The Jaguar's Halloween Bride (Holiday Mail Order Mates Book 5)

by Lola Kidd

  “She isn’t going to show up. We barely know anyone who’s going to be there. They’re mostly younger than us.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You’re taking this too hard, man. We only dated her for a couple of weeks. So what if some website says we were supposed to be mates? We know better than some computer. We know what she’s really like—not what she tried to convince some computer she was like.”

  Ray looked at him pointedly. “Do we?”

  Then he got back in the car and slammed his door. Obviously, he was done with this conversation.

  “You don’t have to worry about picking me up,” Abe said. “I’ll find my own way home.”

  He didn’t look at the car as his brother drove off. He didn’t care what Ray did tonight. He was sick of sitting around and moping. Lizzy was just one girl. There were plenty of fish in the sea. They could find someone better as soon as they put themselves out there again. Ray was being a big baby about the whole thing, so it was obviously going to be up to Abe to find them a rebound girl.

  Step one in his search was hanging out in a new place. He needed to meet some new people, and that meant changing up his hangout spots. He was forsaking the bar with his larger group of friends to hang out at a house party.

  He could hear the music from outside. This was exactly what he was looking for tonight. Inside, the place was pulsing with life. There were people everywhere moving to the music.

  This was the perfect place to meet girls and clear his head of any memory of his “mate.” There was almost no chance that he would run into her tonight, which was another good reason to change up his night spots. He knew she went to the Brazen Bull, so he would have to avoid that place for a while. Fine by him. He loved the Bull, but the crowd there was getting stale. That was what had driven Ray to try out that stupid website.

  Abe searched around until he found his buddy Tim. Tim was the one who had invited him to the party tonight. Abe had met him at the gym, and he was a pretty cool guy.

  Abe had to get close so Tim could hear him over the music. “Hey, man, how’s it going?”

  “Pretty good,” Tim said in his ear. “This party is insane. Want to grab a drink?”

  They slowly made their way to the keg. It had been a long time since Abe had been to a kegger, but he had no problem drinking from a plastic cup. He grabbed two beers for himself—it was double-fisting kind of night. He didn’t know how he was going to get home, but he wasn’t going to be driving. If he couldn’t find a ride, he could always run, and it didn’t matter how drunk he got. He could always sleep out in the field behind the house—but he was hoping to find a ride home with one of the lovely ladies in attendance.

  “I’m surprised to see you out. What’s Ray doing tonight?” Tim asked once he had his own beers.

  “Probably moping around the house.”

  “Want to step out back?” Tim asked. “I haven’t seen the backyard yet.”

  Abe nodded and then followed Tim outside. It was a mild night, and they could see the stars.

  “I hear the breakup’s been rough on you guys,” Tim said as they surveyed the back yard.

  “Yes, it has,” Abe said plainly. “My brother is being a real jerk about it. He’s blaming me, but you know how that goes. It takes two to tango. I didn’t break up with myself. She wanted out of the relationship too once I’d called her on her stuff.”

  Tim nodded. “I know exactly how it is. It’s surprisingly hard to find a nice woman who wants to settle down.”

  “Tell me about it. Thanks for inviting me out tonight. I can really use this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m happy to have someone willing to come with me. Everyone else said no. They didn’t want to be the oldest dude at a kegger.”

  Abe nodded. “I get that. But if you don’t try new places, you won’t meet any new people.”

  “Exactly! Man, I’m so happy I texted you. You totally get it.”

  That was exactly what Abe loved about Tim. Unlike a lot of his married friends, Tim didn’t ask too many questions or dwell on the breakup. All of his other friends kept going on and on about how he needed to get back with Lizzy. They kept telling him he needed to apologize and make amends. But what did they know? They weren’t a part of his relationship. They didn’t know her, and they didn’t really know him if they thought he was the bad guy in this situation. They were too busy listening to their wives badmouth him to hear his side of the story.

