Chapter Twenty-One— Sweet Harmony

I woke up with something against my back, warm and holding me. I was too groggy to figure out what it was, so I turned around, and my face was in someone’s chest.

It grumbled. “Go back to sleep, Cupcake.”

I was fully awake then. I opened my eyes to see a half-asleep Nickolas in my bed. His arm was around me and he held me against him.

I squirmed free and sat up. “What the fuck are you doing in my bed?”

He rubbed his eyes and tugged on my hoodie. “Just go back to sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.”

Oh, God, I wasn’t wearing pants and we were in bed together. Why did this keep happening? “Get up!” I smacked his arm.

“Ow!” He sat up. “What the hell was that for?”

My eyebrows shot up. “Why are you here?”

“Well, since you wouldn’t promise me that you’d stay, I had to make sure you didn’t leave in the night. So I came over.”

“Broke in.”

“Came over, to make sure you stayed. Not that I wouldn’t find you if you left. This would save me time.”

I heard a groan as I saw something move on the floor. Dahlia sat up. Her hair was messy and she was in a sleeping bag. “I’m trying to sleep. Why are you so loud?”

I hit Nickolas again. “You brought your sister to your break it?”

“I couldn’t leave her.”

I took the deepest breath of my life. “She can stay. But you can go.”

“Ha. Is it so wrong that I wanted to sleep beside my mate?”

“It is when I’m not your mate.”

He wasn’t happy with me. “Lay down and go back to sleep. I’ll bring you girls to breakfast in the morning.”

“Pancakes won’t fix this!”

“Eggs then! Jesus, Posey, just sleep.”

I slumped down with force and I crossed my arms, staring at the ceiling like it did something wrong. “I hate you.”

“You wish.” He pulled me against him, and I flipped to my side so that he couldn’t see my face. I wiggled around a lot, hoping it would ruin his sleep.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“And I’m going to marry you. So I guess we’re even.”

I elbowed him. “You are a crazy person.”

“That’s no way to talk to the father of your future children.”’

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not growing your little wolf puppies. You can find someone else to put your litter in.”

“Nope. You’re gonna be so happy when that day finally comes. You’ll jump up and down with glee over the joy of having my puppies.”

“Not likely.” A baby version of Nickolas… I could picture him in my arms, waving chubby arms at me.

He kissed my shoulder where the hoodie started falling down “I love you, Cupcake. Pleasant dreams.”

I was sleeping three minutes later.

***

I was alone in the bed when I woke up again. I felt around for Nickolas but he was gone. And I felt so alone.

The light was brightly shining through my window. Brighter than it should have been. My alarm hadn’t even gone off yet, so it couldn’t have been past seven.

Something rubbed my hip after I closed my eyes again. “Are you ready to get up yet, Cupcake?”

He hadn’t left me. I opened my eyes and he was fully dressed and sitting on my bed. “I thought you left.”

“I did. After your foster parents left, I brought Dahlia to daycare. Then I came back. I shut your alarm off so that you could sleep. I was hoping you’d want to spend the day with me.

I moved onto my back. “What do you want to do?”

He looked me up and down. I was missing my covers and the hoodie was hardly at the top of my thighs. “Well, there’s what I want to do. And what I think I can get away with.”

I blushed and pulled the hoodie down. “So then tell me what you think you can get away with.”

Now, I really thought he meant something like going out to eat or seeing a movie. But I was very wrong. I figured that out when he got on top of me. That was all he did. No moving or kissing, only smiling.

“You seem to like it when I do this.” He smirked.

I almost stuttered. “What makes you believe I like this?”

“Because of where your hands go when I’m between your legs.”

“Ah, good point.”

He nodded. “Yes it is. How about we go and pick out a new bike for you?”

“How about no?”

I was up on my elbows but he was still leaning against me. I remember so vividly that first meeting. When I ran into him and he decided that it was a punishable offense. Now I was half lying here, and half hoping he was about to kiss me.

“Then what would you like to do? Name it and I’ll get it done.”

I sighed. “Stop that. Stop trying to spoil me.”

“Never.”

I shoved him off of me and sat up. I put a pillow on my lap and my back against the wall. “We ditched school so that we can bicker?”

“We ditched because I was very much hoping to fool around in your bed. But you’re being uptight.”

“If I were uptight then I wouldn’t be half naked right now.”

He grinned and moved my pillow. “Ah, and don’t think I didn’t notice. How often do you sleep in that?”

Every night. “Sometimes.”

“I have more clothes like that if you’d like some.”

“You just want me in your clothes so that you can mark your territory.”

“Partially,” he admitted. “But either way, you’re mine. I’m just biding my time till I get a ring on your finger.”

