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  CHAPTER 12

  To my great surprise, Kathy backed down right away. "I'm sorry, Eva. I don't mean to be so snappy with you sometimes. It's nothing personal."

  Not having expected her to apologize, I was rendered speechless for a second or two. "Well, I appreciate your apology, but it feels pretty personal sometimes. I'm pretty sure I saw you glare at me yesterday, and I even thought I saw you glare at me the first night I came into camp with Nick and Blaine."

  It was at that moment that something clicked into place in my mind, or at least, I thought it did.

  "Oh my gosh...you want Nick and Blaine, and you hate me because of it."

  I'd thought Kathy would do one of two things, either lash out at me verbally or stomp off. I thought there was possibly a very outside chance of her laughing, trying to prove to me just how ridiculous she thought my accusation was.

  However, she didn't do any of these things. With her softly-lined face not even registering any surprise at my accusation, she just sighed. "Rest assured, I don't want Nick or Blaine. I think they're both fine men and excellent fighters, but I don't want them. I'll spare you the details, but Mike and Sam make me a very happy woman, and I am very in love with them, and they with me."

  This wasn't at all the response I'd been expecting, and now I didn't know what to say.

  Kathy spared me from having to say anything, though, by starting to walk away, raking a hand through her short salt-and-pepper hair. "I'm sorry. Just know it's not you."

  I wanted to say, "Well, then who the hell is it that's making you be rude to me sometimes?" But I didn't, knowing that that would probably be rude, and I probably wouldn't get a straight answer anyway.

  While back to work repairing the wall again, I supposed that I just had to take Kathy at her word, that whatever animosity she had toward me wasn't anything personal. That almost seemed to defy sense, though. Unless she just had a problem with all blondes or something. Or all former figure skaters. I knew that was a bit ridiculous, but who knew.

  At any rate, I didn't often have to see Kathy, so I figured I'd just let the whole thing go. Besides, it wasn't like she'd ever been cruel or downright vicious to me. She was just borderline snappy and rude. Or, she usually was, with a few notable exceptions, one of them being the time she'd joined in the collective female comforting of me when I'd cried. I wondered if I should cry around her more often.

  Late that afternoon, after finishing the wall repair with the other women, I went home, showered, and then realized that I didn't have a dress. When I told Chris what Kathy had said to me about "looking presentable," though, he just scoffed.

  "You always look more than 'presentable'...every single day. I like Kathy, but if you ask me, she obviously must have just had a bee in her bonnet about something today."

  "Well...yeah. Only around me, it's today and every day."

  I soon forgot all about Kathy while Chris helped me select an outfit that I thought was appropriate for dinner, or at least "apocalypse appropriate." In these times, even a clean pair of pants could be considered "semi-dressy," but I wanted to look a little more special than that.

  After rifling through some clothes that Tracy had brought over from the "community clothes bank," I ultimately settled on dark wash jeans and an A-line, hip-skimming fuchsia top with halter collar. I even found a pair of wedge-heeled tan sandals to wear with the outfit, which were going to be a real treat to wear. For the previous two years, I'd worn nothing but tennis shoes.

  At the bottom of the bag of clothes, I even found a pair of gold hoop earrings to complete my look, though I felt odd once I had them in my ears. Like heeled sandals, I simply wasn't used to wearing earrings, or any kind of jewelry at all. I also wasn't used to being able to blow-dry my hair, either, which I did while working a round brush through it at the same time to give it a little extra volume. Honestly, I was still just plain getting used to electricity again.

  When the doorbell rang at seven on the dot, I looked at Chris with butterflies in my stomach. "Why do I feel so nervous all of a sudden? You wouldn't happen to have any more four-leaf clovers on you, would you?"

  Smiling and giving me a jaunty little wave, Chris began sauntering out of the living room and down the hallway, telling me to have a nice night.

  When I opened the front door and saw Nick and Blaine standing on the front porch, the first word that popped into my mind was wow. Immediately followed by the words holy and sexy. Which together didn't exactly make a common phrase, I realized, though at the moment, I wasn't really too concerned with the momentary odd functioning of my brain.

  Dressed in jeans the same dark wash as my own and a pale blue Oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves and open at the collar, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of his bare, hard chest, Nick looked just about good enough to eat with a spoon. Up to this point, I'd only ever seen him in very battered jeans and t-shirts before.

  Blaine had also spruced himself up a bit for dinner, wearing jeans and a clean white t-shirt. Up to to this point, I'd never seen him in a t-shirt that wasn't smeared with dirt, stained with motor oil, or otherwise decidedly not in a pristine state of cleanliness. He also appeared to have possibly showered very recently, with his hair seeming to be still slightly damp and his face completely devoid of any dirt smudges, maybe the first time I'd ever seen it so.

  He and Nick were each holding a bouquet of wildflowers, and the sight of two very muscular, masculine shifters holding flowers was such a sweet one that I suddenly wished for a camera. Especially since Blaine looked so distinctly uncomfortable holding a bouquet of flowers, which I found charming. However, a mental picture would have to do. They each handed me their bouquets, and I combined them, smiling, then inhaled the sweet scent.