  Yes, he’d been a bit of a jerk about the whole gym thing and for calling her lazy. But that didn’t give her a reason to lie. She hadn’t even been telling the truth from the beginning. He’d been genuine from the moment he’d met her. It was she who’d told a bunch of lies to get him to like her.

  He finished his two beers faster than he’d wanted to. “Let’s go grab some more drinks and dance.”

  “Sounds good, man.”

  They went back inside and went down to the basement. It was even more crowded than upstairs. Abe recognized almost no one, and they all looked much younger than he’d anticipated. He wondered how many of these people were even of legal drinking age. He was all for meeting new people, but he wanted to meet a grown woman. Or at least someone who could buy their own beer.

  Shit. Was he going to have to card whoever he tried to take home tonight? It had been a long time since he’d been partying with people so young. At least at the bar, he knew everyone was of age.

  The thought of having to card a girl to be sure of her age depressed him immensely. He drank a fourth beer and tried to throw himself into the music. He just wanted to lose that train of thought. It was too depressing. He was a grown man; he shouldn’t have to worry about this kind of thing anymore.

  “You don’t look so good, man,” Tim said half an hour later.

  Abe didn’t feel so great, either. “I think I need to get some air.”

  Tim nodded. “I’m gonna head to the bar in the kitchen. If you need me, you know where to find me. If you wander too far, text me and let me know.”

  They went upstairs and parted ways. Abe went outside and started walking.

  They were in a half-built subdivision, and most of the houses were empty. There was more than enough space for him to walk to clear his mind. This party was having the opposite effect from what he’d hoped. The party was supposed to clear his head. He wasn’t supposed to need a break from the fun.

  He walked until he hit the edge of the subdivision, then took off his clothes. Nobody would see him, and when he was done running, he’d just come back and go back to the party. He needed to let his animal out. It had been weeks since he’d gone for a good run. Ever since they’d started seeing Lizzy, neither he nor Ray had taken their animals out at night. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d gone running together.

  He had a feeling it would be a while before Ray wanted to run with him again.

  Able slumped down into his jaguar. As soon as the animal’s paws hit the ground, he let it take over. His human mind might be confused, but his animal always knew what to do. It was time he let his mind rest for a bit. It seemed like he couldn’t get anything right this week. There was no way his animal could do worse.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “The cat still hates the baby,” Kira said with a laugh. “But enough about my little man. What are you going to order from the pizza place, Lizzy?”

  “Water,” Lizzy said.

  Kira raised her eyebrows. “Water isn’t a meal, girl. What about the chicken parmesan? You love that dish.”

  It was actually her favorite, but Lizzy hadn’t been able to eat for a week. It was ironic that breaking up with the twins had made her lose weight. It felt like she had already lost a good fifteen pounds. In reality, it was only seven, but that was fast for her.

  Not that she could enjoy it. She’d been wearing pajama jeans to work for the last week. She’d forced herself to put on leggings and a presentable top for this girls’ night, but that was only to keep her friends fr
om worrying. Her employees were starting to question her, and her regular customers were starting to catch on too.

  It was the lack of makeup, she decided. She’d tried to get dressed like normal, but every morning she’d ended up crying and ruining her makeup. So what was the point?

  “I don’t want to eat anything,” she admitted. “I haven’t wanted to eat anything all week. I can’t stomach it.”

  Macy put her hand over Lizzy’s. “It’ll get better. You just need to stick it out and keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

  “Or it’ll get worse,” Kira said. “You just broke up with your mates. You should feel sad.”

  “Not helpful, K.” Macy threw a pillow at her friend.

  “I am helping. I think she’s their mate. I’m going to keep repeating that until this situation is fixed.”

  Lizzy sighed. “It doesn’t matter if you think I’m their mate. They don’t think I’m good enough, and they don’t want to be with me. That’s all that matters.”

