Page 103 of Just One Bite
“I mean … did you really think this thing with Parker was casual? That you were just friends?” Eva doesn’t look up from her handful of weeds.
“I …” It sounds silly to say it aloud, but being with Parker is so easy I didn’t question it. Sure, we were playing a role to the outside, but when we were alone, falling into that rhythm never felt like it. It was real to me and like no one else existed. I didn’t need to question it. Parker didn’t need a different label, and neither did I. Plus, I was going to tell him how I felt … or show him that night.
I saw that elation in his eyes when I mentioned marking and the possibility of things for our time at school. He wanted me. I never had to question the future because Parker never made me worry there would be a day he didn’t. Maybe that was foolish … Surely, this hasn’t all been a Were thing. The bondmakinghim want me. But what if it was? Maybe he did want to mark me … to touch me because of the bond.
Would he have stayed and helped me out without it?
I already know my answer. He would because that’s who he is.
“We never talked about exclusivity. He never seemed interested in anyone else. And you know I’m not.”
“So what about now, if you saw Parker with another girl, you’d be cool with it? Your linked mate,” Emma says.
I know what she’s trying to draw out of me.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Okay, but what if? What if you reject the bond and he chooses someone else?”
I swallow, scooping up a pile of weeds and shoving them into a wicker basket. I don’t think of it. I can’t. My stomach hollows.
“You need to talk to him. That’s all I’m saying,” she says.
Eva’s phone rings, thankfully saving me from more interrogation. She dusts her hands off on her apron and brings it to her ear.
“Hi Dad,” she says, and I shift my attention back to the weeds.
“He called me too,” Emma says. “You should talk to him.”
“No.”
“But he wants to talk about the linked mate thing.”
“That’s why I don’t want to talk to him. Of all the things going on right now, Dad is the last person I want to talk to about this. Please … tell him I’m fine.”
Eva and Emma share an exasperated look. They don’t get it. They think I’m being unreasonable, rude.
“I just think he’s trying, and it would be nice … to visit without that weird awkward silence between you two.”
Spoken like the youngest child.
“You can’t dictate my relationship with Dad.”
“I know. But he’s trying. And … it’s like, he lost her, and I guess I know what that feels like and why that might make him go a little crazy. I don’t think Mom would want us to fight.”
I glare. Emma pulls that card more than anyone, and it’s not fair.
“Emma.” Eva shakes her head.
Emma huffs. “Fine. I’ll shut up. Keep being closed off. I will stop trying to get the family to stick together, then.”
Emma and Eva continue to bicker back and forth. Maybe Emma is right … I’m the only thing in the way of my family reuniting and being happy.
Suddenly, I have the urge to check my phone, but not to see if my dad called me. Which he did.
Parker hasn’t texted me. He’s giving me the distance I asked for so I can think. I try to be anything but miserable as I go back to picking weeds.
I decide to hide in the Noxx House library for the remainder of the day. There’s a secret door that leads to a basement—Parker sat with me one afternoon while I figured out the puzzles to get the key—and there’s never anyone down here. There’s cushion floors and low lighting, like everywhere else in Noxx House, which makes it the perfect place to search for information on linked mates in peace.
