“Are you okay?” Noah asked in lieu of a greeting. I was fairly sure he was talking to Aubrey, but his gaze was on me.
“Yeah,” she said.
“She and Killer sorted things out.” I crossed my arms. It wasn’t that he was a bad guy. He was still my friend, and I wanted to sort out my lingering anger with him, but I also wanted him not to screw up the good thing that Aubrey had found with Killer. I leveled my best glare on Noah and warned him, “And you best not be stirring up trouble.”
Then I linked my arm with Aubrey’s, led her around him, and headed toward the front door. I opened it with a jerk, and I led her past the hostess stand and to a booth. I’d been coming here too long to bother waiting to be seated. None of the regulars did.
When I looked up to see Noah headed toward us a few moments later, it took far too much effort not to get ugly. I didn’t want to fight with him, but he was so willfully obtuse sometimes that I couldn’t help myself either. Aubrey was none of his business, and she wasn’t going to speak freely with him there. He had to know that.
Noah slid in beside me just as the waitress came and handed us two menus.
“Sorry, I can bring another one,” she said.
“Nah, I’ll share.” Noah scooted closer to me, using the menu as an excuse to move in far too near me.
Once the waitress turned away, I glared at Noah again and slid the menu toward him. “Here. I don’t need it.”
He leaned back and draped his arm over my shoulder. “Me either.”
He grinned and didn’t move away. It stung, the way he was being casual and easy when I was realizing how unhealthy we’d been for years. Then he added, “Burger, fries, strawberry shake . . . and onion rings unless you’re free for a ride.”
I flipped him off, but I said nothing. My temper was burning to burst out. I wasn’t going to repeat this same pattern that we’d been locked in. I knew it wasn’t fair of me to expect him to have an epiphany just because I did, but my temper wasn’t sparked just by that. Even if I hadn’t realized what a fucked-up mess we’d made of things, I would be angry at his casual attitude right now.
“How did you know where we were?” Aubrey asked Noah, drawing me out of my thoughts.
“Miss Bitty.”
“My mama,” I interjected.
“Right.” Aubrey frowned in confusion. “But we just decided to come here.”
Noah laughed. “You were upset. That means Ellen would bring you here. Comfort food. It’s how the South works.”
Despite myself, I smiled. When he was sweet like that, I remembered the boy who had been my friend. He was the one who took me to buy tampons the first time because I didn’t want to have a “you’re a woman now” conversation with my mother. Back then, every milestone led to tears and wishes that my father was there. The idea that my father would want to hear about my first period was ludicrous, but my mother had put him up on a pedestal at that point, so she didn’t hear a lot of logic. Noah Dash was my best friend—and now we were acting like strangers.
And I didn’t know how to get us back to being friends.
By the time we ordered, I felt less tense. Aside from that brief moment, Noah was acting like himself, seeming like my friend again. I looked at Aubrey and pointed at her. In a faux serious voice, I warned her, “There will be spilling of secrets. Don’t think this reprieve means I’m letting it go.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
Noah laughed. “Someone else unwilling to face your wrath. Smart move, Aubrey. Smart move.”
I flipped him off in reply. Rather than take the hint, Noah hauled me closer and tried to kiss my cheek. It was a step too far.
I shoved him away so hard that I almost slid out of the booth.
Noah scowled. “What the fuck was that?”
“You’re pretty, but . . .” I shrugged, trying to make it a joke.
I really didn’t want to have this conversation, not here, and not in front of Aubrey. She had no idea that we had a history, and I wanted to keep it that way. For the first time in all the years of secrecy, I was the one who didn’t want to tell anyone about what we used to be. It was a sad sort of funny that I now wanted the exact opposite of what I had wanted, but I saw no need to talk about what we no longer were. Doing that would only cause pain. It was precisely what I didn’t want.