  “Yeah, you’re so sad, and I’m not trying to rub it in or anything,” Kira said carefully. “But if this was what was meant to be, you’d be happy by now. Or at least you’d feel lighter, freer. I’ve broken up with people I didn’t want to be with, and while I was heartbroken, there was also a feeling of finally being free of the drama.”

  “She does have a point,” Macy said reluctantly. “After I broke up with my ex-husband, I felt bad for a long time, but there was always a part of me that knew I was doing something right. Do you feel like this is right?”

  “Yes,” Lizzy said quietly. “No. Maybe? Oh, I don’t know.”

  Kira laughed. “So decisive. I’m going to put on some popcorn. Does that sound good?”

  “I guess,” Lizzy shrugged. “I’ll try to eat some. Please tell me you didn’t get a sad movie.”

  Kira smiled. “I brought Hocus Pocus. It’s Halloween-themed, and it’s a children’s movie. You can’t be sad when you watch Bette Midler.”

  “I don’t know. I feel sad for the cat, Binx,” Lizzy joked. “Good choice. Maybe we could watch the Charlie Brown Halloween special too?”

  “I think I can find that,” Kira said from the kitchen.

  “Perfect.” Lizzy stretched. “All I know is, I can’t cry anymore. I’m so sick of feeling bad.”

  “Then, stop doing that,” Macy said. “If you don’t want to feel bad, just decide not to. Do what you need to in order to make yourself happy.”

  “Easier said than done. Why is this so hard?”

  “Because life is hard?” Macy shrugged. “All I know is, I was never this sad about a breakup. Why did you guys break up, again?”

  “Because Abe kept insisting I go to the gym.” Lizzy sighed.

  “You said he kept insisting?” Kira came into the living room with a bowl of popcorn.

  “Did he say, ‘You need to go to the gym,’ or did he just ask you to go a lot?” Macy asked. “Because Abe is always asking people to go the gym. Nonstop asking! He would ask me every time I saw him at the bar. All the freaking time.”

  Kira nodded. “Yeah, he would ask when I was going to the gym next when I was at the gym.”

  “He is obnoxious,” Macy agreed. “It’s a strange personality quirk. You haven’t known him long, but I assure you, he does it to everyone.”

  “I don’t know,” Lizzy said, shaking her head. “He got very aggressive with me when I said I didn’t want to go.”

  “I’ll be blunt. Did he call you fat? Or say that you were looking a little pudgy? Or did he just obnoxiously ask you to go the gym with him over and over and over?” Kira pushed.

  Lizzy thought back. She thought they were just arguing semantics, but he had only asked her to go to the gym with him. He had never said she needed to go to the gym or that she was out of shape. In fact, as she thought back, she realized that Abe had been nothing but excited about her body. He couldn’t wait to see her in her Halloween costume, even if it didn’t fit. He’d been disappointed that she wouldn’t let him see.

  “Maybe he asked me to go to the gym with him?” she said slowly. “Does it really matter? They broke up with me. They were part of it too. It takes more than one person to get a couple back together.”

  “Yeah, but you can always try,” Macy said. “Because, if you guys are meant to be together, this is a really silly reason to stay broken up.”

  “Especially now that you know about Abe’s little gym problem, do you think this is that serious?” Kira asked.

  “I’m not sure. It was more how he reacted than what we were originally fighting about.”

  “Okay, let’s watch these movies and have a nice girls’ night. We won’t talk about your breakup anymore, or about our husbands or our kids. We’ll just enjoy the movie,” Kira said. “And then tomorrow, if you feel like it, you can text the twins and see if they want to talk. If they don’t text you back, at least you can say you tried.”

  “That’s very low-risk,” Macy pointed out. “You won’t feel like crap if they don’t want to talk, and it puts the ball in their court.”

  That sounded good to Lizzy, so she settled back to enjoy her night with her friends. She was glad that she hadn’t canceled. True to their word, Macy and Kira didn’t bring up the twins again, and Lizzy was able to take her mind off her problems, even if it was only for a few hours.

