Page 17 of Blood & Bond (The Bouchers #2)

“Don’t pretend you were languishing at the hotel,” Charlie replied, elbowing her back. “You did plenty of exploring on your own.”

“He’s right,” Lucy agreed with a shrug.

I looked diagonally across the table and found Chance smirking at me.

He wiggled his eyebrows. I glared back. I knew exactly what he was thinking, and I’d fucking kill him if he said any stupid shit.

Lucy was having a hard enough time dealing with the mating bond.

She didn’t need him hassling us about it.

“This is wonderful,” my mom breathed, standing at the end of the table. “This is just?—”

“It is.” My dad nodded and squeezed my mom’s hip. “Sit, love.”

“Your family really goes all out,” Lucy said to me, looking at the large array of food and dinnerware that my mom had arranged across the tablecloth. “Is this normal, or…”

“Mattie wanted to make it special,” my dad explained. “Since everyone is home.”

Lucy jolted, and her head snapped up to look at him.

“They hear everything ,” Reese explained, widening her eyes comically at my mate.

“Right,” Lucy replied. “I knew that.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Reese said as Beau laughed. She scowled at him. “What? I’m getting better.”

“Sure you are,” he conceded unconvincingly.

“Their rooms are safe,” Reese told Lucy conspiratorially. “Just FYI.”

“Good to know,” Lucy replied. She turned to Charles and smiled at him.

“Charles was telling us that you two grew up in the same apartment building your whole lives,” Danny said, changing the subject. “That must’ve been nice. We moved all over hell and back.”

“To be fair, you’ve lived a lot longer than us,” Lucy replied as my mom waved at the table, gesturing for all of us to start serving ourselves. “But yeah, same place.”

“I mentioned the courtyard,” Charlie told his sister, his mouth twitching.

“That frigging courtyard,” Lucy grumbled. “Swear to god, it stunk so bad in the summer it felt like it clung to you after you’d gone back inside.”

“Like what?” Reese asked.

“Poop,” Charlie and Lucy answered together. They both laughed.

“I don’t know what it was.” Lucy shrugged. “But you never got used to it.”

“Our parents were terrified we’d be hit by a car if we played out by the street,” Charlie explained.

“So if we wanted to go outside, it had to be the courtyard,” Lucy finished. “I swear, one summer I think the scent burned off all my nose hair.”

“Why didn’t anyone talk to the landlord?” my dad asked curiously.

“Oh, we did,” Lucy said, shooting me a smile when I set a roll on her plate. “They weren’t exactly slumlords?—”

“They weren’t much better,” Charlie continued. “It took forever for them to fix anything. One time our kitchen sink got backed up, and we had to wash the dishes in the bathtub for a month.”

“Was it at least rent-controlled?” Danny asked.

“Nope.” Lucy shook her head. “But it wasn’t a bad place to live, all things considered.”

“The tenants were mostly older people,” Charlie explained. “We were the only kids there for most of our childhood.”

“Olly olly oxen free,” Lucy whispered to her brother with a small smile.

Charlie smiled back at her and then glanced around the table. “School wasn’t easy for me,” he said softly, pressing his lips into a flat line. “Our building was a safe zone.”

“Children can be assholes,” Lucy announced. She reached for some pasta salad. “Unfortunately for them, I was the supreme asshole when provoked.”

My father chuckled.

“She was in more fistfights than anyone else in our elementary school,” Charlie said proudly, glancing at his sister. “Picture a little girl in purple overalls?—”

“I loved those overalls,” Lucy said quietly as she picked up her fork.

“Pigtails with little bows in her hair. Missing front teeth. Absolutely waling on a boy twice her size.”

“I’m guessing you’re talking about Kirk Shelten,” Lucy said, lifting her chin. “That little creep deserved it.”

“Is that what his name was?” Charlie joked. “I can’t keep them all straight.”

“If they didn’t want to get humiliated by a little girl, they should’ve behaved better,” Lucy replied simply.

“And then, when the fights started getting a little more evenly matched, she started training,” Charlie told us.

“In what?” Chance asked curiously.

“A little of this and a little of that,” Lucy replied vaguely.

“Mr. Wallis was a boxer, right?” Charlie asked her.

“Yeah. Welterweight.”

“What about, um…what was his name? Howard? No, Howser?”

“Muay Thai,” Lucy replied quietly as she dug into her food.

