Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            Smiling, actually.

            I sit in the passenger seat, staring at my knees, thinking about what Lowe told me. A mate grabs you by the stomach, he said, and he was so sure of it, I felt it in my stomach, too. He made it sound like a thought that won’t quit, a spectacle impossible to tear one’s eyes from. But with Gabi . . .

            Maybe I cannot read him. But he doesn’t seem to gravitate toward her. He was by my side for the whole conversation. He couldn’t remember what she studied.

            I look up from my lap. Lowe is staring at me with a tender, amused expression. The keys are in the ignition, but he hasn’t turned them. He’s motionless, like he forgot what he was about to do.

            “What?” I ask, a little defensive.

            “Nothing.” His smile is soft. Like a boy who got caught. “You okay?” He clearly has no idea what I’m thinking.

            I nod, keeping my eyes on the darkness outside as he starts the car. My cheeks are hot. I’m on the verge of something.

            It’s possible that I understand next to nothing about Weres. About love. About Lowe and Gabi. It’s possible that I’m an idiot who reads too much into too little. But I feel something deep in my belly, and I know it to be right.

            Lowe may have a mate, but she’s not Gabi.





CHAPTER 25




                             He should never have told her. He made a mistake—several, in fact.





Something elusive dangles in front of my nose, but I can’t focus on it. It’s a tip-of-the-tongue state, a sneeze that won’t start and teeters there, waiting.

            Lowe’s mate is not Gabi. I fiddle with the memories of past conversations, trying to recall what I know, what Lowe openly acknowledged, and what gaps I filled on my own. There’s a nagging spark of something in my chest, something fizzy and not unhappy. I try to rationalize it into nothing, and when that fails, I force my attention away by saying, “I live five minutes from here.” I wet my lips, studying the familiar contours of my old neighborhood. “Lived.” I bite my lower lip. “I guess I still do. The council took over my rent.”

            “Want to stop by?”

            “Why?”

            “I’d like to see it.”

            I snort. “It’s not a very architecturally pleasing building.”

            “It’s not about the building, Misery.”

            It takes more like ten minutes to get there, but Lowe follows my directions without complaints. I punch in the code at the main entrance, but didn’t bring any keys with me, so once we’re in front of my door, I pluck a hairpin off.

            “You’re . . .” He lets out a low, affectionate laugh, shaking his head.

            I push the door open and lift an eyebrow. “I’m?”

            “Amazing.”

            My chest is too tight for my heart.

            “How long did you live here?” he asks, following me inside and glancing around.

            I calculate it in my head. “Four years, more or less.”

            The Collateral is entitled to a small trust fund, and I used pretty much all of my money on my fake Human IDs, and then to put myself and Serena through college. We were on a tight budget for a few years, sharing cramped spaces and constantly compromising on the decor. The result was a mix of minimalism and shabby chic that we both looked back on with equal fondness and horror.

            This place, though, is where I moved after graduating. I had my first salary and could splurge a little. I was pleased with the clean, no-fuss spaces. I rescued most of the furniture from flea markets Serena and I visited on cloudy days, early in the morning, and loved how uncluttered and roomy the final result was. I listened to synthwave music without anyone judgmentally asking me what trauma had led to me to enjoy “that shit,” and could even display my lava lamp in all its cringe glory.

            And yet, when I glance around the living room, trying to see the place from Lowe’s perspective, it only seems empty. Lifeless. Like a museum.

            Picturing myself in it has my stomach in twists. It’s only been a few weeks—my tastes can’t have changed so much in so little, can they?