Page 52 of The Runaway Mate

“And here I was thinking it was my cooking,” Derek shot back.

“You can’t cook for shit, man.”

“Yeah? You still eat it.”

I did. I’d eat anything my brothers made.

“Talking of cooking, did your cooking skills work their magic on Mai?”

I paused, wondering how much I wanted to tell him.

Before I could answer, Derek continued, “Bear in mind, I have been home today. The whole place reeks of you two, so I know they worked something. Of course, it was laced with Mai’s distinct scent of anger, so I know you also fucked it up somehow.”

“Your confidence in me is heart-warming, you know that?”

He gave me a sideways glance. “Bro, I know you. I know how much Mai means to you. I also know you haven’t been in a relationship in years, and you are stubborn as fuck, so I don’t have any doubts that you messed it up in some way. Tell me, Ryan. Maybe I can help get your head out of your ass long enough that you can fix this.”

I hated that he was right. I hated that he knew me so well. And I really fucking hated that he could predict I would mess things up. I sighed and told him about this morning.

He laughed for a full five minutes. I timed the fucking bastard.

“You done?” I finally asked.

“I can’t believe you told her that I hacked her phone! What did you expect would happen? You thought she was going to thank you and demurely move all her stuff into our house?”

I kept my face blank.

“Oh fuck, you really did, didn’t you?” He laughed again.

“No, but I didn’t think she’d storm out. It’s not an issue now, anyway. She’s agreed to move into the spare room, at least until this thing with Seth is settled.”

He turned and looked at me. I could feel his eyes studying my face. “I want you to be happy, Ryan,” he said, his tone serious. “You deserve to be happy. But you have a lot to learn about women. A lot to learn about Mai. You need to respect her boundaries. You need to talk to her about shit like this before asking me to wade through her entire life. Don’t fuck this up, okay? We’re all counting on you.”

Counting on me? “What does that mean?”

He hesitated, and I could sense he was debating something with himself. Finally, he turned away as he said, “Nothing. Just that we all want you and Mai to be together. You guys have waited a long time for this.”

Chapter thirty-five

Ryan

Our car sliced through the night, the buildings of Bridgetown growing denser as we drew closer to its heart. Derek’s eyes had remained glued to his phone screen for the last ten minutes, his fingers a flurry of movement. The silence hung heavy, punctuated only by the quiet hum of the engine and Derek’s intermittent murmurs as he dug deeper.

Finally, his phone beeped, and Derek exhaled, glancing at me with a spark of triumph in his eyes. “Found him,” he declared. “Name’s Eddie Keller. Works at the local sawmill. Apparently, he’s also a regular at a dive bar called ‘The Black Hound.’”

“Guess we’re going for a drink, then,” I said, steering the car toward our new destination.

Nestled in the outskirts of Bridgetown Pack territory, The Black Hound was a gritty bar with grimy windows. This was not one of the approved places in town that tourists were encouraged to visit. This was a place for those werewolves too real for the tourists to see. The outside of the bar was dimly lit by a neon sign of a huge black dog. I could see silhouettes of men and women through the glass. The place was busy tonight.

As I parked the car, the raw scent of a rival Pack filled my nostrils. No way we could go in there and talk to Keller without word getting back to Michael.

“We wait. He has to leave at some point. We’ll follow him home and talk there.”

Three hours later, under the dim, scattered lights of the parking lot, the bar’s door swung open. A man of wiry build with closely cropped sandy hair stumbled out into the night. He was wearing worn jeans that had seen better days and an old T-shirt that read, “Hell yeah!”

Derek’s eyes narrowed in on him. “That’s him,” he affirmed in a low voice, his gaze trailing Eddie as he stumbled toward a beat-up Chevrolet.

We shadowed Eddie through the streets of Bridgetown. The human tourists were still out and about, sampling the Shifter nightlife, at least the one that Michael and Camile wanted them to see. We headed into the suburbs, and then the houses gradually thinned out, replaced by an array of trailers. Eddie stopped in front of a small trailer with a metal exterior, rust creeping up along its edges. It had a small yard out front, unkempt and dotted with assorted debris. A single wooden chair sat on a makeshift porch alongside a battered cooler. No lights were on inside.

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