“I’m pretty but what?” Noah sounded genuinely hurt as he echoed my words, and I hated that my heart ached. I didn’t want this. What I wanted was to shove it all into the past and try to be friends. What I wanted was to make it crystal clear to both Noah and Alamo that I was single, and that I was not going to go backward. I was working on the future, and dwelling in the past was useful only in that it made clear what I didn’t want.
Instead of looking at Noah, I shrugged again, took a sip of soda, and said lightly, “Let it go, Noah.”
“Ellie—”
“Drop it.” I elbowed him. I looked at Aubrey. “He’s just jealous because I’m not interested.”
Noah’s snort was his only reply, but his body grew tense.
“Poor babe’s been pining for me since we were . . . what?”—I glanced at Noah and tried again to sound lighter—“ten years old?”
“Only because everyone else was afraid of your temper,” he teased back with a little smile. “Seriously, Aubrey, she was the scariest kid ever. Even Killer was afraid of her.”
“Respect, not fear,” I corrected. I took another drink and looked back at him. I met his gaze and said, “Unless you want to start a fight, Noah Eli Dash, you best be minding that tongue of yours. I’m still in possession of that temper.”
He stared at me for a long moment before saying, “I haven’t forgot anything, Ellie Belly.”
“Ellen,” I corrected tersely.
Something in my tone must’ve been revealing because Aubrey kicked me under the table and said, “So Ellen and I went to the movies . . .”
He looked at Aubrey, and the conversation shifted to an intentionally innocuous topic. I almost wanted to interrupt him on more than one occasion and ask him to notice how much better we were as friends, but there was no way to do that until Aubrey wasn’t at the table.
I got my chance about twenty minutes later when she went to the ladies’ room.
Pitching my voice low enough that no one would overhear me, I asked, “What are you thinking?”
“What?”
“We split, Noah.”
“We were never together,” he corrected, almost automatically.
My temper spiked, and I kept myself from shoving him by sheer willpower. “Well, whatever we were, it won’t be happening again, so mind the space a bit.”
He frowned at me. “What did I do that you’re so mad?”
I sighed at the sheer immensity of his cluelessness. “I’m not mad, Noah. I just don’t want you to get in my space or make cracks about being with you. Everyone else might think you’re just being flirty, but I know you.”
“So saying I want to see you is wrong now? I thought you weren’t mad. That sounds a lot like mad.” His voice was going as rough-edged as I felt. “I’m trying to figure this out, Ellie, but you’re not making it easy.”
“There’s nothing to figure out.” I met and held his gaze. “Let it go. I’m done. I’ve been done. We’re done.”
This time he sighed. “Well, when you feel like telling me what I did, let me know. I want things to be right with us again.”
My anger fled like he’d just dowsed it with ice water. “I do too, but the right I want is us being friends.”
“Me too,” he started.
“No,” I corrected. “Friends, Noah. Not what we were. Just friends.”
Then Aubrey started toward us, and I said, “Drop it.”
He frowned again, but by the time Aubrey slid into the booth, he looked like he had when she left. I was grateful for that, at least. The rest would get sorted out in time. Either he’d believe me eventually or he’d have no choice but to believe me once I was s
eeing someone else. I’d prefer that he accepted the truth before I started dating anyone, but if I got a shot at getting past Alamo’s walls, I was going to take it and damn the consequences.
Chapter 10
A FEW DAYS LATER, MY OWN DRAMA WAS THE LAST THING on my mind. I was standing in my laundry room, a pair of jeans in my hand, and singing loud enough that Mama had opened her bedroom door. She was still tiptoeing around me about it, but she and I both knew that I was becoming increasingly comfortable with it.
I got a call from Killer’s number. We weren’t much on phone calls. In fact I couldn’t remember the last time he’d just up and called me. “Killer?”
“No, it’s me,” Noah said.
I felt the jeans fall to the floor, vaguely hearing the thump as they landed on the ground. I didn’t even need to ask to know something was wrong. I could hear it in Noah’s voice, and there weren’t a lot of reasons Killer would surrender his phone.
“Is he . . .”
