Page 22 of Bearly in Love

seventeen

MADISON

Emily was already in the store when I went inside. She was tucked away, hidden in the candy aisle.

I grabbed the morning after pill, and after a moment’s hesitation, a box of condoms that I was pretty sure would work.

Though I wasn’t positive whether Bo and I would be having sex, I would rather throw away the whole box than risk getting pregnant when neither of us was ready. If my period started, I’d go with a simpler version of birth control. Like an implant or an IUD or something.

I bought the stuff without making eye contact with the dude at the cash register—who I vaguely recognized—and stopped in the bathroom to take the pill.

Back outside a few minutes later, I slipped into the car, where I found Emily eating a chocolate bar.

She broke off a piece and offered it to me. I took it silently, handing her the leftover cash in exchange with a murmured thanks that she waved off.

“I’m a sucker for chocolate,” she remarked, as she pulled away from the drugstore.

“Isn’t everyone?” I bit into the creamy candy and nearly groaned.

You just couldn’t beat a good chocolate bar.

“Artie won’t eat it,” she said.

I grimaced at the mention of my brother. She was right. He’d never liked chocolate. That should’ve been her first warning to run away from him.

“He says he didn’t like it when you were kids, either,” Emily added.

“He never ate it,” I agreed. “When we went trick-or-treating, he forced me to trade him for all of his chocolates. If I didn’t want to, he swapped them while I was asleep. I’ve only had like three Starbursts in my life. He always took all of them.”

She snorted. “Asshole.”

“Right?”

“Yeah. He talks about how much of a dick he was to you sometimes.”

I lifted an eyebrow, having a hard time believing Artie would admit something like that to his mate of all people.

“He regrets it,” she added. “The way he treated you.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“I don’t blame you, but it’s the truth. We stayed up late on our wedding night, drinking and talking instead of fucking. He got all teary when he admitted that he wished he’d invited you.”

My throat swelled.

I’d gotten teary on his wedding night too. It had taken a lot of restraint not to let myself look up his social media profile, so I wouldn’t see any of the pictures from the event.

“I wasn’t against it,” Emily added. “But he was worried that if he invited anyone from your family, the alpha would show up with a bunch of jerks from the skulk. He didn’t want them interrupting or ruining anything.”

My forehead creased. “I’m sure he invited our dad.”

She shook her head. “Nope. There were only about a dozen people there. My immediate family, my grandpa, a few of our friends from college, and Bo. I’m not into massive group events.

If someone didn’t change my ass when I was a baby or I don’t talk to them regularly, I couldn’t care less if they want to celebrate me. ”

“I get that.”

The celebration thing. Not the part where even my dad wasn’t invited.

It was going to take me a serious chunk of time to process that.

“Are you and Bo going to have a wedding?” she asked.

“I doubt it. After today, I hope to never wear a white dress again. Me and Bo aren’t going to be real mates, anyway. Just roommates.”

Emily’s eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

Neither did I, to be honest.

“He could always decide to leave me, like most of the grizzlies used to leave their mates after claiming them. I think some of them still do,” I said.

“I can’t imagine he’s going to leave you after yesterday.”

“What happened yesterday?”

“Oh, I thought Bo was going to tear Hudson’s head off when the guy suggested kissing someone who wasn’t you. He was obviously in love with you.”

I snorted. “Ambrose is not in love with me.”

She lifted an eyebrow in my direction. “Then what does love look like to you? He barely stopped himself from damning the consequences and going after you alone last night.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t look like what Bo and I have.”

Does it?

“We’re just friends,” I added. “He never wanted to mate with me.”

“Didn’t he bite you by accident?”

“Yeah. Thanks for rubbing it in my face.”

She laughed. “That’s not what I’m doing. I’m just saying, you don’t accidentally claim someone as your mate when you’re just screwing them casually.”

“Then when do you accidentally claim someone as your mate?”

“When you’re trying not to admit you’re in love with them, Madison.” Her smile was soft, but genuine.

Maybe I liked her.

Grudgingly.

“You should’ve married someone way better than Artie. The guy’s an asshole,” I said.

She laughed again. Louder. “He’s a lovable asshole. And he’s good to me. That’s what matters.”

“If you say so.”

“You really don’t think Bo has any feelings for you?” she asked.

“Nah. He’s just obsessed with the way I smell. It’s a thing for shifters. Scent is a big deal. He likes the way I smell, so he fucked me and accidentally bit me. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” I said.

She shrugged. “Okay.”

“Don’t try to placate me.”

Emily flashed me a grin. “We’re not going to agree on this. I think he’s in love with you.”

“There’s no way.”

“Not even a little?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not even a little.”

“But if there was…” she trailed off.

“There’s not.”

“Right. I’m pretending to agree with you. What if he doesn’t love you even a little bit right now, but tomorrow, he starts to fall for you? Just barely.”

“Just bearly ? No horrible puns allowed, Emily.”

“Fine. But what if he does?”

“He’s not going to start falling in love with me.”

“Then what if you start falling for him?”

My face flushed. “I’m not going to develop feelings for my older brother’s best friend, even if he’s my mate. We’ve established that both men are assholes.”

“People fall in love with assholes all the time, Madison. Love defies assholeishness. Even on some occasions when it shouldn’t.”

“Is your bond with my brother one of those occasions?”

If she was allowed to bug me about Bo, I could annoy her about Artie.

