Page 14 of The Enemy to the Living
I frown at the thought. Does Asher know abouthim? Did he lie to me before?
“Wanna go somewhere for lunch?” Drew asks and I swallow down the rest of my coffee before I nod.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
We settle on grabbing burgers to go and enjoy them in a quiet park. It’s a little early for lunch, and I’m not at all hungry, but Drew scarfs his down, ears turning pink when he sees me looking.
“Forgot to grab breakfast.”
“Like I’m judging,” I say and pass him my fries. “Here.”
Drew eats those as I lean back against the bench, watching some pigeons a few feet away. Like most animals, they keep their distance from wolves.
I don’t want to see what might happen if I come here without Drew.
“I’m glad you came today,” Drew says. “Kieran said he was going to remind you about dinner yesterday, but then he got stuck into a bunch of stuff with Lucien, and I guess he forgot.”
“No, he came by. But I’d eaten, so…”
“Coming for dinner tonight?”
I swallow. “I’ll try.”
Drew frowns but doesn’t say anything in response to that, and I swallow down a hard lump in my throat that tastes suspiciously like anger. It’s not his fault I’m not sure if I’ll go. It’s not his faultI’vebeen avoiding the rest of the pack. He has his own life, and he can’t be expected to chase me down all the time.
But Sam must have told him I’ve been leaving the pack house every so often, right? Why hasn’t he asked me about that? Not that I want him to ask. No. Asking means I’d have to come up with an answer.
Asking means he cares.
I wrap up the part of my burger I haven’t eaten—almost all of it, really—and debate chucking it in the general direction of the pigeons. It’s no good for them, but it might cheer them up.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Drew says, leg bouncing in that way it does whenever he’s nervous about something. “Did you want to come running?”
“Running?”
“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to ask Dax, but I know he’ll have to get permission from Alpha Levi and I don’t think he shifts as much as we do. So if you wanted to… We could do it on a day when I don’t have work if you don’t want to get up early?”
“I—” The words stick in my throat. Ican’t. How do I even broach that? If I tell him, he’ll tell Sam or Kieran, and then it’ll be a whole big thing. Like that challenge was a whole big thing.
“We don’t have to!” Drew’s words are too fast, and I don’t need any sense of smell at all to know I’ve upset him. “I just thought it might be nice…”
“Not right now,” I say and wonder when our conversations became so stilted. But then what do I have to say? I spend almost all the time I’m not at the fights in my little flat. I don’t have a partner—orpartners—to talk to. I’m still not working because just like Drew and Kieran once were, I’m not actually qualified to do a damn thing.
Anger rises in my throat, thick and fast, and I swallow it back down again. No point in dwelling on it. It’s not their fault. It’s not my fault. It’s something to be dealt with.
I just don’t want to deal with it, either.
“Okay,” Drew says. I know he’s disappointed. We used to run together all the time at home. Even after Hale arrived; it was a way for him to escape because Hale and his betas knew better than to approach when we were shifted.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I just… I can’t.”
Drew’s expression becomes complicated, shifting rapidly, and my ears burn when I realise what he must think. He doesn’t know I can’t shift into my wolf, so he thinks I… what? Feel bad or guilty? Of course I do.
That’swhyI can’t shift, isn’t it? That, or I’ve betrayed my wolf so thoroughly that even he wants nothing to do with me anymore.
I get sharply to my feet and Drew blinks up at me in surprise. He’s finished eating. I offer him a smile, and he tentatively returns it. “Let’s walk?”
“Yeah, okay.”