“Lucy can throw down,” Reese said appreciatively.

“Not really.” Lucy wrinkled her nose.

“She’s underplaying it,” Charlie argued.

“How did your parents feel about all these fights?” my mom asked.

Lucy shrugged. “Ambivalent unless they had to take off work to go into the school.”

“It usually happened after school,” Charlie said, his mood dimming. “But things settled down around ninth grade.”

“You were in tenth grade,” Lucy corrected. “I was in ninth.”

“Right.”

“Did you ever train with those guys, Charlie?” Danny asked curiously.

“I tried,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I wasn’t ever very good.”

“Your reflexes got much better, though,” Lucy added loyally. “You were always a lover. I was the fighter.”

The conversation moved on to other things, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy’s last comment.

Charlie was the lover, and she was the fighter.

Why was that? Yes, Charlie was on the smaller side, but that didn’t mean anything.

I’d known plenty of scrappy men and Vampires who were slight in stature.

I understood the disinclination for fighting.

Lots of people preferred to avoid confrontation, but defending yourself was different.

Lucy’s hand found my thigh about twenty minutes into dinner. Wine was flowing and stories were being tossed around, the latest about when Zeke was ten years old and decided that he was going to run away, but I was having a hard time following the conversation.

It was impossible to ignore the heat licking up my torso.

Lucy’s hand tightened on my thigh beneath the table as she let out a strained laugh at whatever my dad had said. Her fingers dug in.

“Where did he think he was going to go?”

“A ranch,” Chance and Beau both replied.

“It didn’t matter which one,” Danny said with a laugh. “He was just determined to get away from us.”

“Well, if you didn’t torment him so much,” my mother chastised.

“We didn’t torment him,” Chance argued. “At least not any more than Ulf and Bjorn tormented us.”

Lucy looked at me in question.

“Our childhood nicknames. Me and Beau.”

She nodded in understanding.

“Mom named us, but Dad chose the nicknames,” I explained. “Danny’s is Arne. Chance is Happ.”

“What about Zeke?” Lucy asked.

“Ezekiel was named for my good friend,” my dad answered before I could. “More like a brother.”

“He was always just Zeke,” I confirmed.

“I gave them strong names,” my mom said with a sigh. “Ambrose, Beaumont, Chauncey, Daniel, and Ezekiel. But Erik was determined to call them by something different.”

“They’re fine names,” my dad agreed. “There’s nothing wrong with nicknames.”

“Chauncey?” Lucy asked, looking across the table at my brother, gleefully.

Chance met her stare.

“That fits you perfectly,” she said. There was nothing in her tone or the expression on her face to indicate that she was fucking with him…unless you’d seen them butt heads before. I knew with absolute certainty she was trying to goad him.

“I think so too,” my mother said happily.

“Knock it off, Lucille ,” Charlie chided, shooting his sister a look.

She gazed back innocently.

As my father and Beau started clearing the table, I made no move to help them.

Lucy was still contributing to the conversation, but I’d noticed that her posture had changed the longer we’d sat for dinner.

She was very still, her muscles rigid with strain.

Oh, she was hiding it well, but I also had the benefit of her nails digging into my thigh.

“Two choices,” I whispered into her ear. “You can sit on my lap and alleviate some of this, or we can excuse ourselves.”

“I’m fine,” she breathed.

“Pick,” I ordered.

When she turned to meet my gaze, I made the decision for her. The pupils of her eyes were so wide with pain that the brown around them was just a sliver of color. It was startling, considering the fact that she’d barely fidgeted or given any other indication that she was uncomfortable.

“We’re going to skip dessert,” I announced, getting to my feet.

“I’d like dessert,” Lucy argued.

“It’s worse when you try to fight it,” Reese said in commiseration, wincing.

“I’m not fighting anything,” Lucy countered as she rose from her seat. The trembling in her hands gave her away.

“Luce,” Charlie whispered sympathetically.

“If only a mate could get with the program from the beginning,” Chance joked, leaning back in his chair. “Things would be so much less dramatic.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes. “Charlie fell head over heels for Zeke the moment he met him,” she ground out, setting her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “I don’t think it made anything less dramatic for him. Do you?”

Chance’s chair dropped forward with a thud.

“Not another word, Happ,” my dad ordered as he stepped back into the room. “Lucy, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Go spend some time with Ulf.”

