Page 19 of The Wedding Planner's Manny
I made myself snap back to reality. No way could I tell Ethan what I'd been thinking about just now.
“Sorry if I was distracted. It's been a long day.”
“I hope my kids didn't tire you out too much.”
“No, not at all.” And this was my opening to cut into that topic we needed to discuss. “I tried to get to know Caleb a little bit, but it's hard.”
Ethan sighed and took a sip of his coffee. “I guess he doesn't open up easily anymore.”
“No, at first it didn't seem like he wanted to talk to me at all. You've mentioned that your children were going through troubling times, but you never mentioned what exactly was troubling them. Maybe if I understood better...” I trailed off, letting the sentence hang, just in case I was being too nosy. I had a hard time knowing when to stop sometimes.
“Oh.” For some reason, Ethan seemed genuinely surprised by my question. “I simply assumed you knew. Everyone in town sort of does.”
“I've only been back for a little while and I've been told that I have a special talent for being oblivious to rumors and such.” In truth, I was just very often told that I was oblivious, period. Mostly by my roommates in college. I never thought that was fair, for what it's worth. I did notice things, just not necessarily the same things other people paid attention to. So what if I didn't know the meaning of a sock on the door?
Other people missed important stuff too.
A locust landed on my roommate’s red solo cup during a summer BBQ once and he simply brushed it aside as if it wasn't remarkable little creature that could fly up to fifty miles in a day without requiring a rest.
“I'm sorry,” Ethan apologized. “I shouldn't assume everyone else follows the rumors like I do.
Honestly, I'm almost a little jealous that you don't have to listen to all that nonsense. I could imagine better ways to spend my time.”
I was tempted to ask exactly how he wanted to spend his time, but I had to keep focused—even if that was difficult. And itwas.Mated alphas didn't usually give off much of a scent, at least not one that couldn't easily be ignored, but Ethan was different. He'd only been home for ten minutes or so, but already I felt like the whole kitchen smelled of him. It was anicesmell. I remembered it from my youth, from days spent in summer camp foolishly hoping he'd look my way. It was all pine wood and almonds, coupled with a deeper base note that spoke of the alpha in him, and this last part seemed more intense now than I remembered it.
It was distracting.
Focus, Rhys.
“Would you tell me what happened?” I made myself ask, lifting the mug up to my nose. The dark fragrance of the coffee was almost enough to block out Ethan's.
“Sure. It's not like it's a big secret anyway. Do you remember Laura? We started dating when we were sixteen or so. Our last year of high school, I got her pregnant. We married. The whole shebang, you know?” He smiled at me, but I saw the sadness in his eyes as he spoke. I wondered what Laura had done to him. I did remember her. I remembered being a little jealous of her. She was a cheerleader and popular and beautiful and a perfect match for the alpha who would never be into me but who I was secretly crushing on.
“Sounds like you got married really young.” Only a year or so after I'd left town.
“Yeah, I don't think it was the best idea,” Ethan admitted, running a hand through his hair. “Not the wedding itself. That was beautiful. All planned and put together by my dad, with a little bit of help from me. It was basically my first hands-on experience with my job.” He grinned and I loved the way his eyes lit up at the memory, but the joyous expression only lasted for a second as he continued to speak. “My life didn’t play out exactly the way I’d envisioned it, but I was happy, you know? Laura wasn’t. She hated the small-town life. She hated being stuck here. In the end, I guess she hated being stuck with me too. We started getting into fights and more fights and…” He shook his head. “One night she just packed her bags and when I woke up in the morning, she was gone.”
“I'm sorry to hear that. It must have been hard.” How could someone just up and leave like that after promising forever? People were talking about how Iranfrom my husband, but I didn't. I'd told him exactly what I was doing and why. After marrying him, he deserved that much from me, if nothing else.
“It was harder for the children than it was for me,” Ethan said, and he almost had me convinced too, if it wasn't for that glimmer of longing in his eyes. Reading expressions didn't come as natural for me as it did for others, so I paid more attention. When I was really invested in a conversation anyway, and right now, I was. Otherwise, this probably would have slipped by me.
Now I had to remind myself that I was here for the children, not for Ethan.
But wasn't helping Ethan also helping the children?
No, I couldn't start thinking like that. Technically, we were both still married. Which would be easier to remember if Ethan wasn't throwing his alluring scent everywhere.
Seriously, we weren't kids anymore. He should know by now how to keep his pheromones under control, so why wasn't he?
It was almost as if he was tempting me to reach out and take his hand on purpose. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, but that didn't really make things better when the air was soaked with the smell of alpha. I wasn't an overly hormonal person, but I still had instincts. Instincts that responded to Ethan's scent a lot more intensely than I would have liked. “Could you turn that down?” I found myself saying before I could stop myself.
“Turn what down?”
As I opened my eyes again, I found Ethan looking at me in confusion. Shit, I shouldn't have said anything. He probably wasn't even aware of what he was doing, and even if he was, you didn'ttalkabout scents and how they affected you. My mom had impressed this on me time and time again.
Sometimes I simply forgot my manners.
Well, I couldn't take my words back now. Might as well stick to them. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but your alpha scent is really intense right now. Probably because you’re thinking of your wife.”
