Chapter 26

Aria

Darren insisted on taking me home that night.

“I can take the subway, you know,” I said as I grabbed my coat off the hook. “You don’t have to go out of your way.”

The CEO shot me a bemused expression. “I’m not letting you take the subway this late. It’s dangerous for a woman.”

I couldn’t help the way my cheeks flushed at that. Such a gentleman… But of course, he had to offset it with a flippant, “I wouldn’t let any of my employees endanger themselves like that.”

At that, I bit back the urge to roll my eyes. Of course he always had to make this about employees; but I supposed that was all I was, wasn’t I? Sure, maybe I was his ‘mate’, but that didn’t mean anything. Not really.

And why did I want it to, anyway?

By the time we pulled up to my curb, it was nearly ten o’clock. Darren put the car in park and walked me to my door. My neighborhood was perfectly safe as far as city blocks go, but I had to admit that I appreciated the extra effort after the night that Jackson had forced himself in.

At the door, I fumbled for my keys in my pocket and unlocked it before turning to Darren.

“Thanks for taking me home.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Thanks for dinner.”

I suppressed a tiny smirk. “How was your first experience with pancakes?”

“It was… good,” Darren said slowly, as if weighing his words carefully. “I’ll admit, it’s interesting to have a human perspective around. I never would have considered trying food like that before.”

“Lucas deserves to have a normal childhood, you know,” I said before I could think twice about it. “I know he’s not a human, but he’s in a world dominated by them. Kids should have the chance to enjoy sweets and play with other kids.”

Darren blinked at me in surprise, and I added, “Liam told me that Lucas never even got to play with other werewolf kids.”

He was silent for a moment, his mismatched eyes averting to the bricks beneath our feet. I wondered if my words struck a chord.

“Lucas is in a… unique situation,” he finally said, his voice a little softer than I anticipated. “He’s not like other werewolf kids.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, because I’d never experienced another werewolf child. Lucas seemed very human, if you didn’t count the shifting part. But that set him apart from human kids, too. Today’s little accident proved that.

To be caught between two worlds like that… I was surprised that Lucas seemed to handle it so well for such a young kid.

“Well, I know today was a bit of a disaster, but he was having fun playing with the human kids at the park,” I suggested. “I’d hate to see that taken from him.”

Darren sighed. “I know. Me too.”

There was a brief silence, and it seemed as though neither of us quite knew whether we should say goodnight or continue the conversation. But there was something on my mind, something I couldn’t let go of just yet.

“About today…” I took a deep breath. “I know you have no real reason to trust me. But when I said that Sarah was lying about our past, I meant it. She… tormented me throughout my entire childhood. The bullying roles weren’t what she told you.”

Darren glanced up at me. The streetlights seemed to turn the brown in his left eye into a pool of honey, his blue eye reflecting the amber color like the sun off a lake. But his expression was otherwise impassive.

“I already told you that Sarah and I have a complex history,” he said. “I’m sorry, Aria—I want to believe you—but I need to make my own decision in this matter.”

My heart sank a little at his words, but I nodded. “It’s alright. I understand. I just wanted to get that out there.”

Despite my disappointment, I couldn’t help but feel oddly impressed by Darren’s resolve. Maybe two things could be true at the same time; maybe Sarah had been my childhood bully and had still done something kind for Darren.

“Maybe there’s a side to my sister that I never got to see firsthand,” I mused with a wry chuckle, not realizing I’d said it out loud until Darren took a step closer.

“Thank you for your understanding,” he said softly.

I looked up, and my breath caught as I saw his hand reaching for my cheek. There was a tenderness in that mismatched gaze of his, an intimacy that made my heart pound in my chest. He leaned in, his eyes flicking to my lips, and for a moment I thought—

His thumb brushed my nose. When he pulled away, there was a speck of white on his finger, which he wiped on his pants.

“Flour,” he said, stepping back.

Before I could say another word, he was turning on his heel and leaving. “Goodnight,” he called over his shoulder.

“Oh… Goodnight.”

God, I hated how small my voice sounded.

…

I made it to work right on time the next morning, despite a night of poor sleep. I’d kept tossing and turning all night, thinking back on the events of the day—Sarah and Darren, Liam and Lucas, pancakes and flour and almost-kisses.

Most notably, I kept thinking about what Darren had said about Lucas.

“He’s not like other werewolf kids.”

Whatever that meant, it seemed to stick with me. And it got me wondering about Lucas’s mother; Darren never mentioned her except for that one time I’d asked about her, and he had referred to her in the past tense.

Did she die, I wondered? Or was she estranged in some way?

I wondered if that had something to do with Lucas being ‘different’ from other werewolf kids. Maybe he’d lost his mom at a young age, in one way or another, and it had impacted him deeply. Maybe that was why he called me ‘Mommy’, even though I clearly wasn’t.

Either way, no matter how curious I was, I decided not to bring it up. It seemed like too sensitive of a subject to ask him about it, and besides, it wasn’t really my business.

That morning, I got to work right away on the flyers for the Puppy Playground. I finished the first draft and brought it to Arthur for review.

“What’s this?” he asked, ripping the flyer from my hand and eyeing it suspiciously, like there might be a bomb strapped to it.

I frowned. “The flyer you asked me to make…?”

“Hmph.” Arthur swept his gaze over the flyer, and something malicious seemed to cross his face then. Before I could stop him, he crumpled it up and dropped it in the nearby trash can. “Garbage.”

“What?” I couldn’t hide the incredulous squeak in my voice. “What was wrong with it? You’re just going to throw it out without any constructive criticism?”

“Yep,” Arthur replied, returning his gaze to his computer.

I felt like I’d been lanced in the chest, and was quickly tiring of his cruelty. Growling under my breath, I stormed over to the trash can—marching behind his desk in the process—and pulled the flyer out before he could stop me.

Arthur’s eyes widened. “Get out—”

“I know you hate me,” I hissed, smoothing out the crumpled paper, “but this is just too far. Just because I’m a—”

“What’s going on here?”

Darren’s voice suddenly caused me to turn, snapping my mouth shut. My face reddened as I realized what I had just done—I’d almost revealed that I knew about werewolves. That I knew that Arthur hated me just because I was a human.

But Darren wasn’t looking at me.

He was glaring daggers at Arthur.