CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
ATHENA'S POV

"No. Absolutely not that one."

Adam said it before I'd even fully stepped out from behind the curtain, and I looked down at the dress in question.

A stiff, overly structured thing in a shade of yellow that made me look faintly jaundiced under the store's lighting. I was yet to find the color Haylen and I decided on yesterday.

"You haven't even seen the back of it."

"I don't need to see the back of it. I've seen the front of it." He was sitting in the little velvet chair the store had set up outside the fitting rooms specifically for people in his position. With his elbows on his knees and eyes wide like he wanted to make sure he did not allow me walk out of here with a mistake. "That color is doing something to your face that I don't think either of us wants documented at a coronation."

"You're very opinionated for a man who claimed he was only here to hold bags and pay."

"I lied. I have extensive opinions on a lot of things. I just hold most of them back out of politeness."

I laughed and ducked back behind the curtain. Reaching for the next option that looked similar to what my sister and I had chosen. Just in a different shade.

A deep blue one that also caught my eye was still waiting on the rack. I saved that for last on purpose.

"Tell me the truth." I called through the curtain. "Would you even know what looked bad on someone if it walked up and introduced itself?"

"I know what looks bad on you specifically. That's a different skill."

I was midway through pulling the next dress off its hanger, when I heard the bell over the store's front door chime. Followed by voices, and something in my chest went very still before my mind had even fully registered why.

I knew that voice.

I stood frozen behind the curtain with the dress half-raised in my hands, listening to the low, familiar tone of Blake's voice drift from somewhere near the entrance. A second voice answered him. It was lighter and feminine. Laughing at something he had said.

I didn't need to see her to know exactly who it belonged to.

June.

I made myself breathe in slow and out, slower. It didn't help nearly as much as I needed it to.

Through the gap in the curtain, I could see them at the far end of the store. He stood with his arms crossed in front of him, while one of the attendants held two dresses up against June for her to compare.

I watched her say something and the attendant laughed. He kept a serious face.

Something in my chest cracked open.

I had assumed it wouldn't hurt like this anymore. I told myself I'd already done the hardest part. None of that reasoning made the sudden roaring heat behind my ribs feel any less real.

It started in my chest like a burning that had nothing to do with embarrassment, and it was spreading faster than wild fire through my whole body before I could catch it. My hands went cold at the same time and a shiver was working its way up my spine.

I recognized the relapse immediately.

"Athena?" Adam's voice sounded closer now, and concerned. He must have heard something shift in my breathing through the curtain. "You okay in there?"

"Fine…" I managed to blurt out. "Give me a second."

I pressed my palm flat against the mirror to steady myself, watching my own reflection go slightly pale. A sheen of sweat already gathering at my hairline despite the cold now crawling under my skin.

The exact combination that my almost nonexistent wolf had taken a hit she couldn't fully absorb.

I couldn't do this. Not here, not with Blake twenty feet away. Not with the very possibility that he might turn and see me standing in a fitting room mirror looking like I was actively falling apart over watching him shop for someone else's dress.

I pulled the curtain back just enough to catch Adam's eye. "Can we go?" I kept my voice as steady as I could manage, though I doubted it was fooling him. "I know we're not finished, I just… I need to go. Please."

He was already on his feet before I finished the sentence with no hesitation in it at all. "Of course. Get changed, I'll go tell them we're stepping out."

"Adam…" I don’t even know why I was calling his name.

"I'm not asking why right now. You can tell me later, or not at all. It doesn't matter. Get changed."

I ducked back behind the curtain and changed as fast as my shaking hands would allow. I had really hoped today would go perfectly well.

By the time I stepped out, Adam had already settled things with the woman at the register, with a promise to return.  He extended his hand toward me without a word. I took it and let him steer me toward the door at an angle that kept us clear of the far end of the store entirely.

We were almost at the exit when his hand tightened slightly around mine.

"You're freezing." he said, low, glancing down at our joined hands like he was trying to solve something. "And you're sweating. Athena."

"I know." My voice came out quieter than I meant it to.

He didn't say anything else until we were outside. The cool evening air a small relief against my overheated skin, and it was only once we were both settled into the car that he went quiet in a way that made me look over at him.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing, I just…" He flexed his hand against the steering wheel with a little frown on his face. Like he was trying to place a feeling he couldn't quite name. "I feel a little strange too. Not like what you're describing, nothing that intense. Just a chill, mostly. It's probably nothing."

"Probably." I agreed, though something about the way he said it sat oddly in my chest the entire drive home.