Page 74 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Jared didn’t seem any more ready for it than I was.

After Clay and I finished with dinner and Jared with showering and getting changed out of his rock-dust coated coveralls, we ate in absolute silence.

The kind of silence that’s heavy and suffocating, like there were storm clouds gathering in the air between the three of us. I cleared my throat as I rose to rinse my plate. “So,” I said, trying not to let the cocooned butterflies in my belly burst free. “How’re things at the quarry?”

“Good,” he replied tersely. “Fine.”

Oh god, this is painful.

I glanced at him as he finished his last morsel of rare meat, taking in the long line of his neck and those absurdly sexy cheekbones. How his gold-threaded dirty-blonde hair was getting so long that it brushed against them now.

How those green-flecked amber eyes had a tendency to cut through me even when I had my guard up.

“Fuck this,” Clay barked, and his chair scraped back against the tile as he rose and stomped out of the kitchen.

Jared and I shared a look before Clay returned with his whiskey decanter and slammed it down in the center of the small table. He nudged past me to snatch three short glasses from the cupboard and then banged those down next to it.

He poured generously into each of them and then shoved one to Jared and moved to pull my chair back out from the table. He stood there, holding the back of it with a white-knuckled grip.

Our eyes locked, and his nostrils flared.

“Sit,” he ordered when I didn’t move on my own. Jared sighed.

Swallowing past the hard lump in my throat, I set my plate down next to the sink and did as I was told, glad someone had the balls to start ripping this Band-Aid off.

“Thank fuck,” I whispered under my breath as I sat down and saw Jared’s face twitch with a smirk. Clay shoved my chair back into the table with me in it, and I had to catch myself so I wouldn’t be clotheslined by the wooden edge.

“Here,” Clay said, sliding another of the whiskey- filled glasses to me. I caught it before it could tip from the ledge and quirked a brow at him.

If it were possible, he seemed more on edge than I was.

Clay downed his in one long swallow and then knocked his glass back down onto the table and filled it a second time.

Jared and I followed suit.

“So, here’s the thing,” Clay said after finishing half of his second pour.

He paused, a furrow in his brow. “The thing is…” he tried again then sputtered to a stop.

He looked to Jared for help, and for a second, it looked like Jared was going to give it to him, parting his lips to explain.

But then he shut them again, going pale.

I groaned and leaned back in my chair. Was I really going to have to be the one to do this?

More silence.

…here goes…

“You want me to move out,” I stated. “And you want to go back to how it was before I turned. Go back to just being friends. That’s it, right? You don’t have to make it so ominous—”

“What?” Jared demanded, sitting up straighter in his chair, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “Allie, no. No, that’s not—”

“You idiot,” Clay muttered to himself, cutting off Jared, and I wasn’t sure if he was calling me an idiot or himself. “Did you really think this was about kicking you out?”

I choked on a response, suddenly uncertain what to do with my hands. Where to look. “Well, I mean…yeah. What else could it have been about?”

They’d said they wanted to talk about us, hadn’t they? Clay and Jared shared a look. Jared’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and the color returned to his cheeks rapidly, staining them, and the tops of his ears, a shade of pink.

“Clay and I have been talking,” he began, squirming slightly in his seat as though it were suddenly the most uncomfortable thing in the world.

Meanwhile, Clay just sat in his chair, stoic still and brooding, his lips slightly pursed.

“About?” I prodded.

Jared took a quick swallow of his whiskey, and his eyes flitted in my direction before landing back onto the table. “About who you should date.”

I felt my brows lower, and my wolf began a low growl deep in my belly.

“I suppose you thought it was up to the two of you?” I demanded, my skin bristling. “That I didn’t have a say in it at all?”

This was the hard part of being half wolf. Before, I could bottle up my feelings and lock them away. Pretend they didn’t exist. Now…not so much.

If someone made me angry, I was angry.

“Well?” I prodded when neither replied, both of them sitting there with their eyes trained on knots in the wood grain.

“No.” Clay finally joined the discussion, his voice rumbling so deep that I could feel the reverberation of it in my chair. “We want to give you an option that wasn’t on the table before. If you’d chill out for a second and hear it.”

He cut his brilliant blue eyes to me, and something in them gave me pause. The coolness of them doused the growing flames, and I crossed my arms over my chest with a sudden chill.

I didn’t like the vibes they were giving off. The whole emotion-sharing thing was hard enough on a day to day, but this was something else. The nervous energy was making my wolf want to run for the hills. Hell, I may just let her if they didn’t hurry up and get this over with.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

Jared leaned forward and crooked his head at me. I hated how even as annoyed with them both as I was right now, I couldn’t help the near-irresistible desire to reach out and touch him. “Do you remember what Hazel said that night she came for dinner?”

“About how you wouldn’t ever mate to anyone else for as long as I’m living?” I asked through gritted teeth. How could I forget?

Clay shook his head. “No, not that part…”

“The part about getting used to the idea of sharing,” Jared finished for him.

“I’m not following.”

Jared sighed, and I could tell he was getting ready to blurt out the rest. “After what happened between you and Clay,” he said with great effort, and I flinched at the reminder. “He and I had a talk. We’d planned to loop you in on it right after you joined the pack but then…” he trailed off.

