Page 35 of Harvest Moon

I sighed and let myself fall back against the bed just as Claudia walked by the open door to my room. She stopped and turned back to look at me. “What the hell happened?”

“Happened?”

She waved a hand around, indicating the whole room. “You own like three weeks’ worth of clothes, and every single piece appears to be spread across the room, Alexis. That’s not really your thing. I’m the messy one.”

She was right. Birch was forever picking up after her. Sometimes I thought it was lucky he was an elementary school teacher with infinite patience. Every time she shrugged off a jacket and tossed it on the table in the entryway, he followed her in and hung it on the coat rack.

On the other hand... I really wanted to do that for someone.

Yes, fine, for Ridge, but I was working on that. It seemed like it would work perfectly, really. Ridge was always picking things up and saving them. If I was the one picking up after him, I’d find the rocks in his pockets and add them to the collection.

Without moving my head, I glanced at the shelves. Claudia hadn’t said a word about me filling her guest bedroom bookshelves with my collection of Ridge stuff. Geodes and shells and sea glass and... every damn thing he’d ever handed me.

I should get rid of it.

Give it back to him.

But it wasmine. (He was mine.)

I sighed, and without looking back at Claudia, mumbled my answer. “Ridge invited me apple picking.”

Of course, Claudia immediately understood. She flopped down on the bed next to me, staring up at the ceiling. “Wanna borrow one of Birch’s T-shirts? Nah, that’d be too obvious. Zeke, maybe? Though I guess if he recognized the scent, he’d know in a minute that you weren’t actually interested in the guy. Damn pack full of attached and too-old alphas.”

Against my will, my thoughts went to Aspen. I didn’t think he was attached. Of course, he’d stared out at the town the way Ridge had always looked at his family farm. Did I really want to replace one distracted alpha with another?

Besides, Aspen was way out of my league. And probably like fifteen years older than me. Maybe more.

But stranger things had happened, hadn’t they? He was gorgeous, and nice, and interested in the same things as me. And he looked me in the eye, which was something Ridge seemed to have forgotten how to do.

Sigh.

Ridge.

“I don’t think I should wear a strange alpha’s shirt to spend time with Ridge,” I told her, rolling my eyes.

“I didn’t say Skip Chadwick,” she shot back. “Just an alpha, not a strange one. Lane Daniels is about your age, and he’s a cutie. I think he might mostly be about the girls, but you never know unless you ask.”

I rolled my head to the side till it leaned against her shoulder. “Why does it have to be so hard, Claud? It was supposed to be easy. It was us. It was always us. Perfect, inseparable, obvious Ridge-and-Alexis.”

She tipped her head against mine, cradling me against her. “I remember, sweet pea. I’ll never forget when you called to tell me his mother was buying wedding magazines. I’d never heard anyone so excited about the possibility of not being allowed to plan his own wedding.”

I couldn’t hold back a giggle at that. It probably had been an odd thing to be excited about, but it had been more tacit approval from a mother than I’d received in my whole life up to that point. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Ridge’s mother had always liked me better than my own did.

Mom wasn’t a bad person or anything, she just didn’t want the same things I did, so she didn’t get me.

Ridge’s mother got it. I didn’t like his dad that much, but that might have been part of it anyway. Ridge’s father was quiet, aloof and more than a little stand-offish. No one in town had liked him much except for her.

But at the same time, people had never understood what I saw in Ridge. Not because he was rude or nasty or mean, but because he was quiet. They all assumed it meant he wasn’t interested in talking to them, or even sillier, that he wasn’t very smart. I felt like I was the only man in the world who saw the real value in Ridge Paterson. The passion and joy and sweetness.

Whatever omega he ended up with damned well better appreciate those things in him.

“So is there a reason we don’t think this is a date?” she finally asked. “Because around these parts, when one wolf invites another apple picking, sometimes their parents start buying wedding magazines. I think Isaac Tartt even carries a few in the grocery store for just such an occasion.”

“Jerk,” I muttered, but didn’t answer the question.

For some reason, Claudia decided to press. “I get it, you know. I really do. You don’t want to be the creepy weirdo who sits around waiting for someone who isn’t interested. Acting like you have a claim when you don’t.”

“Yes, and I also don’t want to be either of the people in this conversation right now.” I wasn’t sure if it was possible to catch terminal awkwardness, but we seemed to be trying hard for it.

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