"Dad's gone," my cousin's voice was barely above a whisper. "You must come home for the Evaluations," she uttered and the phone line went dead.
*****
After Keri's Uncle - the Alpha of the Silver Bullets pack - loses his battle with cancer, the young...
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I passed by people without noticing them or where I was going, the words 'get a grip' playing on repeat in my mind.
Calm down and think!
I needed a private space so I walked into a random café and straight into their restroom, locking the door of the stall before leaning my back against its cold metal.
"Okay, evaluate the situation," I murmured to myself.
One, I'd made a fool of myself in front of Callum, acting erratic and getting caught when lying to him.
Two, all that might lead him to asking Kelly what was wrong with me which would in turn prompt my cousin to investigate what was going on and I couldn't give her a reasonable explanation without disclosing the Detective was my mate.
Three, I've left Rhys without...
My phone rang and I took the device out of the pocket of my leather jacket.
Looks like I'd have to deal with problem number three right now.
I took a deep breath and swiped the screen before bringing the mobile to my ear.
"Did you find your keys?" I hurried to ask before the inevitable 'Where did you go?' question that I'd have to face. I needed some time to come up with a plausible story.
"Yeah. The seller wasn't happy to see me back and interrupt him and the couple to ask for my keys though."
"What did you do?" I kept questioning my childhood friend.
Come on, Keri, think of a good reason to have left him there!
"I stopped being polite, straightened up and frowned at him. He was crawling to look under the counters after that."
I managed a convincing amused laugh before my next question:
"And he was no longer condescending?"
"No. He was all nice and told me 'have a nice day, Sir' when I was walking out. I think I scared his other clients; they left before me."
"Let me guess: your wolf was pretty pissed?" Having come up with resolution to predicament number three while Rhys answered my questions made breathing a little bit easier. "We can get quite a savage look in our eyes when our wolves are pissed."
"Comes in handy sometimes. As long as humans don't call the police," he added as an afterthought and I was sure he was frowning. "So where did you go?"
And there it was.
"I saw a friend from college and ran after her. We're done with the rings, right?"
I heard a long exhale before:
"Yes. For today, anyway."
"Mind going back on your own? I want to catch up with her."