Emily’s smile came back. “No. Artie was never like that with me. My last boyfriend was abusive. It took me longer than I wish it had to get away from him. He didn’t want to let me go when I finally did.

Artie found out Chris was sending me threatening messages before he and I were anything more than friends.

He tracked Chris down and convinced him to back off by claiming I was his mate.

I was pissed for a few minutes, but when Chris really did leave me alone, I fell for Artie pretty quickly. ”

“I wouldn’t have imagined him standing up for a woman. No offense.” I looked out the window. He had never stood up for me.

He had just been a kid, though. Like I was. And Bo was right—standing up for me would’ve meant the skulk would want to kill him.

It wasn’t as simple as Artie just being a terrible brother. Even if there was no excuse for him choosing to be a dick to me for so long.

“None taken. If I were in your shoes, I’d probably hate him too.”

“I don’t hate him. I’m just…” I trailed off, shaking my head as my gaze lingered on the trees outside. “Sad, I guess. We were all each other had, and he preferred Bo. That’s a hard thing to wrap your head around when you’re a twelve-year-old girl who’s engaged to a man more than twice her age.”

Emily grimaced, but nodded. “And Bo was a dick to you too.”

“Yep.”

“If he’s in love with you, he’s got his work cut out for him.”

I snorted. “Drop it. He’s not in love with me, and he’s never going to be.”

“You never answered my question about if he was, though.”

“If Bo was in love with me, it would be obvious.”

“You think he’d tell you?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. I’d notice, though.”

“What would you notice?”

“He’d be obsessed with taking care of me. Most male shifters are like that. He’d want to feed me all the time, and he’d always make sure I had enough to eat.”

“Yeah, Artie does that with me. Bo doesn’t feed you?”

“He does, but it’s only because I can’t cook. I’ve tried to learn. Maybe now that I’m not engaged to the alpha I’ll be able to.”

She nodded. “Artie is super possessive when it comes to other people touching me. Bo would probably be the same if he was in love with you.”

“Yeah. And he let the skulk take me out of his cabin. He didn’t technically let them touch me, but I’m sure he would’ve tried harder to stop them from making me leave if he loved me.”

“Unless he thought it might lead to you getting hurt even worse.”

“I guess.”

“Or unless he hadn’t realized he was in love with you.”

I wrinkled my nose. “How could you be in love with someone without realizing it?”

“Love doesn’t always look like a romance movie. Sometimes it looks like intense friendship. Or hatred. Or obsession.”

“I guess it could .”

Emily met my gaze in the rearview mirror for a moment before refocusing on the road. “Did you miss him when you were at the alpha’s house?”

“I missed my freedom. He was the one who made it possible before the skulk found me, so missing him was the default,” I said.

“Right.”

“I’m sure he didn’t miss me. I made him feel guilty about letting me be forced into an arranged marriage, and he had already accidentally bitten me. So it was his bear that forced him to come after me. Not love.”

“A shifter’s animal is just a wilder, more instinctual side of them. But sure. Maybe the mate bond was what pushed him to stay awake all night rather than sleep well knowing he had a solid plan to rescue you.”

“A mate bond would do that to anyone,” I said.

Including me.

It had to have been why I couldn’t sleep either. And why I had missed Bo when we were apart.

“Probably,” she agreed.

“A week isn’t long enough to fall in love with someone, anyway.”

“You spent more time together in that week than most people do in the first few months of a new relationship, and you already knew each other.”

“So?”

“So a week could be long enough. Especially if there were already strong feelings between you.”

“Unpleasant ones,” I pointed out.

“He was obsessed with your scent. That’s not unpleasant.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“That was just about sex,” I said.

“Okay.” Emily didn’t sound convinced.

I was starting not to feel convinced, either.

“Are you always this difficult?” I asked her.

She laughed. “Pretty much.”

“Artie deserves worse.”

“I’ll try extra hard to give him hell for you this week.”

“Thanks.” I leaned my head back against the headrest, staring out the window once again. “What if Bo was in love with me? Just barely?”

“Then you’d want to decide how you felt about him. And keep his feelings in mind before you do anything he could see as intimate. If he’s in love with you and you don’t feel the same way, screwing him could cause problems.”

I grimaced. “I guess you couldn’t really have casual sex with someone who was in love with you if you didn’t love them back.”

“You could. You just might feel like shit afterward.”

“That’s obviously not ideal.”

“Not when you’re already permanently mated.”

I dragged a hand through my hair. It was drying weird, but it usually did. “What if he already had feelings for me before we started hooking up? That was supposed to be casual. And meaningless.”

“I can imagine a grizzly who had feelings for you before you screwed could have a hard time resisting the urge to bite you.”

I bit my lip.

That did make sense.

“He doesn’t love me, though. Right?”

She shrugged. “Maybe you should ask him.”

“So he can laugh me out of the house we’re supposed to share?”

“I don’t think he would do that.”

I didn’t either.

“If I ask him, I’m going to blame you for the question,” I finally said.

Emily grinned. “Go ahead.”

She turned the music up a little for the last part of the drive.

Maybe having a sister-in-law wasn’t so bad.

I was still pissed about the wedding thing, though. Artie hadn’t ever apologized for leaving me out, or even reached out about it. Which made my anger seemed reasonable.

Even if it wasn’t, I had bigger fish to fry at the moment than my dickhead brother.