“But—”
“My mind is made up.” He smiles at Ana and shifts register. “I’ll have someone look into bouncy castles,” he adds, and the rest of the dinner conversation is just that—Ana planning the cake she’ll buy for my “birthday,” Alex concerned that my fangs will pierce the inflatables, Lowe looking at us with an amused expression. We stay longer than the time it takes to finish the meal—a common occurrence, apparently, spending time chatting about nothing of particular importance. Weres’ social customs are different, and they have me wondering how Lowe’s mate is faring among my people. She left friends behind, family, a partner. Who is she having around-the-table conversations with? I picture her trying to chat with Owen—and Owen excusing himself to go capture a mountain lion to set after her.
I shake my head and tune back in to the conversation. Ana laughs, Lowe grins, Alex smiles. And then there’s Mick, who stares at me with a worried expression on his weathered face.
CHAPTER 13
He tries to avoid thinking about what he’d do to her father if only it wouldn’t cause the worst diplomatic incident of the current century.
Ana was right: it isn’t that difficult, climbing up to the roof, even for someone with the hand-eye coordination of a platypus.
I.e., me.
It takes me less than fifteen seconds to get there, and it’s vaguely empowering, the way I never even feel like my brains will end up splattered in the plumbago flower bed. Once I’m sitting on the tiles, vaguely uncomfortable but not willing to admit it, I close my eyes and breathe in, then out, then in, letting the breeze play with my hair, welcoming the tickle of the night sky. The waves wash gently over the shore. Every once in a while, something splashes on the lake. I don’t even mind the bugs, I tell myself. If I persevere, I’ll believe it. That’s what I’m failing at when Lowe arrives.
He doesn’t notice me right away, and I get to observe him as he gracefully lifts himself up the eave. He stands on an edge that should be terrifying, lifting a hand to his eyes and pressing thumb and index fingers into them, so hard he must see stars. Then he lets his arm drop to his side and he exhales once, slowly.
This, I think, is Lowe. Not Lowe the Alpha, Lowe the brother, Lowe the friend, or the son, or the unfortunate husband of the equally unfortunate wife. Just: Lowe. Tired, I think. Lonely, I assume. Angry, I bet. And I don’t want to disturb his rare moment alone, but the breeze lifts, blowing in his direction and carrying my scent.
He instantly spins around. To me. And when his eyes become all pupils, I lift my hand and awkwardly wave.
“Ana told me about the roof,” I say, apologetic. I’m intruding on a cherished private moment. “I can leave . . .”
He shakes his head stoically. I swallow a laugh.
“If you sit here”—I point to my right—“you’ll be between me and the wind. No bouillabaisse smell.”
His lips twitch, but he makes his way to the spot I was pointing at, his large body folding next to mine, far enough to avoid accidental touches. “What do you even know about bouillabaisse?”
“As it’s not hemoglobin or peanut based, nothing. So.” I clap my hands. The cicadas quiet, then resume their singing after a disoriented pause. “Tell me if I got it right: You’ll use your meeting with Emery as an excuse to plant some spyware or interceptor that will allow you to monitor her communications and gain proof that she’s leading the Loyals. But you are going into enemy territory alone, and have the computer skills of an octogenarian Luddite, which puts you at great risk. Actually, no need to tell me if I’m right, I already know. When are you plunging to your imminent death? Tomorrow or Friday?”
He studies me like he’s not sure whether I’m a bench or a postmodern sculpture. A muscle twitches in his jaw. “I truly don’t get it,” he muses.
“Get what?”
“How you managed to stay alive despite your reckless outbursts.”
“I must be very smart.”
“Or incredibly stupid.”
Our eyes clash for a few seconds, full of something that feels more confusing than antagonism. I glance away first.
And just say it, without thinking it through. “Take me with you. Let me help with the tech part.”
He huffs out a tired, noiseless snort. “Just go to bed, Misery, before you get yourself killed.”
“I’m nocturnal,” I mutter. “Little offensive, that my husband doesn’t think I can take care of myself.”
“A lot offensive, that my wife thinks that I’d take her with me into a highly volatile situation where I might not be able to protect her.”
“Okay. Fine.” I glance back at him—his earnest, stubborn, uncompromising face. In the fading moonlight, the lines of his cheekbones are ready to slice me. “You can’t do it on your own, though.”
He gives me an incredulous look. “Are you telling me what I can and cannot do?”
“Oh, I would never, Alpha,” I say with a mocking tone that I only half regret when he glares back. “But you can’t even start a computer.”
“I can start a fucking computer.”
“Lowe. My friend. My spouse. You’re clearly a competent Were with many talents, but I’ve seen your phone. I’ve seen you use your phone. Half of your gallery is blurry pictures of Ana with your finger blocking the camera. You type ‘Google’ in the Google bar to start a new search.”
He opens this mouth. Then snaps it closed.
“You were about to ask me why that’s the wrong way.”
“You’re not coming.” His tone is definitive. And when he makes to stand, driven away by my insistence, I feel a stab of guilt and reach out for the leg of his jeans, pulling him back down. His eyes fix on the place where I’m gripping him, but he relents.
“Sorry, I’ll let the matter go.” For now. “Please, don’t leave. I’m sure you came here to . . . What do you do here, anyway? Scratch your claws? Howl at the moon?”
“Deflea myself.”
“See? I wouldn’t want to be in your way. Do go on.” I wait for him to pick critters out of his hair. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping, anyway? You are not nocturnal.” It’s past midnight. Prime awake time for me, the cicadas, and no one else for miles.
“I don’t sleep much.”
Right. Ana said that. When she mentioned that he had . . . “Insomnia!”
His eyebrow quirks. “You seem overjoyed by my inability to get decent rest.”
“Yes. No. But Ana mentioned you had pneumonia, and . . .”
He smiles. “She mixes up words often.”
“Yup.”
“According to Google, which I apparently don’t know how to use”—his side look is blistering—“it’s normal for her age.” He looks pensive for a long moment as his smile sobers.
“I can’t imagine how difficult it must be.”
“Learning to talk?”
“That, too. But also, raising a young child. Out of the blue.”
“Not as difficult as being raised by some asshole who doesn’t know to buy a car seat for you, or gives you Skittles before bed because you’re hungry, or lets you watch The Exorcist because he’s never seen it, but the protagonist is a young girl, and he figures that you’ll identify with her.”
“Wow. Serena and I watched that at fifteen and slept with the lights on for months.”
“Ana watched it at six and will need expensive therapy well into her forties.”
I wince. “I’m sorry. For Ana, mostly, but also for you. People usually ease into parenthood. We’re not born knowing how to change diapers.”
“Ana’s potty-trained. Not by me, obviously—I’d have somehow managed to teach her to piss out of her nose.” He runs a hand over his short hair and then rubs his neck. “I was unprepared for her. Still am. And she’s so fucking forgiving.”
I rest my temple on my knees, studying the way he stares into the distance, wondering how many nights he’s comes up here in the witching hour. To make decisions for thousands. To beat himself up for not being perfect. Despite how competent, self-denying, and assured he appears to be, Lowe might not like himself very much.
“You used to live in Europe? Where?”