Talking to Starla was the last thing on earth I wanted to do, but I knew it had to be done. I was the leader of the pack, after all, which meant it was my responsibility to make sure that all of the members were doing what they were supposed to do and being kind to one another. I could hardly justify letting Starla get away with the way she was treating Sam, even if they were in a relationship, and it was theoretically being nosy to bud my way into it. She had some questions to answer for me as her mage and Luna.
I headed over to Sam and Starla’s house the next morning, having decided not to mess with it that night, after I’d spoken to Joshua about the situation with the baby. I wanted to sleep on it and see if my mind was any clearer in the morning. It wasn’t, but that just assured me that I needed to talk to Starla.
I hoped Sam wasn&rs
“How did your conversation with Starla go?” Melanie asked as we all sat around the breakfast table. Raven had outdone herself. I’m not sure why she decided to go to so much trouble that day, but I was glad she did. I needed it. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, biscuits… it was all delicious.“It didn’t go well,” I admitted, taking another bite of bacon and chewing it before I added, “she wasn’t exactly happy to see me.”“That figures,” Raven muttered, shaking her head. “Did she throw you out?”“Of the house that I built?” I asked, realizing Starla might be right, and it was getting a little old hearing me remind everyone that I made that house for them. “No, she didn’t throw me out, but she didn’t act very hospit
“She honestly wants me to come with her?” Ben was asking. We’d taken the conversation upstairs to our room as soon as it was possible, as soon as breakfast was over and people started to split off to do whatever it was they had to do that day. Personally, I was looking forward to spending some time in the forest, but it seemed like I would have to at least watch part of the football game to make it seem as if I wasn’t just asking to ask earlier in the day.“That’s what she said,” I told him, sitting on the edge of the bed next to him. It was always easy to get distracted when we were in our room alone, so we were both trying to keep some space between us as we discussed the crazy woman who lived behind us. Why was there always a crazy woman living behind us…?“But… that doesn’t ev
“I don’t know about this, Sam,” I said, trying my best to wipe that viscous smile off of his face. “It doesn’t seem like something the rest of the pack could possibly appreciate.”“What are you talking about, Harlow? Of course they’ll appreciate it. They’ll think it’s brilliant. And since she hasn’t fully committed to the pack yet, she won’t know. Even if everyone else in the pack knows what we’re up to, Starla won’t know.”“Unless she can tell the difference between my even tempered boyfriend and her angry boyfriend,” I pointed out. “Not to mention, don’t you think this could build trust issues between the pack mates? I mean, how will anyone know that I’m not doing this all the time? Switching people’s faces and pretending that one pers
Asking your boyfriend to let your ex-boyfriend walk around with his face on is never an easy thing to do. Not that that’s something a lot of people have to contend with on a daily basis. As I sat next to Ben on the couch downstairs, after the football game was over, waiting for him to respond to my request, I hoped I never had to ask another question like this one again.“Do you really think this is a good idea?” he asked me, the expression behind his eyes telling me more than the question itself.“Of course not,” I said, meaning it. “I think it’s a terrible idea. I think there’s a good chance that it will have devastating consequences that we will never recover from as a pack. I think someone might actually die because of it.”Ben’s eyebrows
More people were out and about in downtown Whispering Hollow than I would’ve imagined. It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so apparently, a lot of people had the week off. Of course, school still wasn’t in session, not only because of Fionna’s fire but also because it was a scheduled break for the holiday. A lot of students roamed the sidewalks, some of them darting into the diner or the donut shop, others window shopping the few stores that sat between those two destinations. Occasionally, someone would actually enter a store, but there wasn’t much to buy in Whispering Hollow, not that anyone our age would like anyway. Older people were interspersed between the teens, a few mothers with children, families, or older people, but most of them looked at the marauding teens like they were actually doing something wrong, other than being loud and acting like kids.Ben
Starla claimed she was unable to get a doctor’s appointment. While she claimed she could schedule one for mid-January, well after the deadline I had given her, she said not a single doctor qualified to determine whether or not she was pregnant was available before the day I told her she had to be out by.“So, you see, Harlow,” she said to me as we sat in the living room in Grandma’s house, “you’re just going to have to give me an extension.”I stared at her for a long moment before I reached into my pocket, pulled out my cell phone, searched for OBGYNs in the area, skipped right over the one I’d gone to see myself, and selected the second one, a Dr. Kemp in the next town over. “Try this one,” I told her.She looked at my phone and said, “I already did
I followed the “happy” couple into the waiting room of the doctor’s office. It wasn’t very crowded. Only a few overly-pregnant women and their husbands, as well as a couple of ladies who looked like they might be there for something else, or just to confirm their pregnancy, like Starla, sat in the chairs. Sam, wearing Ben’s face, looked around the room, uncomfortable, and took a seat as Starla approached the counter. I didn’t dare sit down since I had no idea whether or not someone would come and literally sit on me, so I stood next to him.Sam/Ben covered his mouth with his hand and whispered, “You here?”I put my hand on his shoulder, and he nodded slowly, knowing that meant I was. A few moments later, Starla came back and sat in the chair next to him, filling out all of the paperwork she could&rsq
Getting back into the truck to go home was a reversal of all of the steps I’d had to take to get there, except for Sam, wearing Ben’s face, was so angry right now, I was afraid he might forget that pesky fly was me and accidentally squash me, so I hung back in the corner of the backseat of the truck far away from his hands.Starla was crying as they made their way back to Grandma’s house. Sam/Ben said nothing, only drove, which I thought was remarkable because I fully expected him to start yelling at her immediately. He was doing a better job of remembering he was Ben to her than I’d thought he was capable of.It wasn’t until we had almost reached Whispering Hollow that Starla stopped crying enough to say, “Ben, I’m going to have to ask you a favor, and you’re going to have to promise me something, okay?”