Page 125 of Windlass

“It’s something you need to know about me before you decide if you want to be with me.”

“You’re a mutant. No, a werewolf.”

“Caught me.” Angie’s smile was small and sad. Stevie hated it.

Haltingly, Angie told her about the encounter she’d had with Lana outside Stormy’s. Stevie listened with a sick throbbing where her heart normally beat. Angie had needed her, and Lana had been there instead. More aptly, Lana had ambushed Angie, sensing vulnerability like blood in the water.

When Angie finished, Stevie sat in silence, gathering her thoughts and sorting through them, unsure where to begin.

“You didn’t know she had a thing for you?” she asked, deciding to start small. Stevie had known it for ages, hating every possessive glance Lana sent in Angie’s direction.

“We had an arrangement, not . . .”

“Most people don’t stick with an arrangement that long unless they have feelings.”

“I did.”

“You’re not most people.” Stevie paused, grinding her teeth. “And it’s okay if you did—do—have some feelings for her. Small, shitty feelings, obviously, but you know what I mean.”

Angie scuffed a bit of dirt with the toe of her shoe. “Maybe, but not romantic ones.”

“Seriously?” This was excellent if surprising news. “I figured—well, she’s been around for a while.”

“We had chemistry, I guess. But I try not to get involved with people I can hurt.”

“Okay, so she called you out on ghosting her, you had a panic attack, and in the middle of that panic attack you almost hooked up with her,” Stevie summarized. Her stomach ached with the horror of imagining Angie tilting her face toward Lana.

“Yeah,” said Angie in a muted voice.

“I don’t love it.”

Angie flinched at Stevie’s words.

“But it’s not like you intentionally sought her out. You had a trauma reaction. Don’t get me wrong, I kinda want to kill her, and I might be angry at you, I’m not sure yet, but that’s exactly what you asked me to help you work on. I would be an asshole to break things off with you because you slipped up, especially since nothing happened.”

Keep your coolshe told herself. She could lose it later with Morgan now that she could talk to Morgan about this.

“Stevie, you can’t trust me. I can’t trustmyself.” The self-hatred in Angie’s voice cut Stevie to the quick.

“I do trust you.” Stevie took a shaky breath. “I trust that you’re trying.”

Angie scoffed.

“I’m not saying I’d be cool if you cheated on me. I would not be cool. I would be the opposite of cool. She should have respected you when you said you were done, though, and she didn’t, which is what set you off.”

“You don’t need to absolve me of blame.”

“I’m not. I’m saying you’re not totally at fault for this.”

“And if I hadn’t been too gross for her?”

Stevie considered the scenario, even queasier. “I’d be upset, obviously. Heartbroken, devastated, inconsolable. But it didn’t happen. You don’t know if you would have stopped it.”

“I—”

“Also, you’re acting like these aren’t things I know about you. I mean, I didn’t know aboutthissituation, but I know how you get when you’re feeling . . . stuff.”

“The Stuff,” Angie agreed, putting capital letter energy into theSdespite her tremulous lower lip. Stevie longed to press her thumb into that embodiment of sadness and still it. She also longed to mop hell’s basement with Lana’s corpse so there was some inner turmoil to solve first.

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