Reese was glaring at Chance in exasperation. I probably was too.

“Charlie?” Lucy asked quietly.

“Go,” he ordered her softly. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

As she turned to me, she let me take her hand and tug her out of the room. We were silent as we headed upstairs. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her, but I knew that she resented the fact that we had to leave her brother behind.

“They love him already,” I assured her as I closed the door behind us. “He’ll be fine.”

“Your brother’s a frigging bully,” she snapped, letting go of my hand.

“He’s a pain in the ass.”

“What is his deal, anyway?”

“Who knows?”

“He’s been an asshole since we met,” she griped, shoving her hair away from her face.

“You really want to discuss Chance right now?” I asked as she tore off her T-shirt and fanned herself with it, pacing across the room.

“I’m pissed. Drama? I can show him dramatic if he wants,” she said darkly.

I caught her around the waist on her next pass.

“How about you show me something instead?” I asked, pulling her toward me.

“Oh, that feels good.” She sighed with relief as I tucked my hands under her tank top. “This crap is really inconvenient.”

“Life usually is,” I agreed, pressing my lips against her forehead.

“This isn’t going to go away, is it?” she asked, leaning into me.

“Never,” I murmured against her hair.

“I should probably stop being a little bitch about it, huh?” she asked, her words muffled against my shirt. She tipped her head back. “Charlie was all in from like the first minute.”

“It’s different for everyone.” How many times had I told her that? In some ways, it was convenient that Lucy had seen the mating bond firsthand, but the comparisons she made weren’t helpful. Zeke and Charlie’s relationship had been different, not better or worse, but their own.

“Still.”

“Reese and Beau cemented the bond right away,” I told her. “And they couldn’t stand each other. So it could be worse.”

“They seem to get along fine, now.”

“They’re obsessed with each other,” I agreed. “ Now .”

“It’s not like I’d ever get sick of looking at you,” she mused, her cheeks pulling in as she held back a smile. “And I don’t mind your company.”

“High praise.”

“I’m a tough critic,” she replied with mock seriousness.

“We’ll wait as long as you need.”

The playfulness disappeared from her expression.

“I never imagined that our lives would go like this,” she said.

“One day, Charlie and I are quitting our jobs to travel for a year, and the next he’s some Vampire’s mate.

I’d finally gotten my head wrapped around that little curveball when Zeke tells us that there’s some conspiracy going on, and he has to leave—which was bad enough—but then he insisted we follow this elaborate plan to get back to the United States if he doesn’t come back because we might be in danger. ”

“You guys have been through a lot,” I soothed, pulling her closer.

“Then you show up,” she said, reaching up to run a finger down the front of my throat.

“And scare the hell out of you.”

“I mean, I did all right,” she said. “I got past Danny and Chance.”

“You weren’t expecting me.”

“Understatement.”

We smiled at each other.

“It’s a lot,” she said, her smile dropping.

“I know. For me too.”

“But you’ve been looking for your mate, right?” she asked as I shuffled her backward toward the couch. “It couldn’t have been that much of a surprise.”

“Believe me, it was,” I replied as I pulled her down with me. “I was searching for my brother’s mate. I didn’t see you coming.”

“Do you think Charlie’s okay?”

“I think he’s getting a little better every day,” I replied honestly. I squeezed her thigh. “But, baby, I think expecting your brother to ever fully heal from this?” I shook my head.

“So he’ll just never be happy?” she choked out.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t have much experience with mates who’d lost their other half. It didn’t happen often, and those left behind rarely chose to go on without them. “I’d like to think that eventually he’ll be able to enjoy some of the things he did before.”

“He has to, right?” she asked almost desperately. “All pain fades with time.”

I nodded, even though I couldn’t imagine it.

I’d been with Lucy for mere days, and I couldn’t even comprehend going on with my life if she were suddenly lost to me.

The memory of the hopelessness and frustration that I’d felt before I’d found her was enough to make my stomach turn.

I’d spent my life waiting for her. What was left for me if she was gone forever? All hope lost. All purpose gone.

Perhaps it was different for humans. Their lives and relationships weren’t dictated by the quest for the other half of their soul. They found and discarded relationships easily. Fell in and out of love like it was nothing. Maybe that would work in Charlie’s benefit. He was human.

“Charlie will be okay,” I told her finally. I hoped it wasn’t a lie.