Thankfully, it wasn’t very far.
-16-
“You’re never going to believe this.”
-Delilah
I blinked, not really sure where I was, but with a vague memory that a very nice doorman at Somerset Industries directed me to an elevator. Then I had some more fuzzy remembrances of being on that elevator for an extended period of time, passing out at least once, and then stumbling down a hall.
And then I think I punched George in the face.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, my mouth not working quite as well as I’d hoped. The words came out in a garbled mess. The drugs had really got me looped.
“Who did this to you?” Jake asked, ripping part of his shirt sleeve – about half of it, which revealed a really nice forearm – to use on part of me that seemed to be bleeding. “Dilly,” he was demanding, in a way that had me squiggling in my damn ladyparts. “Look at me. Follow my fingertip.”
Like a scene from ER, I tracked his fingertip back and forth across my field of vision. It got a little fuzzy.
“I don’t feel so—”
He took being thrown up on a lot better than I would have. Not even so much as an irritated look crossed his beautiful face as he nonchalantly took off his shirt and tossed it away. “Bet you feel better now,” he said with a smile that made me momentarily forget that somehow my neck was bleeding, and somehow I’d punched my new friend in the mouth.
“George,” I managed to get out, finally. “Sorry for the, er, mouth punch.”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing, girly. There’s honestly no telling what’s going to be flying through the air when werewolves start drinking. I can’t tell you how much flying shit I’ve been hit with that was no one’s fault at all. Your little flail will barely even leave a red mark. Most important thing is that you’re okay.”
“You’ve done this before,” I whispered as she helped me lay down flat, and stuffed a wadded up... golf green? Under my head. Next, she felt my forehead and took my pulse.
“Yeah, well, like I said. You never know what’s going to happen when werewolves start gettin’ their drink on. They might heal faster than normal people, but they still need first aid when a tooth gets knocked out or someone gets cold cocked with an anvil.”
Tilting my head made my neck sting so badly I squealed, and then straightened it out again. “Anvil?”
She shook her head. “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime. But for now, we need to get you warmed up, you’re going into shock.”
I looked over at Jake, who was chowing down on his bottom lip. He ran his hand through his hair, and then did the same thing with the other one. “I’m okay,” I squeaked. “Just had an accident.”
“Yeah,” he said, “accident my big, gray, wolfy ass. Was this Dane?”
I felt my voice fading again, along with my brainwaves. “Yeah,” I managed to say. “He... he bit me, took me to see your mother, she’s very nice by the way. Then he bit me again, and uh... yeah, all kind of a blur after that. He’s been giving me some kind of pills, but not the good kind.”
Thankfully, George calmed him down before Jake could get too worked up. “Give me a few minutes to get her hyperventilating under control. The bite won’t need stitches because... well, that’s why wolf mouths are designed like that. He—er—whoever it was missed the artery, but she’s gonna need some fluids, and some blankets. You got anything?”
Jake looked at her with genuine confusion for a second until George huffed.
“Right, of course, God forbid I ask the CEO of a billion dollar company if he knows where the towel closet is. You know we have a gym downstairs, right?” She arched an eyebrow at one very confused werewolf. “Just turn on the speaker phone. Dial 2-2-4. Oh, good,” she sneered and looked over at me, “he knows what numbers are what. Sometimes you never know with the big, muscled-up hot guys, huh?”
I managed a noncommittal laugh, but only because I couldn’t cough out anything more. “That was funny,” I said, feeling a little sheepish about my lack of enthusiasm. “Laughing just hurts. That wasn’t a fake laugh.”
She laughed for me. George, the woman who until then I’d only spoken to once, had honest, sparkly brown eyes. Light brown, the color of the non-black part of pecan shells. There were creases in the corners of them, and in the corners of her mouth that told me she wasn’t a stranger to smiling. Coils of hair that matched her eyes framed her face.