Then all hell broke loose, and my friends were casualties in the fight.

“Anyway,” Jared picked back up where he left off, “we knew it wasn’t a good time.”

“And you think now is a better time?” I prodded, thinking of all the other things we should be talking about but weren’t.

Jared didn’t seem sure what to say to that, a pained expression crossing his face.

Clay poured more whiskey into my cup and leveled his stare on me. “Look, Allie, if it’s even half as hard for you as it is for us to keep your distance, then this conversation needs to happen.”

I groaned.

“So, what? Are we really talking about what I think we’re talking about here?”

Had they somehow actually agreed to sharing?

…to have been a fly on the wall for that painful conversation…

“Yes,” Jared said. “We decided that if you’re willing to give…three-way dating...a try, then so are we.”

“I don’t think that means what you think it means,” Clay said gruffly, his voice dripping sarcasm.

Jared waved him off. “Whatever, she knows what I mean.” Then he turned back to me. “We’ll have to be super open about it. Super honest. There will probably have to be rules. It’s probably going to be weird for a while—”

I couldn’t help a snort at that. “Ya think?”

Jared retreated back into himself a little at that, and the weight of guilt settled in my belly.

I was not taking this how they’d hoped, I realized, and tried to school my face.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “This is all just a little out of left field, you know? I thought you were kicking me out. This is…this is not what I was expecting.”

“Our options are kind of limited,” Clay interjected, swirling his glass.

Jared nodded, but I couldn’t help but notice that even now, he was having trouble looking at his friend. “We both have feelings for you Allie. We both did even before you were bitten and turned,” he said with a swallow.

My mind raced at that. I looked between Jared and Clay. There was truth in Jared’s bright eyes, and even though Clay wasn’t looking at me, I could see how his jaw was tightening. He wasn’t denying it.

I couldn’t believe it. All this time…

“And we think that maybe you have feelings for both of us…right?” Jared continued, his face pinched while he awaited my response.

My throat was suddenly desert dry, and I had to gulp down some more whiskey to wet it, feeling a hot flush crawl up my neck that I knew had nothing to do with the drink.

“I do,” I finally managed, heart fluttering in my ribcage like a trapped bird trying to get free.

They both seemed to relax visibly at that.

Shoulders lowering and lined foreheads smoothing.

I was glad they both seemed so at ease with it.

I was still feeling dirty and like I was somehow doing something wrong even though I constantly tried to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault.

It wasn’t like I asked to be mated to two shifters.

And if Jared and Clay wanted to do this, how could I say no? How could I snub their only chance to both be with their intended mate when I knew they would never have another as long as I was living.

Even I had to admit: the idea of dating literally anyone else was absolutely repulsive. I couldn’t even imagine it. I had to assume they felt the same.

“So, will you try it or not? Clay demanded. “Will you date both of us?”

“I…” I stammered, taking in both of my mates. My wolf swelled beneath my breast, dying to launch herself up my throat and do zoomies at the mere thought. I could almost hear her in the back of my mind.

Please, she begged.

But she didn’t need to.

“If you’re sure you want to do this,” I told them, gathering up the courage I needed to say the words. “Then…I guess I’m in.”

“We should probably decide what the rules will—”

“I think that’s enough for one night.” Clay interrupted Jared and stood to go trade his whiskey glass for a mug of coffee. He poured a second one and brought it to me. “I have something for you,” he said. “But I need you to sober up real quick.”

I glared at him. “What is it?”

Sobering up wouldn’t be an issue. Ever since I’d turned, my body burned off alcohol at break-neck speeds. Which was really too bad because some nights I’d have liked nothing more than to get stone-cold drunk and sleep through the night.

I took the proffered coffee mug, and Clay grinned at me. One of his rare smiles that stretched wide enough to show teeth.

It was infectious. I found myself blushing again and hating that they could both make me so comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

“Clay,” I growled.

Jared was smiling and I knew whatever it was, he was in on it, too. “Jared?” I tried, knowing that of the two he would be the more pliable.

But the traitor shook his head. “This one was all Clay, Allie girl. I’m not saying a word.”

Clay stomped to the door, sipping his coffee. “Hurry up and drink that then meet me around back,” he said and then let the screen door bang shut behind him.

Jared stood once Clay was gone and cleared both his plate and Clay’s from the table. “I actually have to get back to the Quarry,” he said solemnly. “But I promise I’ll be back in time to take you to your meeting with Ryland tomorrow.”

“You have to go?” I couldn’t help sounding disappointed, but that only seemed to make him pleased that I didn’t want him to leave. I stood to stop him from trying to wash the dishes. I would do them later, he had enough to worry about lately. “You just got back.”

“I know,” he said and came to wrap me in a quick embrace, filling all my senses with the heady scents of birch and sandalwood and that trademark Jared smell that was his and his alone. He brushed his lips lightly over my cheek, eliciting a shiver from my spine. He seemed to like that, too.

“Back before you know it,” he said with a cheeky grin and then slid from the cabin, gone as quickly as he’d arrived. Leaving me with a flutter in my belly and a tickling heat licking up the back of my neck.