Page 47

ELLIETTE

I t was Amy’s idea to make it a crafting weekend. The text conversation that started it all had gone like this:

Amy: You’re tense. You need a fun project. Something with paint. Or maybe découpage!

I hadn’t been aware I was putting out tense vibes, but she wasn’t wrong. I could use a distraction.

Jen: Crafts aren’t the answer to the girl’s problems. She needs to get back out in the trenches and get herself laid.

Amy: She needs glitter.

Kiera: LOL Do you think, if terrorists traded their bazookas for glue guns, there’d be peace on Earth?

Amy: It’s amazing no one’s thought of that yet.

Pari: What kind of fun project?

Amy: I’ll bring all my supplies, but I’ve already got a cool idea.

Kiera: Where are we doing this? We can’t do it at my place. I just got a shipment. I haven’t opened half the boxes yet, and I haven’t broken any of them down.

Jen: If we’re doing this to cheer up Elli…

Me: I don’t need cheering up

Like I said, I was happy for the distraction, but I didn’t want them imagining me sitting around crying my eyes out because Lukas had left me. Again.

Jen: Fine. No cheering. Just hanging with your girls.

Amy: Should we come to your place? Would that be the easiest for you?

What? Oh, hell no. I’d reluctantly accepted Lukas’s offer and moved into his apartment, but only—I told myself—on a very temporary basis.

I was purposefully living out of my suitcase and trying very hard not to leave any fingerprints behind. All five of my boxes remained packed and stacked in the corner.

Me: It’s not my apartment. I shouldn’t have people over.

Jen: Yeah, babe. We know it’s not your apartment. What Amy should have said is that we really, really, really want to get a look at Lukas Bakken’s pad.

Me: It’s the same layout as Daniel’s.

But the fact was, living in Lukas’s apartment was nothing like staying at Daniel’s. In both cases, it meant living amongst the possessions of a man who’d screwed me over. But while I’d felt surprisingly apathetic in Daniel’s space, Lukas’s apartment confused me.

On the one hand, I felt the loss and the loneliness. On the other hand, it meant that our connection wasn’t totally severed. Not yet. Was it stupid to feel hopeful?

I mean, of course it was. He was now alpha of his clan.

Jen: Personally, I don’t care about the layout. I want to see where Lukas Bakken slept.

Pari: Seriously, Jen. I don’t think that’s helping.

Kiera: Actually…I’d kinda like to see it too. I mean, not that I care about his bed, but I bet his set-up is top tier. Not something us simple folk get to see on a daily basis.

Amy: What do you say, El? My place is too small for all of us.

Jen: Same.

I sighed, as another bout of loneliness swept over me, and I realized just how much I really needed my girls around me.

Me: Fine. But we can’t make a mess.

This was mainly because my life was already a huge mess. Lukas and Evan’s relationship seemed beyond repair. I’d allowed Lukas to leave without truly clearing the air. And now there would forever be this cloud hanging over us—that is, if I ever saw him again.

The last thing I wanted was for Lukas to lose his damage deposit because my friends got glitter in the air ducts. That shit spread.

Amy: Perfect. And I promise - minimal mess.

Kiera: I’ll bring tequila.

Pari: I’ll bring beer and wine. Amy? You want Surly Furious?

Amy: Yes, please : ) Say…four o’clock?

That got three thumbs up from Jen, Parvati, and Kiera. No one seemed to notice I hadn’t weighed in. Now, two hours later, they were all on my doorstep, having arrived together.

Amy stood at the front, carrying a large plastic tub jam-packed with what looked like felt, paints, wooden dowels, and a mishmash of leftovers from craft projects past. Another smaller box balanced on top.

There must have been a question on my face because she said, “I brought all my stuff just in case you don’t like the project I picked.”

The rest of my friends stood behind her wearing wide grins, a six-pack of Surly, tequila, and two wine bottles raised in triumph.

“Hi,” I said. “Did you all carpool?”

“Nope,” Kiera said. “Serendipity. Tonight’s got good juju right from the get-go. Here.”