  That night, she tried to get a good night’s sleep. After she woke up, she had a healthy breakfast and then tried to put her problems out of her mind for the rest of the day. She needed longer than a night to think about what had happened, and she still didn’t know what she wanted to do. She had thought that a good night’s sleep would make it all come clear, but she was as confused as ever.

  Were her friends right? It sounded unreasonable to say that she had broken up with Abe over the gym. It wasn’t that petty; there was more to their breakup than some silly request to go to the gym.

  In a fit of nostalgia, she looked at her old LK Brides profile during her lunch break. The twins’ profile was still active, but they hadn’t turned down her match yet. She could still see that they were 99% perfect for each other. An almost ideal match.

  During the few short weeks that she’d known them, she’d thought it was true. They made her feel so comfortable and at ease in her own skin. That was one of the reasons she had canceled her gym membership. Yes, she’d also done it because she didn’t use the membership often, but she also no longer felt she had to keep going there.

  She knew that the people in the secret Facebook group were probably still making fun of her picture in the paper, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t worried about what those people had to say, because she had the twins. What did those people know about her or how hot she really was? She didn’t just have one hot boyfriend, she had two, and they absolutely adored her. At least they used to. It had made her feel so good.

  The more she thought about it, the more she felt like texting them. Had she really blown up her relationship over a silly disagreement about the gym?

  Abe had been a jerk, but Ray wasn’t. She had let her argument with Abe ruin her relationship with Ray, too. There was much more to this having a triad relationship thing than she had anticipated. She thought that if she could try it again, she could get it right this time. She had let the whole thing get away from her after one tough fight.

  She went online and looked for advice from people who were part of a triad relationship or a polygamist relationship. There were so many tips and tricks that she felt stupid for never having looked earlier.

  On more than one forum, she found advice on how to not let one argument snowball into a problem with the whole group. As with a healthy relationship between two people, communication was still key. That was stressed over and over.

  Honestly, Lizzy hadn’t been communicating well at all. Her communication skills were so poor, they had cost her the best relationship she had ever been in.

  This was huge. She was being just as unfair as Abe had been. Ma
ybe he was just trying to be helpful. She had jumped to the wrong conclusions and had let her anger get the best of her. She could have been calmer and given them both the benefit of the doubt.

  But it was too late for that. There was a chance they wouldn’t want to ever see her again. That thought was devastating.

  She was going to have to give it a little more time. If she still felt this way the next morning, she would go and beg the twins to take her back. Forget texting; she was going to do it in person.

  She was pretty sure she was sad about more than the idea of her relationship. She really missed the twins, but she had to be sure it wasn’t nostalgia making up her mind for her. And she had to think about what she was going to say. She didn’t want to show up on their doorstep and sob incoherently.

  This wasn’t the first time she had regretted a breakup. She’d gone back to boyfriends who were jerks in the past, and it had always been disastrous. This time, she wanted to be sure. Time healed all wounds, but only if they were meant to be healed.

  If she had made a mistake, she was ready to remedy it. But this time, she was really going to take the time to listen to her gut and make a good decision. This time, she was going to get it right.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ray knew his brother was running. He could feel it in his bones. So, he sank down on all fours and took off into the night. His jaguar was excited to be out. He had to fight hard to keep the animal in check and keep it from running off to explore.

  He needed to find his brother. Maybe they could run in the night and connect again. Ray couldn’t remember the last time they’d done this. Why had it been so long since they’d gone out together?

  Once his jaguar knew he wanted to find Abe, it left their subdivision and started searching for Abe’s scent. The first place to check was the house Ray had dropped Abe off at.

  Although they lived in the middle of town, it didn’t take Ray long to get to the outskirts, where the party was located. He followed Abe’s scent to the wetlands behind the subdivision. He had to be close.