Page 25 of Pack Giroux

“So, Marnie has decided to forgive me but only if I take her on a date tonight,” he announces.

I glance up at his choice of words and he winks at me with a smile.

“Well, pretty girl,” Raine says, looking over at me. “Sounds like you need to go shopping.”

My nose scrunches. “I hate shopping.”

His lips press together in a tight smile like he’s fighting it. “You won’t if you go with that one.”

He points to Emerson who grins back at me.

What the hell? Why not? A girl deserves to treat herself every now and then, yeah?

Chapter Eight

Grady takes me back to campus so I can shower and change clothes, apologizing several times on the ride over about his teasing at breakfast. Says it just comes out when he’s trying to break the ice with new people around. Plus, he tells me that it happens when he’s comfortable like he is with his pack, and I fit right into it.

I tell him it’s okay, and it truly is. I don’t want him beating himself up over a joke. I end up apologizing, too, since I’m the one that freaked out.

“You don’t have to be sorry for that,” he tells me, reaching out to stroke the back of my neck. “It’s all a part of getting to know one another and figuring out the do’s and the don’t’s.”

“Besides,” he adds, “it was nice to see Jameson squirming in his seat for once. Before he got taken down a peg by an ex-girlfriend, he used to think he was God’s gift to women.”

I scrunch my nose at him just like I did Raine about shopping. “Please don’t tell me if he was with a lot of girls. I don’t need to hear that.”

Grady laughs. “Okay I won’t say it then. He used to act a little different before he got humbled by a crazy stalker fan.”

My head whips to him. “What do you mean?”

“He had a crazy fan that stalked him everywhere he went,” he tells me. “Got to the point of threats, and come to find out, it was the girl he was dating at the time. She was jealous of his fame and the fact that he wouldn't take her with him on jobs.”

“Jeez, people are crazy,” I say, shaking my head.

He agrees, “That they can be.”

“What about Emerson?” I ask curiously.

Smiling, Grady answers, “Believe it, or not. He is completely opposite his twin. They may look exactly the same,but they’re way different in personality.”

“They don’t lookexactlythe same,” I argue, glancing out the front window of his car.

“Oh yeah?” he asks. “You can already tell them apart?”

I shrug. “Can’t everyone?”

“No,” he admits. “They can’t. So color me impressed. He's more on the quiet side. Probably wouldn't even be modeling if it wasn't for Jameson. Signed up as a package deal to get his brother's foot in the door, and hasn't been able to stop yet. They keep booking gigs as twins."

"Were they on TV or something?" I ask before explaining. "Because, I swear that I’ve seen them on something. Not like we watched much television in the compound."

He doesn't even so much as flinch at mention of the compound, earning him a few brownie points. "They did do this one thing forever ago, back before we formed our pack. Come to think of it, I do believe it was some religious show or something. You should ask them about it."

I shake my head. "I don't want to have to explain how I saw it."

"That's fair," he says, reaching across to my seat to take my hand. "Please don't be afraid to be open with us like you were last night. We want to know every part of you. Even the darkest places."

His words choke me up, and I can't respond to it.

He switches subjects to trivial stuff the rest of the way. Him asking at one point if I was okay doing my laundry lately, making me laugh like he’s good at. When we make it to campus, he goes to give me a kiss on the cheek, but I turn my head at the last minute and his lips catch my mouth instead. The fire that Kinkaid started last night, I realize, wasn’t ever extinguished. The embers were there waiting to be fanned again, and Grady does just that.

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