“I’m seventeen.”

“So?”

“So, I’m not marrying anyone—let alone, you—at seventeen.”

“Eighteen then.”

“Why do you even want that? If I’m already ‘yours’ you hardly need me in a ring.”

“So wrong. People see a ring on your finger, then they know in a second that you belong to someone. I got my tattoo so that they would know for me. And what better claim than you having my ring and my last name?”

Posey Weaver. I didn’t hate it.

When the conversation was over, he laid on his back and crossed his ankles. “We have a whole day to spend together. You should hurry up and pick something to do.”

“You can just go home and spend the day there.”

He eyed me.

I threw my arms up. “Well, I don’t know what to do. I just moved here and I don’t even know where anything is. You ask too much of me.”

He picked me up by the hips and placed me on his lap. “Ah, much better. Now when you’re annoying me, at least I have you like this.”

I flicked his ear. “Rude.” I didn’t even kinda try and move. Not even when his hands went up the hoodie and rested on the top and sides of my thighs. He had to be aware of how much I liked it when he did stuff like that. I think that was why he never took it farther unless I started it.

That was when I moved. I lay on him and put my cheek over his heart. “Maybe we can go sit in the park. We can swing and you can watch me be a moron while playing on the jungle gym.”

“That sounds amazing.”

“Are you okay waiting here while I shower?”

He sat up and then we were face to face. “I’ll be fine. Take your time.” He moved me off of him and I grabbed some very specific clothes before I went off to shower.

I did not take my time. How could I when I had him waiting for me? Him in my bed… made me feel interesting. Eager to get back to him and…do what? Nothing. Nothing because I knew that it would make me lost my mind. I wouldn’t be able to heal when I lost him after that.

I was playing such a dangerous game. Doing more with him than I should just because it made me so happy. It was happening slowly. I felt it in my broken heart as the pieces started fusing back together. Not back. It was never whole to start with, but the cracks were sealing.

I tentatively walked back into my bedroom, wearing his mother’s dress. I was hoping he would like it as opposed to make him feel bad. Now with the context of her death, it changed what it meant for me to wear this. When he saw me standing in it, he smiled.

“You look beautiful,” he told me.

I shuffled on my feet. “I wasn’t sure you’d be okay with this.”

He met me in the middle of the room. “I gave it to you because I wanted you to wear it.”

I was still nervous. But then we left the house. He took me for a late breakfast at a diner a little outside of town. We shared a booth and he let me sit on the outside of it. He got me both eggs and pancakes while he went for a burger.

“I’ll give you fries if you give me bacon,” he offered.

I scooted the plate to him. “Go for it.”

He took a piece and left a pile of fries on my plate. Then we talked about him skipping out on our Meals on Wheels stuff. He promised that it wouldn’t happen again and I warned him that he wouldn’t graduate if he didn’t do it. He just didn’t like having to leave Dahlia with a nanny. He had one he trusted but that mattered little to him.

“I’m going to start taking you since Mona can’t,” he told me. I didn’t argue because I needed the ride, and I wanted the time with him.

“We only have a few more days left,” I patted his shoulder. I finished the fries he gave me and the waitress came back around to refill our drinks. Then Nickolas ordered us a dessert. Some ice cream cake thing that he said was amazing. Dahlia loved it.

We shared but used separate spoons because I wasn’t totally crazy yet. If you ignored the fact that I was eating ice cream cake before noon. After we were finished eating, we got back in the car.

“I’ll take you to Dahlia’s favorite park,” Nickolas told me as he turned the car on. “I found it right after I started driving. It has all the best stuff.”

He wasn’t lying. The park was huge and it was surrounded by the greenest grass and a bunch of motherfucking pinecones. Those trees made me want to kill so many things. The park itself was separated in the middle by sand that somehow felt warm between my toes. I left the shoes in the car because only a monster would wear shoes at the park. Especially in a dress.

Nickolas took me to the swings and I sat on the one on the left side. He stood behind me and lightly pushed. I swung forward and went back against his hands. We didn’t talk, he just pushed me and I started seeing just how deep in I already was. I knew, but maybe if I didn’t say the words—even in my head—I could pretend for just a little while longer.

I sat on his lap in the sand against the slide and it wasn’t even him that put me there. I just did it because I was starting to believe that if we weren’t close, then I would fall to pieces.

My feet were buried in the sand and my head was on his chest, his hand on my lap while the other was on my back. God, I wished this was real. Even with the lie, it was still the very best lie I’d ever been a part of. Once it was over, I’d still have the memories. As painful as they would be to look back on.

“Thank you for today,” I said, low. “It was really nice.”