She handed me an envelope.

“What’s this?” I asked. The envelope had no stamp or return address and though my name written on the front, I didn’t recognize the handwriting.

“No idea,” Kiera said. “It was on the floor outside your door.”

I frowned at the envelope. Besides Lukas, Daniel, and my girls, no one knew I was living here. I hadn’t even told my brother yet.

“Are you going to let us in?” Jen asked.

“Yeah,” Amy said. “This shit is heavy. Can you take the top box?”

“Oh, sorry.” I tossed the envelope onto the kitchen counter where I was accumulating a pile of paperwork—mostly notes from my job search; I’d even found some dream job openings at PR firms in Hollywood—and took the smaller box, lightening Amy’s load.

Parvati let out a low whistle as she wandered inside Lukas’s apartment. “This place is the bomb. I love his taste in art.”

“Do all the players have pads like this?” Jen asked.

“Not all of them,” Kiera said.

“How do you know?” Parvati asked.

“I just know that Sean Murphy doesn’t have an apartment like this,” Kiera said.

We all turned to stare, and Jen asked what we all were wondering: “You’ve been to Sean Murphy’s apartment?”

Kiera rolled her eyes. “Of course not. ”

“Then how would you know?” Jen asked.

“Because he told me. He’s got a cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and he’s living in it while he fixes it up. Can you believe that? Sounds horrible.”

“He’s some kind of nymph, isn’t he?” Parvati asked as she studied one of Lukas’s original paintings.

“Dryad,” I informed them.

“Well, there you go,” Parvati said brightly, turning away from the painting. “Makes perfect sense. Dryads love the woods. Plus, he can tilt to his cabin, there and back easily. It probably doesn’t seem so out of the way for him.”

“I wish some nymph would tilt me to his cabin,” Jen mused. “They can do that, you know. Take others with them.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “No, thanks.”

The whole tilting process sounded terrifying. I already felt invisible half the time.

What if a nymph tilted me from one place to the next—made me disappear, thinking it would only be for a second—but couldn’t put my body back together again?

What if I became invisible forever? Like, literally.

There was no way I’d ever risk my life just to shave off a couple hours of travel time. Give me a pack of cherry Twizzlers and a good long road trip.

“And when did Mr. Woodsman have the chance to let you in on the details of his cabin life?” Amy asked.

“Sean came to see Lukas at the same time I was bringing Elli some packing boxes. Sean and I shared the elevator.”

“So, Elli? Is that where it happened?” Jen asked, changing the subject. She started walking toward the hallway.

I turned to look her way. “Where what happened? ”

“Jen, shut up!” Parvati cried.

Jen made a frustrated sound in her throat. “Where Lukas Bakken nailed you, of course.”

I closed my eyes. I knew it had been a mistake to share so much. “Amy, what craft project did you decide on?”

She picked up on my urgent need for rescue. “Prepare to be amazed!”

Amy’s project idea was to paint acorns in blue, green, and pink metallic paint.

She explained that she’d collected the acorns weeks earlier while foraging in a local park with her preschool class. We all stared at her blankly while she pulled out the bulging plastic bag.

“See?” she asked excitedly.

“Yeah…” I said. “We see.”

“Are you like some kind of undercover squirrel?” Jen asked.

Kiera got right to the point. “Maybe I’m missing something. Why would we paint acorns?”

“Because they’ll look beautiful in a glass bowl,” Amy explained. “The perfect fall decor—a little nature, a little bling.”

Jen shrugged. “I’m in.”

“So am I,” Parvati added. “I get the pink paint.”

“We all get to use all the paints,” Amy said, “but not for a while.”

It turned out, the one logistical hurdle to Amy’s craft project was that the acorns had to be completely dehydrated before we could paint them.

“Otherwise, they’ll rot,” Amy explained .

Which meant that Lukas’s high-end range was now baking acorns and would be for the next four hours . Which also meant, we had nothing to do but drink and B.S..

Kiera had started with tequila shots but was now sipping on a margarita.

