Joel’s phone buzzed in his pocket for the fifth time.
Annoyed, he pulled it out, saw Zach’s name repeating itself on the home screen, and turned it off.
He didn’t need to answer to know what his older brother had to say. What was that, why did you leave, the one time you agree to come out with us...!
All perfectly natural questions to ask. The problem was, he didn’t have any answers.
Not any answers that made sense, anyway. Which was why he was out here behind the diner, staring at the mountains and going over the evening in his mind, trying to figure it out.
He didn’t know what had driven him to go help the waitress. Nina, her nametag had said. Something about her—something about her.
When he’d come in, she’d been standing by the table, and he’d almost tripped over his own feet trying to sit down. His eyes had caught on her curves, and then traveled upward to the graceful curve of her neck, the line of her cheek, and finally locked on her gorgeous grey-green eyes, so clear he almost felt like he could see right down to the center of her.
It was ridiculous. Joel had never had any sort of weakness for beautiful women; he’d dated a little here and there, but always with the understanding that there was no commitment involved. And he’d never felt this much of a pull toward any of the women he’d dated.
Feeling it toward a waitress he’d never met, never spoken to? That never happened.
He’d had a hard time hearing the conversation at the table, because he was too aware of the waitress—Nina—moving around the restaurant. Even when she was behind him, he seemed to have a sense of her, of how her body moved through space.
He hadn’t been able to pay attention to the other four talking about the deck Zach was building. Not even when Teri nudged him and asked how the cabin restoration was going.
“We’d love to come out and help you sometime,” she’d said hopefully. “We could make a day of it, everyone pitching in. Bring a picnic, all that.”
“I need a chance to test my skills on something harder than a deck,” Zach had added.
Joel had just said, “Sure,” instead of trying to muster the explanation that the whole reason he was repairing the cabin was to get away from all the happy togetherness.
They all gave off cheerful, loving devotion like some kind of thick, strong perfume—all of them: Zach and Teri, Jeff and Leah, even Grey and Alethia. Grey was always quiet, and was plenty easy to spend time with on his own, but when he was with his mate, he carried this deep, almost palpable contentment, edging on satisfaction.
Joel couldn’t be around any of them for too long before he started to choke on it all.
Mates. It was such a stupid idea. Why was it like this? Why could the hand of God, or shifter genetics, or whatever, just reach down and declare, You and you, and that was it? It didn’t matter if someone’s life was ruined, if people had to leave their home or their family behind.
It especially didn’t matter that it made those people so vulnerable—to each other, to circumstance, to anything. They’d never be able to stand on their own two feet, ever again.
And no one seemed to realize it. Even Teri, who’d been rejected by her entire family for being with Zach, was stuck in this miasma of happy couple-ness, as though there was nothing wrong with it at all. The mate-bond really must be a weird compulsion that overwhelmed your judgment and your self-preservation.
Zach, especially, should’ve known better. Because Joel and Zach’s parents had been mates, and it had been a tragedy from start to finish.
But Zach and Teri were both determined to ignore reality, and Joel wasn’t so much of a jerk that he’d purposefully try to ruin their happiness.
So, he spent a lot of time out at the cabin.
He was going to have to remember to argue Teri out of a happy-family construction outing. He’d been too distracted by that damn waitress to try.
Joel's leopard snarled.
Joel sat up instantly, looking around—was there danger somewhere? Had something happened while he was stuck in his thoughts?
He couldn't see anything. No one was around. The diner was closed. The mountains were the same still, dark presence looming over the empty street.
Danger, his leopard insisted.
Then Joel heard a faint echo of voices. They sounded worked up, the tone annoyed and jeering.
Normally, he would've left well enough alone. He didn't make a habit of interfering in other people's business. But something drove him to stand up and head in the direction of the noise. His leopard hissed approval.