Page 10 of Bullied Pretend Mate (Silverville Firefighter Wolves #3)

“ Maeve Villareal ?”

Soren is on me the moment I walk into the firehouse Monday morning, and I honestly should have known better than to think the news of Maeve and me at that wedding wasn’t going to spread like wildfire through Silverville.

As it has been for the past few weeks, the firehouse is swarming with new recruits, guys learning the ropes and working on getting their certifications.

Every day, more trucks full of daemon ash come in, with Xeran insisting it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to having the extinguisher we need to put out any future wildfires.

“Shut up,” I growl, stalking past him, my bag thumping rhythmically against my thigh.

“Shut up?” Lachlan asks, falling into step with us. He reaches out, pressing the back of his hand to my forehead. “You sick, man?”

“No,” I say, quiet rage simmering inside me. “I’m feeling perfectly fine.”

As much as I played it off to Maeve at the wedding, my parents were actually pissing me off. For the rest of the night, it was nothing but underhanded compliments and my mother shooting me severe looks when Maeve wasn’t present.

It reminded me of what Maeve went through during high school.

And the fact that I was part of that.

“Seriously,” Soren says, trying to keep up as I push through the door to the locker room. “Seriously, dude, didn’t she have like, a huge, embarrassing crush on you or something?”

“Something like that,” I mutter, opening my locker and throwing my bag inside, then dropping down onto the bench to change my shoes.

“But—”

“Can you just leave it alone ?” I snap, watching Lachlan and Soren’s faces erupt into shock. I swallow down the anger and try to flash them a smile, but it falls short.

“I think we’re all just a little surprised you took a mate so quickly.”

When I look up, Xeran is standing in the locker room, arms crossed, a serious look on his face as he watches me. I hate the weight of his stare, like he’ll be able to figure out what I’m concealing even without me telling him.

I reach for my automatic instinct, which is to make a joke about it, but I find it’s not there. I have to try hard not to glare at Xeran.

I’m not usually a glaring kind of guy. Usually, I’m all smiles, all jokes.

But I’m not going to joke about Maeve.

My mother might claim it’s the effect of her mating mark on my neck influencing these thoughts—if I answered her calls or gave her a chance to talk to me—but it was excruciating watching Maeve hold herself tall when everyone was whispering about us.

I lean down to tie my shoes so I don’t have to keep eye contact with Xeran. “Maeve is back in town, and we just…reconnected.”

“Reconnected?” Lachlan asks, raising his eyebrows. “What is there to reconnect?”

“Felix and Maeve were childhood friends,” Xeran says quietly. Lachlan wouldn’t know—he didn’t grow up with us—but Xeran knows how close she and I were. He knows that when we were all being little shitheads in high school, I was specifically worried that people might think I liked Maeve back.

Soren is staring at me intently, Lachlan looks amused, and Xeran works his jaw like he’s trying to figure me out.

“Well,” he says, turning, “don’t take too long. Workout starts in five.”

When he’s gone, Lachlan says, “Well, congrats, or whatever.”

“Thanks, or whatever,” I mutter, then it’s just Soren and me in the locker room.

He’s staring at me, his locker hanging open.

Soren is the kind of guy who likes to know everything, likes to have things figured out.

And I have the sense that if he gathers enough details, if he pays close enough attention, he might figure out that this thing between Maeve and me is more of an agreement than a reconnection.

I wait, expecting him to launch into more questions, but he just runs a hand over his copper curls and shakes his head. “Alright,” he says. “Hopefully, Xeran isn’t planning to tear us up today. I’m still sore from Friday.”

“Yeah, right,” I laugh, realizing it’s the first time I’ve done so since getting to the firehouse.

Soren claps me on the back, and we head to the weight room together, knowing there’s no chance in hell Xeran is going to go easy on us.

***

“Oh, gods,” Maeve says when she walks through the door of my apartment and sees what I’ve cooked up in the living room. “Are you serious?”

“What?” I ask as I turn, two bottles of strawberry soda in my hands. “You don’t like it?”

“No, no,” she assures me, and when she laughs, she throws her head back a bit, her curls rolling over her back. I can’t pull my eyes from them, and I track her movement as she shrugs her coat off her shoulders.

“Oh,” I say, setting down the soda quickly. “Here.”

As I’m taking her coat, she wanders into the living room, trailing her finger over the back of the couch, her eyes locked on the pile of blankets on the floor.

Well, it’s more than a pile of blankets. It’s a nest.