“It was. We’re gonna have a lot more days like this. I promise. We’ll watch Dahlia grow up and then we’ll make more kids to watch grow up. I’m going to give you a happy life, Posey.”

Such beautiful lies. He delivered them perfectly and with joy and enthusiasm. Because he thought they were true.

I stared at my name on his wrist as I held his hand. I loved that tattoo. I really did. The claim that I had on him lit up something greedy in me. Because even though it wouldn’t last, right now, he belonged to me and no one else.

“How about we go get Dahlia a little early?” Nickolas suggested. “We can go home and you can watch us run.”

I turned my head up at him. “I thought it was dangerous for you to be a wolf in front of me. Since you’re an animal and all.”

“Cupcake, there is no version of me that doesn’t know you. I don’t think there’s a safer person on this planet than you.”

“Will wolfy-Nickolas want to be pet?”

He nodded. “I’m sure he will. I think he also wants you to text your foster mother and tell her that you’re sleeping at Mona’s tonight.”

My eyebrow arched. “Why would he want that?”

“Maybe he wants you to stay over. Kim’s working overnight and Dahlia’s going to her friend’s house for a sleepover after dinner. So we’d have the house to ourselves.” Before I could comment, he said, “I just want to sleep beside you. I won’t try anything, I swear.”

I tried not to smile. “I believe you.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a ‘we’ll see’.” He carried me to the car and I texted Candy the second I was back with my phone. I didn’t tell Nickolas. I also didn’t tell him about the voicemail from Nash.

We got Dahlia and she was almost jumping for joy at the idea of getting picked up early. She held one of each of our hands and skipped all the way to the car while telling us about a bunny she saw that day. Then we got home.

I waited in the backyard again while they went to shift. Then they came out with Scully and all three were on me. Dahlia got on my lap while Scully passed out behind me. Nickolas sat in front of me, guarding me. I patted his head, remembering that he wanted me to last time.

He moved closer and leaned down in front of me. I bent my head to kiss the top of his and he howled with appreciation. Then he put his wolfy chin on my thigh. So I kept petting him. He looked so happy when I did it.

“Do you like when I pet you?” I said to him in a baby voice I hope he didn’t tease me for later.

He woofed at me and turned onto his back.

“Oh, am I supposed to pet your tummy now?”

He growled and rubbed his head on my leg. So I pet him on the tummy. Damn dog. He loved every second of it, even when Dahlia got jealous and tried intercepting. He barked at her.

I decided to stop a fight and just pet the both of them. They seemed happy with it. Scully was sleeping, so she didn’t notice at all.

After everyone was changed back into a human, Nickolas and I went to bring Dahlia to her friend’s house down the street. Then we walked back together. And he held my hand.

“Am I taking you home, Cupcake?” We reached his door and went inside.

“Not tonight,” I told him.

He brightened and I just couldn’t understand how I could do that for him. “You’re staying with me? In my bed?”

My arms crossed over my chest and I leaned against the door. “If you promise to behave.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really want me to behave?”

“Yes,” I lied.

Nickolas and I went to his room and he put a movie on. I sat on the end of the bed while he stood at his closet. “Do you want something to sleep in for the night?”

“Good idea.”

He pulled a shirt out of his closet and threw it to me. “Should be big enough to cover you up. You won’t even need shorts.” He smiled crookedly.

“Good.” I got up and went to his bathroom to change. I set the dress on the counter and got back into bed, where Nickolas was waiting for me. He was in his flannel pants and a shirt.

When it got later, we ordered a pizza and ate in bed while judging people on a crappy reality show he swore he’d never seen before. He totally had. He knew their names and there were like ten of them.

Then it was time to sleep. He turned on his iPod and set the volume low. Then he lay on his side and I let him put his arm around me so he could pull me against his chest.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he said quietly.

“Well, we’re spooning and I’m not wearing pants. I feel like you don’t need permission for a personal question.”

“That’s part of it. You let me do this, and other things,” he kissed the side of my neck. “So it makes me think something that I’d very much like you to confirm. If I’m in for a long wait, I want to see that light at the end of the tunnel.”

I knew what he was about to ask, but I wasn’t sure if I would be truthful yet. “What do you need to know?” I said to buy time.

“Do you like this? The things we do together?”

“Yeah.”

He was quiet for a second or two. “Do you like me?”

“How do you—”

“You know how I mean.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. “I haven’t hated you in a really long time. And somehow, I think I’ve liked you a little longer. So the answer is that I like you in that way that kind of hurts. But it soothes at the same time. You make me feel warm and happy and so, so confused. I just can’t fathom what you see when you look at me.”

He smiled. “I see every single thing that I’ve ever needed. Even before I knew I needed it. I see you. All I see is you.”