Page 138 of Fangs
I stared at him, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.
“Sorry, I lost my shit there,” Mac said like he was forcibly lightening his voice.
“You’ve seen me lose my shit enough times,” I managed to say. “I owed you at least one.”
He let out a startled but genuine chuckle, and some of the weird tension seemed to melt away.
“So, Lana?” I asked, desperate to keep the weirdness from returning.
He sobered immediately. “Are you sure you want to do this? I don’t want you to feel like you have to heal her.”
“I know. Iwantto.”
He looked away and let out a heavy breath. I waited, but he said nothing, and I started getting nervous.
“Are you mad at me for doing this?”I asked tentatively.
His head snapped back up. “No, I’m not mad.” He smiled, but there was something sad about it. “Just…” He dropped his eyes and scrubbed a hand through his hair again.“None of us deserve you.”
My brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
Instead of answering, he returned to the rover and opened my door. I followed, climbing back in and looking at him expectantly.
He shut the door and leaned on it, finally meeting my eyes again. “It means you’re a damn good person, Em.”
I frowned, but he walked around the front of the rover and climbed into the driver’s seat. He didn’t look at me as he started the rover and began to drive again.
“Mac, what’s wrong?”I finally asked.
He glanced at me briefly.“Just been a rough couple days.”
I felt a stab of guilt for taking off on him and then hiding so he couldn’t talk to me again before he left. I hadn’t set out to purposefully hurt him by doing it, but I had.
“So that’s where you were,” he said, his voice a little lighter, “Apple trees by the wall. Adding it to the list.”
“The list?”
He glanced at me again, and he was almost smiling this time.“I’m gonna figure out all your hidey-holes, and you better believe I’ll come find you when you try to disappear.”
I remembered how he promised to always come for me, and that soft emotion swelled again.
“You can try,”I said loftily, hoping it would make him smile.
I was rewarded with a grin, not a full one that showed his dimples, but a genuine smile.“Is that a challenge, Ember?”
A shiver ran down my spine at his use of my full name, confusing me. I didn’t usually like being called “Ember,” probably because Wolf only used it when he was pissed at me.
“I’m just sayin’, I’m good at hiding.”
“I know. It drives me crazy.”
I laughed, and finally, those dimples peeked out as he smiled wide.
“Things go okay while we were gone?” he asked after a moment.
I had to stop and think back to when he left, trying to remember everything that had happened, and grimaced. My fight with Sam, that dream about Trey, Nemo, nightmares?—
“So, no,”Mac interrupted, a worried crease forming between his brows, and I realized he’d been listening to my list.“This gonna be a longer conversation? Cause we’re almost there.”