“I know,” she said. “But you also have about thirty holes in your neck, so I’m willing to cut you a little slack on the enthusiasm of your laugh.” I must have shot her quite a look, because she immediately went back to comforting me. “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. They won’t hurt – werewolf saliva is sort of an anesthetic in some cases, and enhances sensation in... others. I can tell you know what those other cases are from the way you’re blushing.”
I shrugged, which hurt.
“Stop shrugging,” she said.
“Howdle doodle!” A cheerful voice which I recognized as belonging to the front door guard piped over the speaker phone. “You need something, Mr. Somerset?”
“Yes,” George said, before he could answer.
I really like this girl, I thought. Anybody that can manhandle a wolf as big and bad as Jake must be a badass one way or another.
She wiped at a trickle of blood. “Can you tell our CEO how to get to the locker room? He needs some towels.”
“Towels?” Frank asked. “I can just send the cleaning staff up to—”
“No!” all three of us shouted in concert. I looked around to one smiling face, and then to Jake, who looked like he was either going to laugh, throw up, or murder someone. “No,” Jake took over. “I... need to stretch my legs anyway.”
Why are they covering me up? I mean, that I probably look like a town drunk who threw up all over the place is a good reason I guess, but...
“Oh! Sure thing, well, just take your penthouse elevator down to floor thirteen, then you’ll have to use the ruffians elevator to get to the basement.” The way he said ruffians told me it must have been some kind of inside joke. Well, that and George turning red from trying not to laugh and Jake looking even more like he was going to throw up. “Once you’re down there, just follow the signs. Left, left, then right. Lockers are right there. Oh, and Mr. Somerset?”
“Yes, Frank?” Jake asked with a measured pull to his voice.
“Be sure to go into the men’s room. It can be confusing, but the signs on the doors will tell you what you need to know. Anything else?”
Jake just pressed the button to end the call. “How do they get so prickly?”
“I told you to stop calling them ruffians. Anyway, Frank was just having fun. So you know where you’re going? Get gone. She needs them quick, but not quick enough that I’m willing to risk someone finding your junked-up fiancé on the floor of your office and jumping to conclusions.”
“Huh,” Jake said. “Good thinking.”
I figured it was my turn. “I didn’t want anyone to see me looking like hell.”
George tilted her head in a gesture of affirmation, Jake laughed. “Good reasons, all of them,” George said. “Now you go. And you,” she said turning to me, as Jake hit the door and started running down the hall, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was shirtless, “breathe into this.”
She handed me a paper bag that smelled like pickle relish, mustard, mayonnaise, olive loaf and horseradish.
“Ugh,” I frowned, taking the bag. “What the hell was this?”
She shook her head. “Your boyfriend’s lunch. You know how if someone smokes for a long time, their tastebuds get all wonky?”
“Sure,” I said, wanting to shrug but not wanting the pain.
“Werewolves are the same way. Not that they smoke all the time, I mean they have really weak tastebuds. For food, anyway. For other things, well... ah, there’s that blushing again. Yeah, you know what I mean. Anyway, they
eat some straight-up funky stuff. But I have to be honest with you, one day when he was too hung over to eat, I stole a sandwich just like that one, except it also had garlic on it.”
I winced, imagining the sharp, rounded taste of raw garlic and horseradish and olive loaf together. “Olive loaf,” I groaned. “Just... why?” I was gasping. My breath coming in hot, shallow, panicked bursts.
“That I cannot possibly fathom,” she said with a smile. “But when you put all that shit together on a sandwich? I can’t possibly explain why it isn’t as vomit-inducing as ipecac, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t taste better than you could imagine.”
She gave me another moment of reprieve. “Right,” she said, poking me with an outstretched finger. “Start breathing. You’re going to hyperventilate if you keep on like that. Good,” she said when I stuck my face in the bag and tried to imagine anything except what I was smelling. “In... out... in... out.”
*
A few minutes of measured breathing had me feeling more like myself when I heard footsteps coming toward the door.
