Page 56 of A Wolf After My Own Heart
* * *
“What?” he snapped as someone whacked the bathroom door. It wasn’t a knock; it sounded more like someone irritably slapped at it.Oh, God, I hope I didn’t just snap at Lila.
Someone slid a piece of paper underneath the door. Oz had no trouble reading it, despite the fact that he was standing; the letters were as long as his fingers.
WTF, Oz?????
Oh.
That.
Good timing, at least; he’d finished buttoning his shirt. He opened the door and surprised Caro in mid-scribble. “Yeah, about last night. Sorry. Put it down to stress. Or low blood sugar. Or how I wasn’t actually growling at you, it was Dev. Or how it was a garbage truck, not you. A midnight garbage truck.”
You shifted and looked like you were ready to throw down!!!
So did you, he wanted to say, but it would have been a lie. Last night, Caro had been cautious with good reason—her foster mother’s house was on fire and there was a strange Stable in the yard in close proximity to her foster brother. But aside from the time she ripped a child-trafficker’s arm from the socket, she’d never attacked anyone, Shifter or otherwise.
“I overreacted,” he admitted. “I’m sorry.”
I get that. WHY, tho?
“I can’t explain it.” He could feel the hairs on his nape trying to come to attention simply because they were talking about last night. “I just—I saw you sizing up Lila and I didn’t like it.”
WHY, tho?
Good question. And she deserved an answer. Too bad he had no idea what it was.
“Sorry again, Caro.”
She just looked at him, then shrugged and walked away while he finished tying his tie.
* * *
“Mr. Berne, I can assure you, we’ll have everything under control.”
Berne’s rebuttal: “Ridiculous bullshit!”
“Well, I did use the future tense,” Garsea admitted. “I never intimated everything was under control right this second.”
And didn’t Berne mean bear? Lila made a mental note to look it up later, because if his surname did mean bear, she could only assume these guys weren’t even trying.It wasn’t the first time she wondered if her life’s triumphs weren’t due to the fact that she was exceptionally smart but because the people around her were exceptionally stupid. (This theory did not go over well with her eleventh-grade guidance counselor.)
“And why is there a noncommissioned ambulance in the driveway?”
“Because I don’t like parking on the street.”
She was on board with tagging along wherever this leg of the journey led, right up until the moment Berne walked into the burned house, which was when she stopped short so suddenly Oz ran into her, apologized, then walked around her. Then he stopped short (again) and looked back. “Oh. Uh. Lila? You coming in?”
“I’m good,” she replied, and her voice wasn’t thin and high at all, but Oz immediately walked back to her side anyway. Which she didn’t need him to do. And didn’t care that he did.
“That’s okay,” he said, which was unnecessary. “I don’t need to go in, either.”
“Go in if you want to go in. I just don’t need to go in right this second. But you go. I mean, just because I don’t want to go in doesn’t mean you need to stay out here. You could go in.” Was she saying ‘go in’ too much? “Go in if you want to go in.” Definitely not.
“Naw.” Then he looked at her, really looked. She felt like she’d stumbled under a microscope and simultaneously loved and hated the sensation. It was nice, being the object of Oz’s intense focus. Just…not right this second. “What did you lose?”
None of your business. It’s not important.Her brain ran through the litany:It was a long time ago. I didn’t even like that house. What are you even talking about?“Everything.”
“I’m so sorry.” He reached and took her hand in his. “That must have been a nightmare.”
