Bad Wolf (6 page)

He smiled, the left side of his mouth rising higher than the right,
revealing the adorable dimple that only showed itself in times of true
happiness. It was strange how I knew the peeks and valleys of his face much
better than my own, but it was also comforting. I smiled back, hoping my joy
didn’t reveal my more than platonic feelings.

“Just don’t go attacking me at parties anymore,” I teased.

“Oh God Bailey, I’m so sorry about that. I’ll seriously never forgive
myself for it. I just…things got out of control last night. I wasn’t…in a good
place. And from now on, when it’s a full moon I’m going to keep my distance,
just in case.”

“Do you not transform all the time?” I asked.

“Well, I usually need to transform at some point in the night, but I can
generally control it for a few hours before it gets to be too much. I guess you
never noticed how I was always busy during the full moon in high school, huh?”
he laughed.

“I mean, I remember you being flaky once and a while…I don’t really pay
much attention to the moon phases,” I grinned.

“Most people don’t. It’s a pretty strange thing to be thinking about
unless you’re like, an astronomer or…you know. Me.” His lopsided grin was so
adorable. It was hard to hold the scratches underneath my camisole against him.

“Yeah, well,” I said. “I’m not really as mad at you about keeping the
secret anyway…I kind of understand why. I mean, I’m not sure how much of it I
believe—”

“I can’t blame you,” he interjected. The rain was starting to pour
harder now, forging clear grooves down the front of his shirt. I gulped,
forcing myself to keep my gaze trained on his face.

“But I am still kind of miffed that you reacted so terribly to the whole
thing with Aamir.”

He stiffened. I took a deep breath, realizing how much I needed him to
understand me. If he kept disapproving, I would confuse it with jealousy. I
would lie to myself and see more to our relationship than there ever was.

“I’m confused and not in the best place right now, all the weird
paranormal stuff aside. This is the first time I’ve felt…so good about someone
in a long time. I know you get overprotective, but I need you to see things
from my point of view. I need you to want me to be happy.”

He looked away at the couple still cooing over each other in parking
lot. He sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I want you to be happy,” he gave me a weak
smile. “I just want it to be with someone who’s good enough for you.”

I could die right there, he was being
that
cute.

“That’s really sweet of you. But I think anything’s better than Jason.”

“I would agree except…well, there’s something I haven’t told you yet,
Bailey. It’s about Aamir.”

I paused, taking in a sharp inhale. I had a terrible feeling my
suspicions about his connection with this whole other world were about to be
confirmed. “What about him?”

“That night at the party…most people don’t just come after wolves. That’s
just not normal. He isn’t Bear Grylls or anything. And then after that whole
thing today…I just feel like he’s after us for some reason.”

I didn’t want to admit that it made sense. I didn’t want to think that
the beautiful boy who was so sweet and kept texting me and looked at my large
body and saw something incredible was just using me to get to my wolf friends.

But at the moment, it seemed very likely.

“Crap,” I muttered.

“I know,” he said, giving me a sympathetic look. “And another
thing…about that song.”

“What song?” my voice raised a few pitches. I knew exactly what song.

“Just now…” his face changed, his eyes turning soft again, but knowing,
like he could see right through me. I shivered, feeling vulnerable in the
moments between his words.

In one sweeping movement, he leaned down, stealing my breath away. The
press of his lips against mine, the heat mingling with the cool raindrops,
ignited TNT in my stomach. They fit perfectly together, one lip stacked on top
of the other, and I swear the world faded away from me as his hands came up to
my face, holding me in that soft, wonderful way I was sure I’d never
experience. Every nerve, every iota of feeling inside of me burst, and I came
alive in a way I’d never felt before.

And he was engaged. And my best friend.

And I couldn’t lose him.

I pulled away, tearing my face from his hands and looked down at my
keds, now smeared with dirt. “I…you misunderstood me. I don’t see you that
way.”

“Bailey…it’s okay, I’m not going to—”

“I love you a lot, but I just see you like a brother,” I said, snapping
my eyes up past him so that he might not see the truth in my eyes. It was
almost easy to say it. It was at least partially true. I did love him, and he
was always calling me his little sister.

Besides, I had to stay strong, even if my heart was breaking into tiny
fragments and falling into my stomach. He fell in and out of love with girls
too easily. I couldn’t let one be me.

I wasn’t strong enough for that.

‘
Besides, what makes you think he’d break up with
her
for
you
?
’

I cringed.

“Oh, I see,” he said, his voice filled with hurt. “I’m sorry I kissed
you then.”

“It’s alright,” I replied, even though it was the most wonderful kiss of
my life. But he couldn’t know that. He’d break me down with that knowledge and
not even mean to.

We stood in a terrible, excruciating silence, the passing cars and
kissing lovers filling the night air between us. The rain came down in torrents,
pounding down in relentless sheets so that I could hardly see in front of me.

 
It was painful to be like
this, in denial.

“It’s getting bad. We should go in,” he said, his soft voice nearly
drowned out by the sound of heavy rain on pavement.
 

“I will, just give me a minute,” I said, finally looking up at him, only
to shoot my eyes back down at the floor. He was just too beautiful, and his
sadness was destroying me. I didn’t know how we were going to make it past
this, but I knew it couldn’t be any worse than the alternative. At least this
way we had a chance.

“Alright,” he said before walking off towards the bar door without the
slightest hesitation. It hurt, to see him walk away so easily. To not even put
up a fight.

‘
What’s wrong with you? Isn’t this what you wanted
?’ I thought as
I took cover under the building’s eaves. But I knew if it was so easy for him
to walk away then at least I hadn’t made a mistake. He was just being a
romantic again. He was unhappy with his relationship and projecting his feelings
onto me.