“Will this work?”
Jake strode into the room and into my field of vision just in time for me to catch a glimpse of his sweaty and shirtless torso. He must’ve been in quite a hurry.
“You got back here quick,” George said. Then, she started snickering as she nestled the blankets around me. “Checking yourself out in the mirrors down there?”
Jake shook his head, obviously not understanding. “You told me to hurry, so I hurried. She needs the warmth. Also, I told the guy at the front desk whose name I forgot not because I’m an asshole but because of the current stressful situation, to turn the heater up. And also I got this.”
A space heater hummed to life. The coils already going red, this thing must have been some kind of industrial strength wonder, because not thirty seconds after he plugged it in and hit the power button, I already felt some warmth returning to my toes and fingertips. It all tingled, like I’d just gotten up out of an uncomfortable chair after way too much time parked on my ass. Every nerve apparently wanted to make sure I knew it was there. The pinprick feeling crept up the bottom of my feet, along the sides of my calves and then to my thighs.
As blood flowed back into me, and my brain started to de-fuzz, I realized what George was still laughing at. Jake was fiddling around, adjusting the blankets, turning the heater up and then down, opening the blinds then closing them. “Did anybody say anything to you?” I asked, sitting up for the first time without a head rush.
“Me?” Jake asked. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
He was still breathing a little heavy, his muscled chest rising and falling as air filled and escaped his lungs. Balled up fists went into his hips, like he did when he was getting impatient or not quite sure what was going on around him.
“Well,” George said, looking down at me and smiling. “You’re missing something.”
“Missing... Oh!” Jake looked for all the world like he’d just realized the secret to the universe. "Right!” he said. “Sorry, can’t believe I went all that way and forgot. Be right back!”
And he was off again. Still shirtless – and neither of us had the first clue what he had forgotten – except his shirt. We didn’t have to wait long though. A few seconds later, he strolled back through the massive oak door of his office pushing a cart.
“Here we are,” he announced, his voice swelling with pride. “Lunch is served!”
I couldn’t help it. I went from pinpricks and needles making every inch of my body uncomfortable to laughing harder than I ever have, maybe in my life. I knew at least it was harder than I’d laughed since I last watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High about two weeks before.
“That’s my Jake,” George said, since I was too busy turning purple and choking on my own glee to say much of anything. “Runs through his entire office building half naked, terrifying everyone to death. But, he’s got the presence of mind to bring back a damn lunch cart.”
“Oh shit,” Jake said, disbelief in his voice. “I’m not wearing a shirt, am I?”
After making sure I wasn’t going to collapse back into unconsciousness the second she got up, George stood up, patted Jake on the shoulder and wiped her sweaty hand on his jeans before she turned her attention to the lunch cart, which was far more interesting than Jake being shirtless. “Did you get any with mayo?” She pulled a foil-wrapped sandwich off the cart, grabbed a soda and then inspected the sandwich. “You know I need mayo.”
“I honestly don’t have a clue,” Jake admitted. “I just took the whole thing. There are gonna be some irritated workers come noon, but they’ll live.”
“Yeah,” she said, taking a big bite and smiling at the mayo. “They’ll live because you’re gonna take this back down there. It’s bad enough to take someone’s lunch out of the community fridge. Stealing everyone’s? Come on now.”
Jake arched his eyebrows and frowned deeply. “Why can’t they get their own lunch? It isn’t like I don’t pay them.”
“Uh, Jake?” it was my turn to scold him for being comically inhumane. “You do realize that the people in your office do all your work for you, right? And that if they’re happy, they do a better job?”
His frown deepened. “Fine,” he said. “They get their damn sandwiches back on top of getting free health insurance and a retirement plan. Happy now?”
“Yes!” I said. “Any of those tuna salad?”
