Everly asked, “What?” I replied, “The most dangerous person in any situation is the person with nothing to live for… because they are a wild card. If don’t care about life and death…you’remore dangerous than someone who cares if they live….and for years that was me.”
Tristan argued, “You were protecting Jase and Alexander.” I replied, “But giving my life to save them would’ve been fine with me.” Tristan growled, “You would’ve called when you found out Kai was born.” Anxiety gripped me.
I admitted, “I did.” Everly whispered, “Did you talk to someone pretending to be me?” I answered, “I did… do that… yes. It didn’t go well… and I realized no one would ever forgive me… even though they kept writing letters.”
Tristan sighed, “Ladybug.” I shrugged, “Edward rubbed Kai’s birth in my face. I didn’t know if I had a niece or nephew…because he truly didn’t care to find out if you had a boy or girl…he was just bad at being an Alpha….but his Beta was definitely worse at being a Beta.”
Tristan replied, “Our you waited for ten hours for a flight but there was a freak storm, and we were compelled not to have someone pop you in.” I shrugged, “Ok.” Tristan growled, “Not ok!” I asked, “What do you want me to say?”
Everly squeezed his hand. Tristan replied, “You just basically admitted to being suicidal and some sort of vigilante kamikaze.” I replied, “I mean… I never did anything with the Resistance with the intent to die…. I just didn’t care if that was the outcome.”
Tristan growled, “Someone took advantage of your grief.” I disagreed, “They did not.” Everly asked, “Can you see why we feel that way though?” I admitted, “No… not really. The Resistance is a good organization fighting the people that are evil. No one ever let me help when I was here.”
Tristan cut me off, “But you did, didn’t you? Levi has an interesting file I never saw before about tips coming from places near your dance competitions.” I hummed, “Weird… what an odd coincidence… that all sounds like.”
Everly laughed, “Mmhmm. Super weird.” I pointed at her, “Right… anyway… I just came to talk about telling Kai to umm… keep secrets from you guys…because I do feel bad about that.. it wasn’t fair to put adult problems on him.”
Tristan said, “I’m not worried about that because I know why you did it. You’ll understand when you have pups. Do you still want them? I recall you wanted a lot once upon a time.” I replied, “Uhh yeah… I do. Not like… any time soon… or anything… it’s just…. umm… complicated.”
Everly said, “No one will be upset if you want to have pups now or later.” I said, “Well… it’s later. Definitely later and…” Tristan interrupted me to ask, “Can I ask why?” I said, “You just did… so yes.” Tristan laughed, “Well, let me rephrase.”
Everly jumped in, “We want more pups, but since my photography business is booming right now, I’m not ready to step back from it.” I hummed, “Sure… sure… makes sense.” Tristan snorted, “Melanie Jane, are you sending Everly business?”
I squeaked, “Umm what? No… I mean… maybe I send galleries her pictures… after creating profiles or pretending to be people well known in the community….that’s a thing….but they display them because they are good… and people buy them because she’s talented. Aperture did a whole piece on her… that I totally don’t know is coming… it’s not a really good article in the December issue… nope. That would be weird if I knew that.”
Everly gasped, “What? Aperture is featuring my work?” I hummed, “Is it…? That’s brand new information.” Tristan slapped his face. Everly snorted, “Melanie, you’re clearly lying. I can’t believe they’d feature me.”
I hummed, “It’s possibly a five page spread talking about your talent with photos…and your journey in photography. I mean… maybe… I don’t know that at all… it could be three pages.” Tristan groaned, “Ladybug, your voice just squeaked when yousaid three pages. No one is upset you know that Everly is being featured in her favorite magazine.”
I asked, “Do you… want a copy of the article…? Or do you want to be surprised?” Everly gasped, “You can get it?” I used my watch to email her and Tristan the piece. I said, “I might have used your sunrise photos… on the fourth page… but I don’t own the magazine.”
“I considered buying a majority stock in it… when they used the wrong photos… but it’s your job… and that was my opinion… so I wasn’t going to interfere… ya know, more than hacking them… and putting you in front of the right people. I let your work speak for itself in front of said people.”
Tristan laughed, “I love you for that, but that’s interfering.” I argued, “Not really. The humans all subscribe to the saying it’s not what you know, but who. That would imply it’s not about who is the most talented… and I had people objectively say Everly’s photos were better than other people’s.”
“So, I helped her get in front of the right eyes… they agreed and so did the market. Everly’s statistically more profitable than over fifty percent of the other photographers in her field… and her main competition’s father bids on his daughter’s work… which shouldn’t count.”
Everly laughed, “Yeah, he gets in bidding wars with my dad and some anonymous buyer.” Tristan nudged her side saying, “You are looking at the anonymous buyer, love.” I squeaked, “Whhhhattttt???? No… that’s… I mean it’s you? You’re her mate, that’s fair.”
Tristan snorted, “I have purchased my wife’s work, but that anonymous buyer literally buys all of Everly’s sunrise photos. Which you said you liked. That buyer always bids against Everly’s main competitor’s dad too.”
“You don’t like things that aren’t fair. You didn’t want Everly’s numbers to be skewed because that woman’s dad placesridiculously high bids on her photos. Which means you place high bids to even it out and make the numbers fair.”
Everly gasped, “It’s you?” I hummed, “Maybe I have a place… with those photos… maybe…they are in several business buildings….around….the world… that’s a thing… that I have… I feel we were talking about other things.” Everly stood and hugged me, squeezing me tightly.
Everly backed up saying, “One, thank you for liking my work and leveling the playing field. Two, that woman is a bitch.” I gasped, “Right?! She’s lucky I haven’t had time to off her.” Tristan snorted, “Do not off her.”
I grumbled, “She says mean things about Everly….and my friends and I were the only ones allowed to do so… when we thought she sucked and was mean to me. I never let other people get away with being rude about Everly….she’s family.” Everly touched her hand to where her heart would be.
Tristan shook his head, “My wife’s competition will get hers.” I hummed, “I did put her on Karma’s list.” Everly asked, “Who is Karma?” I answered, “My friend… she’s a demigod… in charge of Karma… we call her Kiki… her family is the worst. I’ll bring her around sometime… she’s hard to get a hold of.”
Tristan asked, “You know a demigod?” I replied, “I mean you do too… so… that’s not super hard. I feel like we were talking about other things… like Kai… my vacation with Xander… where I totally played it cool on knowing the layout of the house… that I already knew. I pulled that off… I’m certain Xander nor Phil caught on.” I clapped a hand over my mouth.
Tristan said “Your secret is safe with me, but I’d already figured you’d have blueprints of houses the Conners owned. I noticed you knew where things were that you should not have.” Dang Beta blood being all observant. Tristan winked at me. My brother sighed, “I’ll give you the subject change you want even though that whole conversation just meant the world to mymate. You had to plan to come see Jase after you saved him and Kai.”
I agreed, “I did… I was going to before Xander’s trip was over… so that we could talk and figure this all out… because I just… those two weeks were perfect with Xander… and I was going to explain about Freya… and figure out how to coexist… but that didn’t go like I planned... in any, way shape or form.”
Tristan commented, “Which is hard for you.” It was but he knew that. Tristan said, “We heard you scream in pain that day when we came to bring you home. Jase told me about the things he saw the day you saved him. You let those people hurt you. They whipped you and you took it.”
