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I nodded. “I know. He’s got cause to be. Thanks for talking to him.”
Emiel raised a shoulder and let it drop. “S’okay. He thought you might be upset, too. He said I should—”
He cut himself off abruptly. The pause was longer this time.
“He said I should tell you he needs some time to himself tonight. I think he’s okay, though.”
I was quite sure that wasn’t what he’d originally intended to say, but I also figured that pushing would only make him shut down completely.
“All right,” I told him, trying to hide how badly I didn’t want to be alone right now. I thought wistfully of the time I’d spent tangled up with Luca in his nest... and more recently, with Emiel in my bed. Neither of them owed me anything, though—least of all, intimacy.
“Might email this place over in Frontenac that does counseling,” Emiel said, in an uncharacteristic rush. “Tomorrow, I mean.”
Helpless affection swelled in my heart, expanding until my ribs hurt.
“That’s great,” I told him, trying not to let too much emotion creep into the words. “And if you don’t click with them, you can always try other places. I did counseling off and on while I was in culinary school. It took me three tries to find the right fit.”
“Yeah,” he said, apparently having hit the limit of his tolerance for talking to people about emotional stuff. “G’night, Mia.”
“Goodnight, Emiel,” I replied, allowing the warmth I was feeling to leak into my voice a bit more.
Princess hopped down from the sofa and loped after him as he turned and headed toward the stairs. Oppressive silence fell over the room again, broken only by the low sound of Byron and Zalen still conversing in the kitchen. I stared at the remote sitting precariously on the couch arm, trying to muster up the motivation to turn on the TV, if only for the background noise. It might as well have been two miles away from my hand, rather than two feet away.
Unable to cope with more time alone inside my own head, I tossed the pillow aside and got up. I was actually kind of pissed off with Byron, who’d seemed to take the evening’s meeting as an excuse to be an ass to Nat. I wasn’t even certain why it had bothered me so much, but it did. Shouldn’t I have been happy that one of the alphas I lived with was going after the guy who’d upended my life with his selfish bullshit?
Whatever the case, inserting myself into Byron and Zalen’s conversation sounded better than staying here, or worse yet, going back to my room alone.
The two alphas looked up as I walked into the gorgeous, state-of-the-art kitchen that definitely hadn’t been the main reason I’d left Nat.
“Hey,” I said. “Luca’s okay. Just taking some time for himself tonight. And, um, Emiel went up to bed, I think.”
I wasn’t sure why I said it, since neither of them had asked.
“That’s good,” Zalen said, diplomatic as ever.
“Did your deadbeat ex find his way safely off the property?” Byron asked.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’d appreciate it if you weren’t a complete shit to him, you know. We do still have to work together.”
Byron raised an eyebrow. “Still not your therapist, pet.Definitelynot your marriage counselor.”
“No,” I said evenly. “Just a bit of an asshole, apparently.”
Byron pasted on an amused expression that didn’t quite ring true. “Well, if you’re only figuring that part outnow...”
“Byron,” Zalen said tiredly. He’d been watching the exchange with careful neutrality up until this point, but at that, he tipped his chin toward the door. “That’s enough.”
Byron smirked. “Fine. I can tell when I’m not wanted. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, you crazy kids.”
I made a concerted effort not to let him get to me, holding his gaze without blinking until he turned with a careless gesture of one hand and wandered out of the kitchen.
Zalen sighed. “I don’t know what’s got into him tonight.”
I firmly put Byron out of my mind. “Doesn’t matter. Sorry—I know it’s getting late, but could I pick your brain a bit more about the legal stuff? If I try to go to bed right now, I’ll be staring at the ceiling until morning.”
Saying it aloud felt uncomfortably vulnerable, but somehow, I felt like Zalen, out of everyone here, would understand.
Sure enough, he nodded without a hint of hesitation. “Of course. Why don’t you come upstairs to my room.” Then he seemed to realize how that might sound, covering a wince. “That... wasn’t a proposition, just to be clear. It’s just that my laptop and notes are up there.”