“He’s okay, Ellie.” Noah sounded as rough as I suddenly felt. “He’s going to be okay, at least. Unconscious still, but the surgery went—”
“Surgery?”
“He was shot,” Noah said.
The simple words made me shake. There were things that were a reality in our world. Getting shot or arrested was always a risk, especially for Killer. It was why I was grateful that Noah hadn’t been patched into the club when Killer had been.
“What happened? I thought he was getting out and—”
“Not work. There was a break-in at Aubrey’s place.” Noah explained the whole mess, and all I could think was that everyone was lucky that Killer was going to be okay, especially when Noah added, “And Echo’s openly admitting he’s Killer’s dad. He’s here, and so are Aubrey and Mrs. Evans.”
“Yeah? That’s something, right?”
Mama walked in and looked at me. I guessed that my lack of singing was a big whopping clue that something was wrong, but my voice carried enough that she knew to come check on me.
Her arms wrapped around me as Noah said, “Apparently, he and Echo sorted that out earlier, and then . . . this.”
I closed my eyes and leaned against my mother. “Killer’s okay, though. You promise?”
“Yeah. Pinkie swear.”
I nodded, even though Noah obviously couldn’t see me. Then I added, “You be careful, too.”
“They arrested the guys who—”
“Just say yes, Noah. You two have been my best friends forever. No matter what we are now, you’re my friends. Tell Killer I love him . . . and you.”
“Ellie—”
“Not that sort of love, Noah. Not for either of you. Friend love. ‘I’d be crushed if you died’ love. That’s all.” I felt tears on my cheeks, and all I could think about was the last time the phone rang with bad news. Then it was my father. It was me holding Mama as she crumbled. It was the end of normal.
“I’ll tell him,” Noah promised. “We care about you too, Ellie Belly. I know Killer does, and I . . . I miss us being friends.”
I nodded again, but all I could say was, “Be safe.”
Then I disconnected and told Mama, “Killer was shot, but he’s okay.”
My mother straightened up and looked me in the eye. “I’ll call Dar and see what Echo needs. We’ll look in on that schoolteacher of Echo’s too.”
“They’re all at the hospital.” I rested my forehead on her shoulder for a minute. “He’s okay. Killer’s okay. He could’ve . . .”
Mama stroked my hair. “Hush, now.”
Tears were streaming down my face. I didn’t want to mention my father, didn’t want to think about that horrible night—or any of the ones that followed. If not for Echo, I don’t know that my mother would’ve known how to get back on her feet. He wasn’t all handkerchiefs and soft words. He’d given her a couple of days, but then he was . . . tough. I remember him telling her to get it together. I remember him telling me to call and check in with him or Uncle Karl every other day, and then eventually it was every week.
Right now, the man who had pulled us to our feet was hurting. His son—my friend—was hurting. My ex and my only female friend were both hurting too. I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to do something.
“How do I . . . what do I do?” I asked Mama.
She kissed my forehead. “You come into the kitchen with me, and we make a few dishes to put in Killer’s fridge. We call the other wives and daughters, and we make sure that they know, so everyone’s Wolf is taken care of. Then we look after those that don’t have old ladies or daughters.”
I straightened and stepped back. I knew how to do this. Wolf families don’t falter. We were tougher than that. I was tougher than this. “Right.”
We walked to the kitchen, and Mama went to the table with her phone. Mine rang again. It felt surreal, but having a focus was all that I had to keep me from crying.
She looked at me and motioned me to go. “Take it in the parlor.”
I wasn’t even through the doorway when I heard her say, “Dar? It’s Bitty.”
“Hello?” I answered.
“Did someone tell you?” Alamo asked by way of greeting. “He’s okay. The surgeon said he’d be a hundred percent fine.”
“Yeah.” I smiled at the fact that he’d opened with reassurances. “Noah called.”
There was a pause, and then Alamo added, “I know you three grew up together. Do you want to come over? I can fetch you or send someone or . . . I don’t think Dash ought to be driving. He’s shaky, and Echo’s keeping him near.”
