“Uh, I’m pretty sure Aaron won’t be jealous, though. We parted weirdly. He stopped talking to me.”
“He didn’t stop on purpose,” a man with bright green eyes and a camouflage baseball cap said from behind the others. “He’s out of town right now.”
“That’s Weston,” Wyatt said.
“Hi, Weston,” Alana said. “Wait. Weston. Wes? Are you a raven shifter?”
“How did you know?” Harper asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
Weston shook his head in warning, and his eyes darkened, so Alana covered for him. Instead of tattling to his alpha about Weston the Peeping Raven, she shrugged and answered, “Just a lucky guess.”
“Aaron’s definitely jealous.” Ryder chortled with glee and held up his phone. There was a string of middle finger cartoons from someone called Butt-Monkey. Aaron, she would venture a guess.
She scrolled up and read Ryder’s first message. “Hey Aaron, I just found my future ex-girlfriend. Definitely a ten. Claimed.”
Alana laughed and shook her head as the others ordered drinks from Bubba.
When she turned around, Kane had moved down to the end of the bar and was watching the game again.
Wyatt followed her gaze. “He prefers solitude.”
There was something tragic about that, being in a bar full of people just like him but keeping himself separate.
“You said Aaron went out of town?” she asked Weston as he settled at the bar beside her.
“Asheville needed some volunteers at their fire department to cover for a bunch of the firefighters that got food poisoning. His Fire Chief sent him and Bryant up yesterday.”
Oh. “Well, he could’ve let me know what was going on.”
Weston pulled his phone from his back pocket and hit a speed dial number. “You don’t strike me as a woman who waits around for a man to call.”
Well, she wasn’t, but how Weston had come to that conclusion after just a few words between them, she had no clue. He slid his ringing phone over toward her.
“Hey, Wes,” a deep, familiar timbre answered.
In a rush, Alana scooped up the phone and said, “Hey.”
“Alana? Woman, do you ever pick up the phone at the coffee shop?”
“Well, no. It’s in the office, and I’m usually busy up front or in the kitchen.”
“I thought you were pissed at me and ignoring my calls on purpose. I didn’t have your cell number. Look, we need to talk. I’ve been going nuts up in Asheville thinking you hated me. I’m on my way back to Bryson City right now. Are you gonna be up late tonight?”
She sighed, expelling a hundred pounds of stress with the breath. He wasn’t mad at her, or ignoring her. He wasn’t shutting her out. Aaron had just been working. “Don’t you tease me and not show up. I have ice cream at the apartment and a pretty new nail polish. We can best-friend it.”
“Fuck the friends talk. You and I both know that’s off the table now.” Was that a spark of humor in his voice?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said coyly.
“Can I come over?” he asked.
Alana gave Weston a sideways glance, but he was busy talking to Ryder now. Softly, she murmured into the phone, “Come over me? I do believe you’ve already covered that base. Splurt splurt.”
Aaron blasted a single laugh, then lowered his voice. “Yeah, that escalated fast. I can’t stop thinking about it.” Static sounded through the speaker, like he was holding the phone to his shoulder. There was also faint talking in the background.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Filling up on gas. The attendant is looking at me right now like I’m about to rob the place.”
“Well, you look like a criminal.”
“Accept the tattoos, woman. They aren’t going anywhere. Say yes. Come on, Alana. Say yes.”
She could imagine him there, boot on the curb as the gas nozzle hung from the tank of his bike, the smile she heard in his voice stretching his lips as he waited for her answer.
She let him dangle for a moment before she gave in. “Fine. I’m not dressing up for you this time, though. You’ll have to win that effort back.”
“Great. Wear nothing. I’ll be there in an hour. Don’t let Ryder hug you.” Aaron swallowed audibly over the line, then said, “I like you.” And then the line went dead, as if he’d hung up before he could take it back.
A mushy squeal bubbled up her throat as she shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. He liked her!
Weston’s eyes were on her lips when she handed him his phone back and murmured her thanks.
There was a furrow of worry between his dark brows, but Weston was polite enough when he said, “You’re welcome.”
Over the next half an hour, she nursed her drink and settled in to the easy banter of the Bloodrunner Crew. She, Alana Warren, frail human, sat in the middle of a rough-and-tumble crew of shifters and held her own. And no one blatantly stared at the scar on her lip while she talked, and no one treated her any differently because she didn’t have an animal inside of her.
When she stood to leave, she pulled the money out of her pocket to pay for her to-go order. Aaron’s paperclip fell out onto the floor. “Oh no!” She knelt down to retrieve it, but Harper squatted down in a blur and picked up the old rusty trinket first.
Harper got the strangest expression on her face as she stared at it. “Is this Aaron’s?” she asked as soft as a whisper.