Wild (Savage Alpha Shifters 1)

See, Dad cheated with his assistant and broke up with Mom and then his younger girlfriend dumped him, and he tried to sweet-talk his way back in with Mom. Thankfully, she told him to take a flying leap.

This weekend was supposed to be an escape from all of it. And boy, has it been because now I’m faced with a whole new set of things to stress about.

I’ve stewed in my anger at Tyson’s comments for long enough without it getting me anywhere, so I decide to put my pacing to good use by cleaning this grimy house. I clean up the bedroom, first, dusting the surfaces with a damp cloth and then I clean the bathroom, washing everything with dish soap as that’s the only cleaning product I can find. It does a pretty good job considering how long it’d likely been since this place saw any elbow grease.

I find a broom in the space between the fridge and counter and it looks like it’s been in there for a decade or longer. It’s coated in dirt. I have to wipe down the broom handle before I can even get started. There’s no dustpan, so I sweep the bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bathroom (deciding the other room will wait as the door is closed) and push the mammoth pile of dust, dirt, dead bugs, and hair to the front door. I open the door and ceremoniously sweep it outside.

I can’t find a mop, so that’s the best I can do unless I want to get on my hands and knees and wash the floor that way, and nope, I do not.

Seeing no movement outside I keep sweeping the wide porch and several things strike me all at once.

The garage is closed, and I don’t think he’s in there. Where is he?

The other thing, the really weird thing… a strange haze hangs in the air. A dark mist, like chem trails but not in the sky, in front of me. The air has a fragrance, a musky and wood-infused aroma. I step off the porch and survey the perimeter. It’s not just in front of me, it goes all the way around the house, surrounding me like a smoky crop circle, but suspended at around my chest-level. It wraps from behind the garage over to the weeping willow, and coming around to wrap around the back of the house. A perfect circle.

I take a step off the porch and stumble in confusion as I head toward the big willow tree, eyes darting back and forth across the space. I reach the tree and the muskiness is stronger. This smells like Tyson. I feel my brows knit together in confusion. Where is he?

If he’s not here, I should go. Why, though, is his scent surrounding me? I should go to town and get a tow truck to pull my car out. Get driven home, or to the nearest bus station. I’ll call Tamara, my roommate. No. She leaves today for Jamaica with her guy. She’s probably already gone.

Or… stay here forever and forget everything else.

I shake that thought off. Hard. It’s neither practical nor responsible to think that way.

I begin picking some pretty flowers that have bloomed around the dead-looking grass behind the house while pondering things.

I’ll find my way to town and call Mom. She’s kind of pissed at me since I ended things with Benjamin, because I can’t “play nice” like Amelia wants me to.

‘You couldn’t have hung on until after Amelia’s wedding?’

Sorry, Mom. Just because you stayed with dad twenty years longer than you’ve been happy…

I didn’t say that, of course. Amelia went off on me and I had been planning to play nice, but the way she went off, I fought back, saying that maybe her groom should pick a new usher since Ben was only in the wedding because of me. Amelia argued that Ben and Rick had bonded, and I’d just have to suck it up and play nice for the day. It’s not even like things with Ben and I are hostile. It’s more that Amelia simply lost her shit when she found up we broke up worrying more about how it’d impact her wedding day than me.

Mom is pissed that me and my sister are on the outs, but she’d drop everything to come to me if I call, even though it’s over three hours away.

I’ll get questioned and lectured all the way home because where is my car? Why didn’t I come back with Megan? Why did I spend my money on something with that much risk? Why did I go with Megan in the first place if I wasn’t one hundred per cent certain about her character? Did I trust my instinct this time and if I did, is my instinct broken? Yada yada yada.