Parvati, Jen, and I were drinking wine. We’d blown through their two bottles and I—now significantly loosened up—had felt the freedom to dig into Lukas’s supply.

Amy only drank one of her beers because she was keeping vigil over the oven. According to Amy, burnt acorns was not a smell I wanted permeating Lukas’s apartment. She had the fan on high.

“So you’ve really had no word from him?” Parvati asked, breaking away from our friendly—sometimes silly—chitchat to get back to what they all really wanted to know.

“Why would I?” My stomach clenched like a fist, thinking of all the hours I spent—stupidly—staring at the phone.

“You should hear from him because he loves you,” Amy said, closing the oven door after her latest peek. She walked back to us. “He told you so.”

I exchanged a glance with Kiera. She was the only one I’d told about finding Lukas in that bar and leaving with that…whatever kind of fae she was.

Her reaction had been so negative—rightfully so—I hadn’t wanted to keep telling the story.

“I don’t know,” Jen added, not unkindly but in her I’m-keeping-things-real voice. “Maybe that’s just something he said. Sometimes men say shit without meaning it.”

Parvati took a big slug from her wine glass. “True. But they don’t say meaningless words to women they’ve known for over a decade, and not to their best friend’s little sister.”

“Maybe he’s not allowed to call?” Amy suggested .

“Or maybe we simply weren’t a forever kind of match,” I said. “We were never going to be long-term. He’s busy now, running his clan.”

Besides that, as much as I’d hoped Lukas would call, keeping in contact wouldn’t do him any good. His future was unavoidable and though I knew it caused him pain, there was nothing I could do to take that pain away.

What he needed was to forget about me and move on. Focus on being the alpha he was meant to be. Focus on the leadership he could provide his clan and less on the parts of the job he didn’t like.

“He should still call,” Amy said.

“Just tell them,” Kiera said.

Jen turned toward Kiera, then back to me. “Tell us what?”

I cleared my throat as memories threatened to choke me. “The night before Lukas left…remember when Evan told me where to look for him?”

“Yeah?” Amy said, taking my hand and leaning in close.

Parvati poured herself more wine.

Kiera gave the tequila bottle a little shake. It was empty.

“Well,” I said, “I found him in a bar, flirting with some kind of fae.”

They reacted exactly as I feared.

“Oh, no,” Amy whimpered.

Parvati narrowed her eyes and folded her arms, which, for her, was a surprisingly aggressive posture. I chocked it up to the wine.

“Just flirting?” Jen asked suspiciously. “Or did he leave with her?”

“He left with her,” I admitted. “But it was all for show.”

“For show?” Kiera asked, because this wasn’t something I’d told her before. It was a conclusion I’d come to later.

“He was trying to push me away,” I explained. “He was trying to get me to sever all ties.”

“How are you so sure it was an act?” Amy asked.

“I wasn’t at first. But then I thought about it later. Lukas hates his reputation with women—it’s undeserved—but he played into it and used it to his advantage. He never would have followed through.”

“You’re sure about that?” Jen asked.

“Positive.”

“But Lukas doesn’t know what you’re thinking,” Amy surmised. “Maybe that’s why he hasn’t called.”

I sighed, not wanting to talk about Lukas anymore. There was nothing to do or say that could change anything. “Do we need more tequila?”

“You know what?” Jen asked. “Fuck waiting around for him. There’s nothing that says you can’t call a berserker alpha.”

I held up my hands. “I’m not calling him. No way.”

“Give me your phone,” Kiera demanded, holding out her hand.

“No!” I cried because—for fuck’s sake—they hadn’t had that much to drink, had they?

We were grown women. Not teenagers at a sleepover.

“Give it to me!” Kiera repeated, laughing now.

The buzzer on the oven went off and, for a second, I thought I was saved. Then Parvati, the last person I would have expected, made a sudden lunge and snagged my phone from my back pocket.

She ran several feet away with it while punching buttons .

Horrified, I chased after her, then stopped as I heard the call go through. The sound of muffled ringing filtered through the air.