Page 21 of Wolves’ Midlife Reunion (Shifter Nation: Enchanted Over Forty #3)

Tina flipped over the sign and locked the door. She’d worked hard, putting every ounce of her energy into her store and her customers, and now she was paying for it. Her muscles were sore. Her head ached. She wasn’t sure she had the energy even to go home and take a shower.

“Any weekend plans?” she asked Nia.

“Gavin and I are going to a concert.” Nia was behind the counter, balancing the cash register and putting the deposit together.

“One of his concerts, or someone else’s?”

“A friend of his. Gavin played me a sample of their music, and they sound pretty good. They think they’re going to get signed soon, and Gavin is hoping they can put in a good word for him.” Nia smiled as she zipped up the deposit bag. “I think he actually has a chance of making it.”

“What’s the name of his band again?” Tina could never remember, but that was partly because it’d changed several times.

“Echoes of Tomorrow,” Nia replied. “I think it’d look pretty good on an album cover. Anyway, what about you? Doing anything this weekend?”

Tina frowned. “Probably not.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” Tina had stayed busy enough that even she had managed to forget a few times, though those moments of peace probably only lasted a few seconds each. “I’ll have the store open tomorrow, and Colette will be here.”

“Want me to take this?” Nia held up the deposit bag.

“No, I will.” Tina put it in her bag while Nia shut down the computer. They turned off the lights, set the alarm, and locked the back door behind them.

As Tina got in her car and waved to Nia, she felt the night closing in on her. For years, it’d never been an issue to go home to an empty apartment. It was fine, really, because it meant she could do whatever she wanted. She had true freedom, and she enjoyed it.

Tonight, though, as she parked her car and walked inside, the warm and cozy space she’d curated felt cold and lonely.

“I can stay here and feel sorry for myself, or I can do something about it,” she said as she took out her phone and fired off a text message.

Tina stopped at the liquor store on her way to the covenstead and arrived with a few new bottles of wine.

“I’ve never tried any of these,” she said as she, Amanda, and Chelsea got set up on the back porch.

The evening was cool, but the sun had been shining in through the screens all day.

It was the perfect mix for a night outside.

Amanda lit a few candles on the patio table for ambient lighting. “Hey, I’m always up for trying something new! I was glad when you texted, because I wasn’t sure what to do tonight.”

Chelsea nodded in agreement. She was setting down a hefty charcuterie board that looked incredible. “Beck and Corbin already had plans for a daddy-son night, so this was perfect. Is anyone else joining us?”

“I think it’s just us three.” Tina opened one of the bottles of wine and filled their glasses. “There’s a lot of power in that number, though.”

“One of my favorites,” Amanda agreed. She took a small sip of the wine and raised her brows. “That’s nice.”

Chelsea tried it next and nodded her approval. “Reds have never been my favorite, but that’s pretty smooth.”

Tina raised her glass to her lips, truly glad that she hadn’t spent the whole evening just wallowing around in her place, feeling sorry for herself.

She took a long sip of wine, trusting her sister and cousin.

It was just as good as they promised, and she relaxed into her chair.

“How was your day, Amanda? I know you’ve been pretty packed at work. ”

“I have, and that’s part of the reason I was so eager to take you up on this invitation. I’m supposed to be adjusting my clients’ energies, helping their bodies and their spirits align, but it’s rough when they’re all coming in back-to-back and I barely have time to pee.”

“Sounds to me like you need to give yourself a break,” Chelsea advised. “If your practice is doing that well, maybe it’s time to bring on someone new.”

“I thought about it.” Amanda held her glass by the stem and swirled it slowly. “I’d have to be really careful, though. If I bring the wrong person in, it could be disastrous.”

“Or wonderful,” Tina pointed out. “Do you remember when I first opened the shop? I didn’t trust anyone else to help me run the place. The next thing I knew, I had to close down every time I had an emergency or got sick. That’s not great for business.”

Amanda narrowed one of her wide brown eyes as she pointed a finger at Tina. “You’ve had some real flakes in there.”

“A few,” Tina admitted, “but a lot of them have been good. I’ve had some pretty steady employees, and of course, Nia and Collette have been amazing. Nia, especially, is getting to the point that she’s coming up with new ideas and displays.”

“You could just put the word out with people you know,” Chelsea suggested. “That might be better than just a general help wanted ad.”

“Yeah, I could look around.” Amanda helped herself to a cheese cube. “What about you, Chels? You’ve probably been just as busy as the rest of us.”

“Oh, sure. I’ve had several requests for birth charts over the past month, both in person and online, but so far, I’ve been able to manage. I do need to make some upgrades to my website, though.”

After they’d shot a few ideas about that back and forth, Tina smiled. “You know what’s funny? I said we should get together to relax, but all we talk about is work!”

“You’re right.” Chelsea turned in her seat and looked straight into Tina’s face. “So, why don’t we tackle the elephant in the room. Tell us what happened between you and Dex.”

Tina stuffed a couple of cheese cubes in her mouth. “Who said anything happened?”

“Your face,” Amanda supplied. “Your aura.”

“The way you’re holding your wine glass like you might break it,” Chelsea added. “Or perhaps it’s those dark circles under your eyes that say you’ve worked yourself even harder than usual.”

“Hey!” Tina touched her face self-consciously, but she knew Chelsea was right. She could feel how tired her eyes were every time she blinked.

“That’s true.” Amanda gave Tina an analytical look. “You look like you did just after you graduated high school.”

“I’d love that to be a compliment, but I have a feeling it’s not,” Tina retorted. “Also, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chelsea plucked a slice of salami from the tray. “You and Dex had spent four years on the will-they-won’t-they rollercoaster, but there was still a chance it’d work out as long as you were still in school. Once graduation came, you knew that was the end.”

