Page 19 of Defeated

My stomach lets a happy grumble at the thought of meat lover's pizza. “Um…”

“It’s pizza,” he says with a small smile that reveals a dimple in his left cheek, “not a proposal. You’re allowed to say yes.”

I tell myself not to smile. It’s really not that good of a joke. In fact, it’s downright terrible. But it draws one anyway. “Okay. Meat lover's sounds good.”

He nods, his eyes briefly dipping to take in my smile. “Then we’ll eat and stop for the night.”

“But—”

“I know you want to help Colton, and that’s fine. But I’ve been on the road most of the day, and after eating, I see myself crashing soon after.”

His explanation makes all the sense in the world, and I’d totally buy it, except there’s not a hint of tiredness to be found on his face.

Not a trace.

He glances casually down at his phone. “So I’ll order pizza. We can eat. And you can take Colton’s bed upstairs while I crash on the couch.”

He says it like it’s a foregone conclusion. Like we’ve decided everything and he just wants to confirm it.

“I—”

He yawns. Big, wide, and I would put money in it being wholly fake. I get the sense that, bit by bit, Chris is subtly manipulating me. Well, maybe manipulated isn’t the right word. That implies something bad.

Maneuvered.

I don’t mind it as much as I should, because all his maneuverings involve making sure I have enough to eat.

“Was the drive a long one, then?” I ask, eyeing him closely.

“Several hours. Winter Lake is a pretty out of the way retirement town.”

My curiosity piqued, I abandon looking for the next thing to pack. “Retirement town?”

You can find packs most places, but this is the first I’m hearing of a pack living in a retirement town. It sounds a hell of a lot more attractive than living beside the main road, where car horns never cease to jolt me awake just when I’ve fallen asleep.

I was getting to the point where sleeping in a cemetery was starting to sound like heaven.

He nods. “Seems like a strange place to have a pack, but we wanted somewhere quiet to start over.”

His expression subtly changes, and I get the sense we’ve just tiptoed into a sad topic. Shaking his head, he lifts the phone and says, “You did a good job of distracting me. I nearly forgot about calling for this pizza.”

He wanders over to the lounge window, dialing as he goes.

Because he’s not behaving in the way I’ve gotten used to, I watch him.

He’s very disarming, and he keeps going out of his way to put himself in a vulnerable position, which is killing my desire to run away.

This is the longest I’ve spent with a shifter in… too long.

He glances out of the window. It seems casual until I recall the way he was peering over my shoulder when I was standing on the top of the porch steps.

I’d been doing a terrible job of hiding my unease at the thought of those shifters at my apartment. Probably even following me. Despite my attempts to play it cool, he’d seen past my façade and guessed something was wrong.

The phone stops ringing, and my mouth falls open as I listen to him place our order.

He doesn’t just order the biggest meat lover's pizza they sell, but garlic bread, wings, fries, and two sodas. When I think that’s plenty of food, he adds another large pizza to our order for delivery as well. A vegetarian one.

Finished with the call, he turns around and finds me gaping at him. “The vegetarian probably was overkill, but I figure we need something green.”

---