20
GUY
“Hey,” Ezra said.
It was the only word I heard. The rest of whatever my cousin had said fell on deaf ears.
Almost literally.
And that was because I stared out of my truck’s driver-side window into the gas station, watching Cadence as she talked on the phone. I became preoccupied with what she was doing and the expressions she made. Judging by the current one on her face, she didn’t like what she was hearing. Her eyebrows were pulled together, and her lips were pressed into thin lines. She also stood stiffly and had an arm crossed over her chest.
I wondered who she was talking to and what they had said to make her so disgruntled. If things had been better between us, I would have walked into the store, taken the phone from her, ended the call, and then pulled her into me for a long hug. Within the next couple of minutes, she quickly disappeared behind a wall. And with the way she had run, I knew something had happened. My hand instantly went to the handle on the door.
It was almost too natural to want to run to her. Never mind that she and I weren’t really a thing… at least, not yet. And it didn’t matter how much I wanted us to be together. Sure, she was my mate. But that didn’t mean I was hers.
She had to choose me too.
“Hello?” Ezra yelled, stabbing my ears with his shrill voice, and pulling my attention back to the phone call. “Earth to Guy.”
“Huh, what?” I asked, blinking away the image of Cadence rushing to the bathroom.
“Jesus, man,” he said. “Where were you?”
“Sorry,” I mumbled and glanced inside the store again.
“Please tell me I don’t have to repeat all of that.”
“All of what?” I asked.
He huffed. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
I chuckled. “Though I was serious about not having heard a thing you said, I’m happy to have gotten a rise out of you. It’s been a while.”
“Nice,” he growled out. “Glad I could provide you with some amusement. But seriously, I need you to pay attention this time, okay? I’m on the verge of being desperate, here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I thought you three had some sort of schedule worked out.”
“No, no, no,” he stammered. “Not for that.”
Cadence returned to the front of the store, and she looked exceptionally pale and unhappy. I stopped listening to Ezra again. My focus was on my mate, even though she didn’t seem to want anything to do with me. She kept covering her mouth too.
Then she disappeared out of sight again, and I sighed, fighting against the urge to jump out of my truck and go be near her.
I shook my head. Whatever was going on, I wanted to be there too. I wanted to be a part of it
“Are you even listening?” Ezra asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m a lot distracted right now.”
Ezra groaned. “Come the hell on. I don’t have time or the patience to go over this a thousand times before you finally catch on to everything I’ve said.”
“Harsh, much?” I said sarcastically through a scoff.
“No. Not at all. What’s harsh is being forced into the middle of whatever is going on between you and your woman,” he said.
Though I wanted to ask about what he was referring to, I was more concerned with what was going on with Cadence. And the more I sat in my truck waiting to see her, the more I realized I couldn’t leave her. It was like there was an invisible tether that kept me tied to her. One that had tightened all the loose strings sense I was so close to her. I couldn’t leave her if I tried. The tether wouldn’t loosen enough to let me leave.
As I stared into the store, the first flakes of the latest snow storm started to fall, sprinkling in front of my vision like tiny specks of glitter, almost highlighting the path into the store… leading me straight to her.