“What are you doing? You said you wouldn’t stand in the way. This is standing in the way and dragging me around like a rag doll, you jackass!”
“Clearly, I was bluffing!” Nick exclaimed. “And you called me on it, so good for you.” He grabbed my arms and shoved me against the door. His body pressed against mine, and the weight felt so good. Instead of pushing his shoulders away, as I intended to, I found my fingers wrapped around his collar, pulling him closer. His hand snaked around to the small of my back and bunched the fabric of my dress, until I could feel his fingers brushing against my ass.
His mouth was hovering so close to mine I could feel his breath fanning over my lips, and I instinctually flicked the tip of my tongue over them. He moved closer, and just before his whiskers brushed over my hypersensitive skin, I pressed the flat of my palms against his shoulders.
“I can’t,” I said softly.
He rested his chin against my temple and whispered, “He’s no good for you.”
“Neither are you,” I said, stepping sideways, away from him. “Besides, aren’t you on the verge of being engaged to Little Miss Express Lane?”
“Darby’s a nice girl.”
“Well, Clay is a nice guy. You just don’t like him because you’re jealous.”
“Yeah, I wish I had a forehead that proves our genetic link to Cro-Magnon man.” I glared at him. He sighed. “OK, fine, that was petty. And I am jealous. What am I supposed to do? He’s a likable guy, and he can do the one thing I can’t.”
“Find his glasses without the aid of the state police?”
“And that’s the delicate charm that calls me like a siren’s song,” he said, his lips twitching into a smile.
I murmured, “This is it, Nick. We can be friends, or we’ll have nothing. Your choice.”
“You’re not making this easy for me.”
I huffed out a laugh. “I’m not supposed to.”
“If it means that I can spend time with you, I’ll call myself your friend. I’m not going to stop hoping for more. But I’m going to wait for you to come to me.”
“That won’t happen,” I said, to myself as much as to him.
“We’ll see,” he said, wriggling his golden-blond eyebrows at me.
I rolled my eyes and turned away, leading Nick out of the hallway.
Unfortunately, Clay had gone to the bar to look for his wandering date and was talking to Darby. I tried to plaster a pleasant expression on my face as I slid into the empty space on his left. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“I thought you’d crawled out the bathroom window to escape,” he said, taking the beer and bussing my cheek. He stopped for a moment, inhaling. He shot a suspicious look at Nick, who had sidled up behind Darby.
“I’m more of a ‘cause a distraction with a bar fight, then sneak away through the back’ sort of girl,” I teased, watching Nick warily as he put his hand at the small of Darby’s back. Without warning, I had the irrational desire for the power to make her spontaneously combust with my mind.
“Clay, have you met Nick Thatcher?” For now, I was omitting Nick’s job description. It would get around to the pack eventually, but it might help if the pack got to know him and trust him beforehand. Still, Clay’s smile was sharp, and not all that friendly, as he reached forward to take Nick’s hand. I guess he picked up on more than just my scent on Nick. I sighed and took a step farther away from both of them. Darby and I watched as the boys seemed to be competing over who could squeeze more circulation out of the other’s fingers.
“Well, this isn’t awkward,” Darby muttered. Despite myself, I shared a commiserating little grimace with her.
“I’m Maggie, by the way. I don’t think we’ve ever really met.”
“Darby,” she said, shaking my hand in a way that didn’t leave me wincing, like the boys were doing now.
“Darby works full-time at the supermarket,” Nick told me. “She just got promoted to assistant manager.”
I threaded my arm through Clay’s and smiled affably. “Clay is a mechanic. We keep him pretty busy around the village, but there’s nothing he can’t fix. It’s taken a load off of Samson.”
“Darby’s studying for her master’s degree online, in social work. She wants to help kids like herself who grew up in the foster-care system,” Nick shot back, his tone a little bit more aggressive than proud.
“Clay is helping his sister raise her two children while they care for an ailing elderly aunt,” I retorted as Clay began to look distinctly uncomfortable under my “praise.”
“Darby takes in retired rescue dogs. She’s adopted two German shepherds through a state shelter program,” Nick said.