I began shaking, and fought back the hot tears welling up in my eyes.
How pathetic was I? This girl in a drenched cardigan with her hair in her face,
crying outside of a dive bar.

I was crying so much recently, behaving in irrational ways that just
weren’t characteristic of me. I was supposed to be in charge. I was the one
with the good head on her shoulders.

At least, that’s what Jason would tell me.

“God, fuck Jason,” I muttered, wiping away the tears with the sleeve of
my cardigan. My face just got wetter as a result. I gave out a mirthless laugh.
I pulled out my phone and called Sierra. After a few rings, she finally
answered.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?” her voice sounded flat, like she was preoccupied.

“If this isn’t a good time—”

“No it’s fine,” she snapped.

“Okay…it’s just…God there’s so much to tell you, and some of it I don’t
even think
 
I can tell you—”

She mumbled something I couldn’t make out.

“What?”

“Nothing.”
“Oh…okay, well, I just…I hooked up with this guy from
another band and he’s gorgeous, and I can’t tell if he’s just using me, but
then Trent just kissed me but I feel like he’s just confused and I have no idea
what to do,” I babbled, my shaking subsiding as I finally let it out. It was
the relief that came with simile

“Just fuck Trent then,” she said. It was so uncharacteristic of her that
it took me aback. She was always telling me that we were the loves of each
other lives, or whatever.

“Just go fuck him. You can’t trust the other guy, right?”

“Yeah but…”

“You only live once. Do you want to spend the rest of your life
wondering if you passed something amazing up?”

“Oh. I guess you’re right.” I don’t know what I was expecting, but it
wasn’t that. But she had a point. It was all just too confusing.

“So how have you be—”

“I think I’m going to bed. Call me tomorrow or
something.”
“Oh…okay. You still coming to Atlanta?”
“Probably,” she
said, sounding cold and distant. I didn’t want to press it further, she sounded
like she had a bad day.

“Alright, talk to you later,” I said, figuring she had some annoying art
deadline or something. She hung up without so much as a bye.

“Maybe she’s right,” I muttered to myself, taking a breath before
marching back into the hazy bar. Still, I couldn’t help but feel hurt by our
strange interaction. I ordered another two shots and threw them back one after
the other, wincing as the liquid burned my throat and nostrils. I was about to
march over to our table when I saw Trent was seated on a barstool a few seats
down from me.

“Hey,” I called out as the alcohol caressed my chest.

“Oh, hey,” he said, turning his head and giving me a weak smile.

“I need to tell you something,” I said loudly, hoping he would hear me
over the cluster of karaoke bros singing Journey onstage. He turned his gaze on
me, his eyes locking with mine.

He looked like someone had just died.

“So tell me something,” he said, his loud voice clear over the thudding
blare of rock music. I hesitated.

“I’d rather talk in the van.” He nodded slowly, as if wary of my
suggestion. I felt a pang of guilt at the look. I stood up and he followed,
throwing back the rest of his whiskey as he shadowed me out of the bar. The
couple was gone. I could hear nothing but the sound of my own pounding heart
and the occasional car speeding by. I opened the back door of the van with my
spare set of keys, not sparing him a glance as I crawled in. I felt his weight
load into the car, and I knew he was close behind me.

“So,” he said. I turned to see the outline of his face in the moonlight.
“What did you need to talk to me about?”

I froze as he shut the door behind him with a loud bang. What had I
wanted to talk to him about?

“Um…” the buzz of alcohol gripped me, numbing any reasonable thought in
my mind. His face became clearer as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, taking in
the hard line of his cut jaw, the dangerous trail of stubble, the steep whorl
of black under his tired eyes. It was easy to forget sometimes how much of a
bad boy he looked like. My mouth began to water at the thought of taking his
strong lips back into mine.

So I did. 
I jumped on him, recklessly, like an eager cougar on
its prey. Our bodies collided and I heard his head smack against the metal van
door, but only faintly, distantly. I was too engaged with the curl of his
strong lips against mine, teasing me with the hint of warmth hovering between
us. I crushed my body into his, pressing my breasts against his hard chest. He
reached his hands around my waist, placing them in the delicate curve of
negative space.

A thrill of electricity flew through my body at his touch, and I
couldn’t suppress the moan that escaped my lips before I pressed my tongue into
his mouth, searching desperately for the words he had said earlier in the wet,
warm crevices.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, pulling away for a gasp of air.

“I want you,” I murmured, my hands trembling against his shoulders. I
raised them to caress the sides of his thick neck, and I buried my face into
the dip just below his chin. I didn’t want to see his face, didn’t want to face
the consequences of the boundary I had just crossed.

“Don’t play with me Bailey,” he said. His voice verged on severe, but
cut down with a register of hope.

“I’m not,” I said, a thrill of delight shooting between my legs as I
felt a growing bulge greet it. It was the mystery of Trent’s sexuality finding
its way into my own. Like a rare tropical bird of paradise, I knew it existed,
but its presence still shocked and excited me.

“I want you,” I muttered into his throat, eager to explore the mysteries
of his body. I moved downwards, prodding my fingers against the ridges of his
hard chest and stomach, for the first time having free reign over the terrain I
had only explored in hugs and other platonic gestures. I felt his muscles pull
with a shudder as my hands moved over him, and his reaction rocked me with a
jolt of pleasure.

“I mean it, Bailey,” he warned. Something about the tender trill in his
voice made me want him more. I wanted to dominate him, to make him want me. I
wanted to do things to him he didn’t know were possible.