Page 73 of Black Moon

“Not that—” She shook herself out of it and remembered I was there—had some interest in the sweeter Grove alpha myself. “I’m really glad you’re here. Obviously.”

I grinned. “I get it. Honestly, I do. I have two siblings—both older, both alphas. They can sometimes go the wrong way about expressing it, but they worry. I’ve dated somerealassholes, let me tell you. But it’s natural, I think, to want your family to have easy lives, easy loves.”

Linden Grove was nothing if not easy to...admire.

He was great and all, but I was a long way off uttering the “L” word, even just in my own head.

Shiloh nodded, her smile a little more open, admiration in her bright blue eyes. “Exactly that. I wish things were easier. But you didn’t come over here for me to spill my guts. Another round?”

“That’d be great.”

She poured pints for everybody at the table, setting them on a round tray for me to carry over. Of course, she didn’t let me go without picking up a mug for Linden too, but when she came out from the back, she hesitated to put it down.

With her hands both curled around the mug, she stared at me. “Are you going to stay?”

Blinking, I cocked my head. “In Grovetown?”

She nodded. “Yeah. You’re...good for the pack. Good for Linden, I think. He seems comfortable. With you. More willing to step up. And we need him to.”

I looked over my shoulder, back at the table where Claudia and Zeke were sharing a laugh, Linden looking on with a calm smile on his face.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m not planning to leave right away, but I do have a lease in DC. And, like, my job’s there.”

She set the mug down on the tray and slid the whole thing over to me. “Well, I hope you stay. A job’s just a job—they have those pretty much everywhere.”

“That is how it works, yup.”

But I’d never thought about it like that before. My job, being independent, meant everything to me. I wasn’t going to mate the first alpha who’d treated me—and everyone else—decently after only a couple weeks. The bar had to be higher than that. He hadn’t even asked me to, like, go steady with him, or whatever. Ugh, was that still a thing?

Grovetown was turning me into some kind of jive fella from the fifties. Gross.

It was late before we left The Cider House, and I’d had a few more drinks—just enough to make me sloppy on the walk back to Linden’s house. He, annoyingly, was completely sober and held onto my hand to keep me from teetering off the sidewalk and into the street.

Instead, I crashed into his side and his arm wrapped around me indulgently.

“You’re very steady on your feet, good sir,” I slurred.

“And you are pretty tipsy.”

“Well, I hear in these parts, they don’t mess around with their cider. Strong stuff. You know, I’ve always thought I could hold my liquor, but it’s something about thebubbles.”

Linden snickered. “I think it’s something about you getting refills every time you hit the bottom of a pint.”

“You, sir, are the expert here.”

“What did you and Shiloh talk about?”

I looked up at him, and he was staring back, like he wasn’t gauging every single thing that came out of his mouth. What a weirdo.

“She asked if I planned to stay in Grovetown,” I admitted, as much because it was the truth as because I wanted to gauge his reaction. Without Linden, I was afraid there wasn’t any reason to even consider it. Strange, how that thought filled my stomach with rocks. Sadness rocks.

He gave a little start, but whatever he meant by it wasn’t clear to me.

“What’d you tell her?”

I shrugged and kept on walking down the sidewalk, our arms stretching out as he planted his feet behind me. “That I was planning on staying for a little while, but that my job’s back in DC.”

“Right...” He took another couple steps and caught up with me, my arm floating back to my side as he came closer.

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