When we were kids and rain kept us inside on a summer day, we’d make a nest on the floor, bundling up with snacks and soda, watching horror movies until I was freaking out and cowering and Maeve was laughing at me, trying to remind me that the movies weren’t real, even as thunder boomed outside and added to the creepy ambiance.

“How long has it been?” she whispers.

I stop myself from reciting the exact number of years. That summer before high school was the last we spent together, and even that summer had pulled me in two directions—spending more time with the guys, and keeping my friendship with Maeve a secret from them.

My heart aches now when I think about all the movie nests I missed out on from being concerned about what other people thought about me.

“I rented a bunch of new releases,” I say, gesturing to the nest. “Settle in. I can grab our dinner.”

Maeve twists her hands together, looking first at me, then at the nest on the floor, all pillows and blankets piled high. Enough room that we won’t have to touch one another if we don’t want to.

I want to. But I can keep my hands to myself.

In the kitchen, I dish up two bowls of shrimp scampi and carry them out to the living room, the steam trailing behind me as I go. Maeve’s face lights up when she sees it.

“Did you make this?” she asks, looking dubious.

“Well,” I say, clearing my throat. “Does dumping it out of the bag count?”

She laughs, digging her fork into the bowl. “Sure.”

I go back to the kitchen, grab the tray of snacks and a huge bowl of popcorn, then return to the living room and settle in with her.

We start the first movie, finishing up our food before the first major gory scene, and I’m pleased to find that Maeve is still as impervious to these movies as ever, munching on her snacks even during the most brutal murders on screen.

“I just don’t know how you’re not freaked out by that,” I mutter, looking through my fingers at the TV as a woman screams and races down a hill. I’ve never seen this one, but based on what’s happened to the other characters, I don’t think she’s going to get away.

“You’ve literally fought wildfires,” Maeve shoots back, leaning over and pushing against my arm. “You should not be freaked out by this.”

“That’s a stereotype.”

“ What ? What stereotype?”

“Just because I am brave against fire,” I say, leaning in close to her, “doesn’t mean I’m brave against everything, Maev-is.”

“That’s not my name,” she says, reaching up and pushing against my shoulder.

I fall back, acting wounded, but feeling happier than I have in a long time. It’s always fun to hang out with the guys, but since Lachlan got serious with Valerie and Xeran’s been keeping Kalen busy with pack business, our group has dwindled.

And it’s different with Maeve. It’s always been different with her.

The first movie ends, and we turn on the second one, and I catch the slightest nod of Maeve’s head, her chin nearing her chest.

It reminds me of us as kids, her drifting off long before me.

After my first shift, I only needed about four hours of sleep a night.

After her first shift, she needed at least ten, which means there was a lot of time that I was awake, watching her sleep, getting her a blanket when she started to shiver.

Now, she drifts off, and even though I’m usually not tired, I feel a wave of sleepiness roll over me. When she’s asleep, I reach down and pull a blanket up over our bodies, knowing she’s going to get cold.

Hours later, when I wake up, Maeve and I are no longer on opposite sides of the nest. Instead, she’s on her side, and I’m close behind her, my chest pressed into her back.

And I’m hard.

Her scent is heavy around me, thick and alluring, and it takes all my self-control to keep from rolling my hips into her, even as she lets out a little sound, tipping her head back so her curls roll to the side and her neck is exposed to me, showing her mating mark.

I want to bite it again, re-mark it, make the connection stronger. My mouth waters, and after a moment of hesitation, I get control of my wolf, grabbing him and stuffing him down. I’m not going to let him control me, no matter how loudly he howls.

Scooting back, I get some space between Maeve and me, the cool air rushing between our bodies and helping me calm down. Maeve lets out a little sound again and starts to scoot back, seeking out my body, my warmth, and I realize this was a terrible idea.

All I’ve done is set myself up for disaster, setting us up together on the floor like this.

Steeling myself, I stand, reaching down and scooping her into my arms. She smells amazing, and I hold my breath as I walk her into my bedroom, setting her on the bed and covering her with the blanket from the living room.

She whines once more, turning and reaching for me in her sleep, but I back up, heart thudding. For another long moment, I battle with my wolf—and his insistence that I climb into this bed, wake her up with the feeling of my lips on her skin—and I win.

I turn and walk out of the room, returning to the empty, cold nest on the floor. I’m not sleepy anymore, and I feel an itch in the back of my mind—if I’m not going to be with her, I might as well shift, go out, do some hunting.

But I’m not going to leave her here unprotected while she’s sleeping.

As I fall asleep, I think about the feeling of her body against mine, the expression on her face as she reached for me, and the flush on her cheeks.

And every second, I fight against wanting to get up and go to her until I finally drift off.