I laughed despite myself. Echo wasn’t going to let Dash too far out of sight, as rattled as he must be, but that wasn’t something that was my place to point out. The family background was complicated. Dash wasn’t Echo’s kid. Neither was I. That didn’t stop Echo from paying a fair bit of attention to us, as well as to his actual son.
“Ellen?”
“I’m guessing there’s a pack of Wolves there,” I said mildly.
“No reason you can’t be here if you want to. I’ll tell Echo myself if you want,” Alamo offered.
I could hear the sounds of the hospital PA system in the background. I didn’t want to be there, not right now. “It wouldn’t do Killer any good for me to be there,” I said. “I’d only be coming to make myself feel better . . . You’ll call me though if anything changes, right? I mean, maybe I should—”
“He’s fine,” Alamo stressed. “But I can call or text updates. Hell, I can take his picture and text it.”
My tears made my eyes blur. “I’m sorry. I just . . . he’s not supposed to get shot. The last time someone did . . . he died.”
Just then I couldn’t make myself say who that was. I couldn’t think about my father dying. All I could do was remind myself that I’d had two separate people verify that Killer was going to be okay.
“How about I come get you tomorrow as soon as you’re up to it? I’ll tell Killer’s old lady that you’re coming. Maybe she’ll go home for a nap if you’re here.” Alamo sounded like he knew exactly the right things to do, and I had to wonder what sort of crisis sent him out of North Carolina that he was so damn calm.
“Is eight too early?”
“I’ll be there or send someone else if you want. Just tell me what you need, darlin’.”
“A ride to see Zion,” I said. “Eight a.m.”
“I’ll be there,” Alamo promised.
The next few hours were a blur. Mama and I cooked and talked. She talked mostly about the early days of marriage, about Daddy singing in the house, but neither of us mentioned the long-ago night when the phone call about a shooting was about him.
I sang. It didn’t fix anything, not truly, but it made me feel better. Maybe part of that was because it made Mama feel better too.
“So Dash and Alejandro both called?” she asked mildly about an hour into our marathon cooking session. We were done with a pair of casseroles and had started to prep lasagna.
“I’
m not dating either one of them.” I stared down at the noodles I was rinsing.
“Riding with them?”
There was something awkward, even at my age, at having my mother bluntly ask if I was having sex with two different men. “Noah and I used to, but . . . we’re better as friends.”
“Your decision or his?”
I looked up and met her gaze so there was no doubt as to my truthfulness. “Mine.”
She nodded. “And Alejandro?”
“He’s a friend.” I squirmed under her attention, turning my back to her and trying to avoid the topic.
“Mmm.”
There was no way to pretend that noise was anything other than doubt, but I wasn’t taking the bait. I started singing, knowing full well that she’d let the subject go if I kept on. Even when she wanted an answer, Mama rarely interrupted me midsong. It was a trick my father had taught me years ago. She knew it too, but still went along with it. The only thing she did was give me one of her “you ain’t hiding a thing, missy” looks. I swore they ought to give her a patent for that look, but I wasn’t pretending that I’d given a full disclosure. I shrugged and started singing “Down to the River to Pray.”
Mama let me dodge the conversation, and we cooked with little conversation after that. The most she said was a song title here or there or a small note on Daddy or me and Killer and Noah when we were kids. I knew that she was trying to make me relax enough to sleep, and maybe she was doing it for her own nerves too. It worked, though. By the time I crawled into bed, dawn wasn’t far off, but I was past my tears and I slept without nightmares.
Chapter 11
ALAMO WASN’T A STRANGER TO TROUBLE. HE’D COURTED it like it was an art form for a few years before he realized that Zoe required a parent. Admittedly she was self-sufficient to the point that he was somehow enough for her, but he wasn’t sure he’d have figured out how to be an adult if not for her. Between being there for her and coping with his own stupidity, he’d thought he was ready to handle whatever drama came his way, but he was at a loss right now. Ellen wasn’t his to look after, but he felt compelled to do so all the same.
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