stumble over apologies, or say he never should have come, or call it a mistake.
So he shifted early in the morning and stayed shifted until late that night, running through the forest in wolf form, hoping against hope that Calder would be at his house again when he got back.
He wasn’t, of course. He was at his sister’s wedding, and Sam knew that he probably had something wedding-related to do afterwards. It hadn’t stopped Sam from hoping to see Calder again. Anything to get his mind off of whether Calder was leaving Sunday, the moment the wedding was over and he was free to go again.
I don’t even know where to find him, Sam thought, lying in his bed early Sunday morning. Is he staying with his parents? At Greta’s house? Somewhere else? Is he gone already?
And then, the question he hated himself for asking: that wasn’t just a drunk fuck, right?
He split his day between wolf time, cleaning the cabin, and trying to think of something else he could do to get his mind off things.
Around eight, Scarlet texted.
Calder’s at the Tooth & Claw, it said.
Sam frowned. Why the hell was Scarlet texting him Calder’s location?
And? he texted back.
It was a little while before she texted back.
He has the biggest hickey I’ve ever seen. The rumor mill says he’s upset that you took off before he woke up yesterday.
Sam blinked. What the hell?
He and Scarlet rarely talked about their personal lives. Hell, they didn’t talk that much at all; they tended to work together in a peaceful, quiet camaraderie, and Sam liked it that way. He wasn’t surprised that she knew his backstory with Calder and Marie, since that was common knowledge, but he hadn’t known that she had opinions about it.
There’s a rumor mill? he texted.
