the utilities were open, because that was the real point of no return. And then, I didn’t want to ruin their weekend, especially when I hadn’t even signed up for recycling pick-up.
At this point, I hadn’t even had the nerve to tell Alex yet. I told myself that I just wanted to surprise him when I had everything settled; but really, despite all this hope for change, there was still this lingering doubt in the back of my mind that I might not follow through with it. I didn’t want to get his hopes up only to disappoint him.
I’d finally gotten in contact with Alex to set up a date night, but for the first time since we met, he seemed…off. I’d had to lie to my parents, tell them that I was babysitting Jolene’s kids for the night, and he knew it. He was quiet, still just as distant as he had been for weeks, and I just wanted to go home. I didn’t think that was a good sign.
We were trying to have a nice, normal night in, like a regular couple. We’d curled up on his couch, watching a concert streamed live from Vienna—a collection of Mozart pieces that sounded like heaven’s soundtrack. But my phone was dinging steadily all night, with messages from my aunts about my next date with Donnie Ansen.
They’d collectively decided that we would go out to a movie that weekend. They’d even picked the title and the time for us. I was surprised they didn’t dictate what snacks we could order.
And then there were texts with Donnie, coordinating excuses as to why we couldn’t go on another date. Donnie offered to say he had some sort of skin fungus that required him to stay indoors, which was awfully sweet of him.
“Why is your phone chirping like a hyperactive canary?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”
I rolled my eyes and shoved the phone down in my backpack. “My family is trying to set me up with Donnie again, that werewolf boy from the other night. Both of our families have decided we’re perfect for each other.”
“I suppose telling them ‘no’ is out of the question?” he asked. When I gave him a scathing eye roll, he added, “I only mean, have you tried to definitively tell them that you’re not willing to cooperate with their schemes to set you up with a mate of their choosing?”
“You don’t know what it’s like to live with them and you don’t have any idea of what I could lose. Do you know what it’s like for a pack animal to be threatened with exile? Or what that would mean for my life?”
“Jolene did it,” he pointed out.
“Because Jolene had Zeb! She had someone who wanted to build a life with her. I don’t know what you want. You don’t know what you want. You say it’s me. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s domesticity and security. Maybe it’s running back to your shiftless musical nomad life. Maybe it’s a hot tub full of supermodels on some yacht in the Seychelles.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what you do with your spare time when I’m not around!” I cried, rising from the couch.
“No one goes to the Seychelles at this time of year. The weather—”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Oh, my god.”
“I thought that you liked that I didn’t put pressure on you! I was trying to respect your wishes! You don’t think I hear the fear in your voice? The uncertainty? Every single word out of your mouth rings with how little you think of my love and my place in your life. But I kept trying because I thought we’re growing! I thought if you had other things in your life, the idea of losing your pack wouldn’t be so frightening,” he said.
I shook my head at him. “You really think a lot of yourself. Like you’re just going to come along and change my whole life with a few dates and some sex? It doesn’t work like that. I need to work through it on my own.”
“Why do you care so much about what they think of you?” he demanded.
“That’s easy for you to ask,” I told him. “You didn’t care about what your family thought of you. You left them and you didn’t look back. And it was such a long time ago, I’ll be you’ve forgotten how hard that was.”
“I want you to be mine, out in the open. I don’t want to have