Of course he was avoiding her. She had, in his eyes, told on him. She hadn’t meant to, not really. She hadn’t thought it was really throwing him under the bus, but...
Now that his Alpha had told him to stay put and give his mate space...
Then again, that was pretty hypocritical of Cole, given how he had been chasing Ariana in and out of town, more than once.
If only Roddy would talk to her... because she had, finally, called back Sam. And she knew, without any witchy intuition, that it was only a few more days before Sam found herself searching for Garoureve.
“You can get drunk, I promise,” Tristan said as he gave Roddy a nod. “Come on over and sit with me. We’ll get you properly trashed. Only way to heal what hurts.”
“What about me?” Silvestre asked from behind him. His hands were shoved into his pockets, awkwardly, and somehow, he looked even more out of place than Roddy did, which was... weird.
Tristan was the loner kid, younger than all of them, who Violet had spent a little time with as a child, knowing they were both feeling excluded from the pack. Roddy was the weird cousin, always off running and getting into things. Mardoc and Henrik were a pair, the older boys that were bigger and stronger than everyone else. Colburn and Silvestre were always tagging along behind, wanting to be like the cool kids, but showing the possibility of blooming into strong young men...
Silvestre had never been on the outs. He was always best friends with the Alpha’s son, with their future Alpha. So for him to be pulling away, excluding himself...
Violet glanced from Silver to Tristan, whose jaw was set. Ah. Yeah. That. Silver had always been a little bit of an asshole to Tristan, which was annoying, and probably because Violet, and in turn Della, had often cleaned up Tristan’s wounds when he got into scuffles. And that then put Silver on the defensive, and...
They were all in their thirties now. She didn’t want to deal with schoolyard scraps and childhood bullies. If either one was about to pick any fights, she was going to knock sense into their heads...
Or, Henrik would. He was bigger than her.
“Of course you’re welcome here,” Violet said as she popped off of Henrik’s lap and went to the door. “Come on. They’re about to make me try gin.”
“Try gin?” Silver questioned as he walked towards her, and pulled his hands out of his jacket. “Uhh?”
“I keep forgetting you’re a kid,” Violet said with a roll of her eyes.
“I’m thirty—”
“You’re still a kid to me. You and Tristan,” she said as she approached the bar and set herself between the two men. “But to answer your question, the whole witchy out of control thing? Couldn’t do any stimulants. That means no alcohol, no caffeine, no—”
“I’ll get you drinking coffee, one way or another,” Mardoc complained, something she had heard far too many times the past few days.
“It tastes like dirty bean water,” she retorted, and gestured her hand to Gina’s orange glass. “Skip the gin! Gina has good taste in everything she has fed me so far, so, I want to try whatever she is drinking.”
“Yes, join me and my tequila,” Gina cheered as she raised her glass to take a sip.
“She’s not much of a drinker either,” Tristan commented while his mate was drinking, and received an elbow in the side for it.
“When are you coming over so I can fix that horrible attempt at a tattoo,” Violet asked as she bumped Tristan’s other side. “Come on, kid. You want ink in your skin so bad, then you need to just ask for it.”
“I know, I know,” Tristan said with a raise of his hand. “Give me a few more days. My last choice was... it was on the wall, and it was a wolf. But now that I know it’s gonna work, it’s gotta mean somethin’.”
“Get somethin’ for your mate,” Henrik called out from across the bar, and lifted his shirt off to show off his chest... and the tattoo. “That means somethin’.”
“Hey, do you do piercings too?” Tristan asked as he raised his eyebrow suggestively. “Because you see, Gina has these—”
Gina covered Tristan’s mouth with her own, silencing him, not that anyone there couldn’t tell that Gina had pierced nipples. It was something Violet was half tempted to do herself. Maybe, next time she was in town, she could convince Teddy to do it. He was a licensed piercer, after all. She could put him to work.
“I think I want one too,” Silver commented beside her, his voice soft, not that the other wolves wouldn’t hear him. “For my sisters.”
Now that... that Violet could do. She might have already been working on one, for herself, but for Silver...
“Of course,” she answered softly, and gave him a tight smile. “The therapist, have you—”
“Yeah,” he answered, and let out a long sigh. “It’s gonna be a long road.”
“Just so long as you’re traveling down it, things are going to get better,” she insisted, and gave him a tight smile. Her words sounded far more wise than she felt, but that was happening more and more.