“And that’s when you started throwing yourself even harder into studying and work.” Amanda picked up the story for her. “Not that you weren’t always a hard worker, but that’s when you started doing it to the point of exhaustion.”

“Which looks like it happened today.” Chelsea polished off the last sip of wine. “Let’s try the second bottle, and you could tell us.”

Tina opened the Moscato, laughing uncertainly. “I knew I needed some time with you guys, but I thought I could just relax and talk about this when I was ready.”

“Oh, hell no.” Amanda held out her glass. “Pour the wine and spill the tea. We’ll just drag it out of you if you don’t.”

“Clearly.” She sat back down and told them about Dex coming to the shop that morning. “I get that Sage losing a little control was upsetting for him, but he just went completely off the rails.”

“Hm.” Chelsea chewed a cracker thoughtfully. “Sounds to me like he’s scared.”

“Really?”

“Oh, sure. Being a parent is absolutely terrifying. You’re just guessing all the time.

You have to make tons of choices, and for some, you won’t know if they were the right ones for years down the road.

I think about it with Corbin, although I try not to get too caught up in it.

” She gave Tina a wistful smile. “It’s hard when you love them so much. ”

“But I love Sage, too.” Tina’s heart ached as she thought of that sweet little girl. “I know she isn’t mine. I don’t have the right to say what happens in her life. I just hate the idea of not getting to spend time with her anymore.”

Amanda flicked her dark hair behind her so that it hung over the back of the chair. “And what about Dex? Is he part of that fantasy picture, too?”

Tina couldn’t lie. Not to them. Even if she tried, they’d figure her out as they’d already proven.

“Yeah. Recently, anyway. For a long time, I’d let myself believe that I’d never get to be with him.

Then he just waltzed right into my life again.

We’d had all that stupid social status crap that’d kept us apart when we were younger, but we’re old enough now that it’s gone.

I thought that meant we could finally make it work. ”

Chelsea reached over and rubbed her arm. “Maybe you still can. An argument doesn’t have to be the end of things.”

“It was a pretty big argument.” Tina didn’t think she’d ever seen that look on Dex’s face before.

Chelsea was probably right, and that was all because he was scared for his child’s future.

That was understandable, but it’d just been so hard.

“The way he lashed out at me has me second-guessing the whole thing.”

“Didn’t he have a magical fight with some kid back in the day?” Amanda asked.

“Oh, yeah. That’s been brought up a few times since I started teaching Sage.

” She sighed and sipped the Moscato, which was far lighter and brighter than she felt inside.

“I wish I could get him to understand that he was just a kid, and that he can’t really hold himself responsible for that anymore. ”

“His own experiences are making him overprotective,” Chelsea concluded.

“That sucks, and I hate that he’s beating himself up over something he did so long ago, but you can’t really change who a person is or how they think.

You either have to decide that you’re good with how things are, or that you’re not going to put up with it. ”

Tina thought about this as she rolled her glass stem between her fingers.

“Did you second-guess yourself on getting back together with Beck? When you weren’t sure if the Beck you knew was still around?

” A sorcerer had put a powerful mindwipe spell on Beck.

It was enough to make him forget who he was, and it’d taken a lot of time, love, and magic to get him back.

“Shit, yes,” she told Tina. “You still feel that pull inside you, that connection that has always been there, but that beast inside you doesn’t understand logic. It doesn’t know how complicated a relationship could be. It only knows what it wants and damn the consequences.”

Tina let out a long sigh, something she’d been doing all day and was likely to continue doing for a while yet. “I just don’t know what to do. My mind keeps wrestling with it, like this is a problem I have to find a solution for.”

Amanda was flicking her thumb and pointer finger toward the candles, sending miniature energy waves into the flames and making them dance.

She stopped and looked up at her cousin.

“I know this doesn’t really help, but you have to do what’s right for you, for your heart and your life.

That might mean being with Dex, and it might not.

You know we’re here for you all the way, but we can’t decide for you. ”

“Life would be a whole lot easier if you could,” Tina grumbled.

“I don’t know. You didn’t even like it when I used to give you advice on what to wear,” Chelsea teased. “You hated it when I told you what to do.”

“Yes,” Tina said with a little laugh. “I guess I still do.”

“Is there any direction you’re leaning?” Amanda asked, playing with the candle flames again.

There was just enough wine in her system to make her slow down, to allow her to really pull back and see the big picture a little more objectively. She had a thing for Dex, and it honestly came from both sides of her. It’d be wonderful if they could make it work out.

Right now, though, she wanted something even more than to have her mate at her side.

“I want to help Sage,” she said. “I don’t know exactly how, and I need to give myself the space and time to think about it, but that’s the one thing I know for sure I have to do.

She’s lost her mother, and she doesn’t have anyone to guide her with her magic.

That’s not a situation any young witch should be put in. ”

“That sounds like a solution to me,” Chelsea said. She lifted her glass. “To solutions, even if they’re vague and temporary, but as long as they make us feel better!”

Tina and Amanda laughed as they clinked their glasses against hers. “To solutions!”

“Thanks, you guys. I’ll keep you posted. I’m glad I’ve got you. I might not know what the hell I was doing otherwise.”

“Eh, I’d say most of us don’t,” Chelsea said. “We just have to wing it the best we can.”

Tina laughed and talked well into the night with her sister and cousin, but still felt uncertain.

She didn’t have any real plan as to how to help Sage, and Dex might not even let her.

Her stomach clenched. Tears threatened every time she thought of Dex, and worry rippled under her skin when she thought about Sage.

But at least it was just a little better.