*
“Weird” is such a limp word. It has no power behind it, no oomph, no meaning. Something can be weird because it’s good, weird because it’s bad or funny or anything else. Just the fact that a thing is slightly abnormal makes it weird. That’s why I feel bad describing the mood between Jake, George and I in that office as “weird” but, what the hell, nothing else fits.
We ate our sandwiches, my strength finally came back enough that I could stand up without fear of toppling over, and Jake even seemed to get less pissy as time went by. I knew what I needed to do – convince him that abandoning the pack and his life wasn’t going to make anything better – but I’ll be damned if I had the first clue how I was going to do that. Oh, and I had to remember that Dane expected me to do exactly the opposite.
Dane, I remembered. I hadn’t thought about him, or what he wanted me to do since... Oh my God, he sent me here. He dropped me off and told me to come in here and flaunt my matedness in Jake’s face.
I felt my face go cold and my palms get all wet and slimy. “Ugh,” I grunted. “I think I have a memory.”
“From the look on your face, that’s a lot like being constipated,” George said.
Jake laughed in a huge burst, but then immediately went quiet again, like he was ashamed at having laughed at a constipation joke. “Anything important?” Jake watched my face for a moment and then his grew stern. He threw his hands above his head, exasperated. “What won’t he stick his fingers in?”
George gave Jake a long glare with an arched eyebrow. His face turned bright red as he realized what he said. “Er,” he stammered. “I mean whatever. Ha, ha, yes I said something that could be vaguely sexual. Very good.”
“Just sayin’,” George said.
The memories were coming back at first in a slow trickle and then a flood. “We were at your mom’s house for enchiladas and he had just marked me, so—”
“I’ll rip his throat out,” Jake said. It was cold, calm, and absolutely terrifying that he didn’t carry on or shout or yell or anything else. Just flatly stated he was going to rip his brother’s throat out. “That’ll solve this thing once and for all.”
“I,” I started before trailing off. “Yes, well I guess it would. But I don’t think that would help anything except you to feel better. There has to be a better way than murder.”
“Better way? He forced you to mate. He claimed you out from under me, he screwed up the—”
Then the worst of it hit me. “The challenge?” I asked sharpl
y. “He said something about that, too, which I just remembered along with the rest of this bullshit. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”
George sat up stiffly. Jake opened his eyes wider than I’d ever seen. His nostrils flared, and for a second I thought he was going to throw his desk out the window. “It isn’t what you think,” he said. “It’s not a game. It isn’t because I don’t love you.”
Now I was going. It’s one thing for me to feel like someone’s screwing around with me, but it’s another entirely for them to do it, not come clean, and then act like I’m too dumb to understand what’s going on. “Oh it isn’t?” I asked, hands on hips. “Then please, Jake, explain what it is.”
“Jeez,” he said, “this got out of hand quickly. What say we have another sandwich?”
“No.” I put my foot down, and when I finally did that, I always meant it. Usually. “I got dragged into a pissing fight between a pair of brothers that resulted in me and my best friend being kidnapped and then me being dragged around like a puppet for a few days until he dropped me off here to taunt you. He still has Jeannie and he has Barney and they’re all holed up in that mansion.”
Jake took a step forward and opened his mouth to speak.
“I’m not finished,” I said, cutting him off. “What the hell gives you the right to mess around with my life and never tell me anything? I should’ve known,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes even though I was more pissed-as-hell than sad. “I should’ve known that some mysterious billionaire waltzing into my dumb-ass life, and acting like I cast some kind of spell on him—I should have known you were full of shit from the first second.”
“No! No, it isn’t like that,” Jake protested, trying to grab me. “It isn’t like that at all, just let me—”
I dodged his grabby hand. My cheeks and my neck just kept getting hotter with each passing second. “I want answers,” I said, pushing harder. “I don’t deserve this shit. I don’t deserve to be thrown into a world that I know absolutely nothing about, and then be expected to just swallow the fact that the guy who told me he couldn’t live without me was just trying to win some dumb fucking bet!”
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