“You’ll need help. I’m on my way. So’s Lee.”
She’s talking about Leona. “I don’t really need help today, Aud.”
“People are going to descend,” she says simply before the line goes dead.
Is she not there?
“Aud?”
She’s already hung up.Shit.
“You gotta eat, Bay. What do you like?” Jase asks, thumbing away on his phone.
He knows nothing about what I like. Because he’s never paid attention. I know everything he likes. I know all about him. How he takes his coffee, how he prefers his eggs. How he likes his steak done. What condiments go on his sandwiches and on hisburger or hot dog. And on and on. Because I’ve paid far too much attention.
“I said I don’t want anything from you,” I mutter while booting up my computer.
I quickly fire a text message off to Audrey.
Me: You don’t need to come.
By the time I open my email on my desktop, she’s responded to my text.
Audrey: It’s already getting around that you’re making him sweat, gonna make him work for it. Leona saw from her window yesterday when he went flying backwards. When you threw stuff out the window. We are HERE for it. Good for you, gf! Must be hard to hold back and not jump his bones. Kudos. See you soon.
Me: Go to the hollow first and bring muffins from the good coffee shop as your entry fee to Sideshow Bailey who does not want to jump Jase’s bones now or ever.
She sends me a thumbs up and then puts in brackets (Right. Wink wink).
She thinks I’m playing a game.
***
“This isn’t me making him work for it,” I whisper to them in our little huddle by my desk.
“Most everyone thinks he deserves it. And there’s a pool. People are betting on when you’ll give in,” Leona whispers, toying with her strawberry blonde ponytail. “And most of them figure it’ll happen before tomorrow. Though some are saying when thespell wears off the day after tomorrow, so he’ll just cart you off to his house and claim you there. If he makes it. You might wanna send your parents out so they don’t have to witness your claiming in their living room when Jase unleashes a weeks’ worth of pent-up rutting urges on you.”
My mouthful of coffee goes down my throat like acid at that notion.
Audrey says, “Is it true you left him in a witchcraft bubble in Slovakia?”
“Slovenia,” I correct. “And technically, yes.”
Audrey and Leona showed up a few minutes ago. Jase is outside right now, talking to Lincoln, so now they’re pummeling me with questions.
I add, “I’m not just making him work for it, you guys.”
“You should. He’s been an assclown for the past month or two around you,” Audrey pulls her long dark hair back and twists it into a bun and fastens it with one of my pencils before she reaches for her sprinkled donut.
“I can’t get over you and Cicely getting picked by alphas the same week. Wild.” Leona shakes her head, giving me fake stink-eye.
Audrey, Joel’s cousin, is a year older than I am. Leona is two years older than me and she’s Riley and Tyson’s cousin. We’re all pretty tight. Everyone in the pack knows how I felt about Jason because Sherry never wasted an opportunity to publicly humiliate me for it, but these two know it from me directly. These guys along with Cicely have all watched me pine for him like a pathetic fool. They saw how affected I was after the fallout of what Audrey coined DanicaGate… the event between Jase and Dani the night of Erica’s party.
And when I told them I was done with him after how he treated me, refusing to discuss it with me when I tried multiple times via phone and text the following day, not to mention how he bit my head off when I answered the phone to him at my brother’s place, the girls were mad on my behalf. But now they’re acting like it’s just a matter of time before I just get over it.
And from what they’re saying, this is the talk of the village right now. The hive is buzzing between news of Cicely and the news of Jase and me.
Of course the consensus is that he’ll claim me and I’ll get over it, regardless of how I feel right now.