  "Thank you. They're beautiful."

  The three of us soon walked five houses down to the house, which I just kind of thought of as the house, since I wasn't quite sure if it should be described as Nick's house, or now Nick and Blaine's house, or our house. I supposed I would probably find out soon enough, depending on whether or not I was asked to move in during dinner or not.

  Earlier, they'd both already made dinner, which they'd kept warm in the oven. Smelling a heavenly, familiar scent from the past in the kitchen, I hoped they'd made what I guessed they'd made, and when Nick lifted a rectangular pan out of the oven and set it on the stove, I almost swooned, glad I was leaning back against the counter.

  "Oh, you guys didn't. I can't believe this is happening to me right now."

  Clearly pleased by my reaction, Blaine cracked a smile.

  Also clearly pleased, Nick laughed. "You know...chicken-and-rice casserole made with condensed soup didn't seem like a fancy enough dinner for a date night. But Tracy said, 'Just make it. She's been fantasizing about it for two years.' So, we did, following the soup can directions, but adding carrots, peas, green beans, and a little sprinkle of cheese on top, just how Tracy said you like it."

  Tracy and I had a lengthy "most loved foods" and "most missed foods" discussion one day, and I'd told her that the pre-apocalypse food I missed the most was chicken-and-rice casserole made with condensed soup. In all my travels, and all my pillaging of farmhouses, I'd found canned chicken, and I'd found rice, but never a single can of condensed cream of chicken soup. I found that weird, because it had always seemed to me like such a pantry staple.

  Shortly after I'd arrived in Helena, my search of the community canned goods storeroom hadn't yielded a single can, either. Maybe I just hadn't been looking in the right place. The storeroom was pretty vast.

  Watching Nick ferry the casserole dish over to the circular, polished oak table, which had already been set for three, and watching Blaine pull a large bowl of salad out of the fridge, I suddenly felt some kind of a joy bubble rising in my heart, which was the only way I could think to describe it.

  "Well, I think you've both earned one."

  Expressions intensely curious, to say the least, they both asked me one what at the same time.


  Ambling on over to them, I smiled. "One kiss...one for each of you."

  Nick was closest to me, so he got first kiss. With his expression kind of an intense, serious one, he slowly pulled me into his arms, searching my face while he did so. I imagined my own expression was kind of an intense, serious one at this point. Butterflies were rioting in my stomach just to be in his arms, so close to him, to be smelling his clean, woodsy scent even above the delicious smell of our dinner.

  When he brought his mouth to mine, the feel of his lips, so firm and warm, made me curl my toes in my sandals. I was in heaven, only I'd never even imagined heaven to be so pleasurable.

  At first, Nick kissed me with absolute tenderness, seeming to be tasting my lips, savoring them. However, after just a short while, he probed my lips apart, an action somehow so deliciously intimate that I curled my toes again. Then, with a low growl rumbling deep in his broad chest, he began kissing me with increasing intensity, beginning to explore my mouth with his tongue.

  In response, I pressed my body into the front of his, stunned to feel that he was growing hard already. I briefly thought back to what Tracy had said about shifters, realizing she hadn't been exaggerating in the least.

  The quietest throat clear, or maybe it had been a very faint low growl, reminded me that Blaine was in the kitchen with Nick and me. Feeling a bit rude and neglectful, I broke Nick's and my kiss, and made my way over to Blaine, teasingly asking him if he wanted a kiss, too.

  In response, he pulled me into his arms with a definite growl this time, brought his mouth to my own, and began kissing me hungrily. And not roughly, exactly, but hungrily, with just enough intensity to let me know how badly he wanted me.

  Feeling fires of passion igniting low in my belly by this point, I definitely wanted Blaine, too. And Nick. My mind was already spinning off in a few different directions concerning the two of them, and different things the three of us might do if and when we shared a bed together, which was starting to look like a more definitive when than if.

  However, still having concerns about my inexperience in the bedroom department, and possibly wanting to talk those concerns over with Nick and Blaine, I didn't want to move too fast. So, after a little while, I broke my kiss with Blaine, making him give a faint groan of displeasure. I didn't exactly want to stop, either, and I told him that.

  "But maybe we should just ease into things."

  He said that was just fine, and Nick echoed the sentiment, though I got the feeling that both of them might have preferred that we were easing into things a little faster. Nonetheless, it seemed clear that they were willing to wait until I caught up to their desired pace.

  Over salad, rolls, and the casserole they'd made, which tasted better than I'd even been fantasizing about, the three of us didn't speak much, but that was fine. The silence wasn't uncomfortable at all. It was, however, kind of charged with something, some kind of residual electricity, left over from our kissing, passing between Nick, Blaine, and me.

  All throughout the meal, the three of us stole glances at each other, with me periodically looking to my left at Blaine, and to my right at Nick. I completely couldn't help it. With light from two tall taper candles that Nick had lit dancing in their eyes, I just felt as if the two of them were unusually magnetic, almost pulling my gaze to the both of them. They clearly felt the same way about me, too, if the intense looks they were both giving me from under their lashes were any kind of proof.

  Not to my surprise at all, but somehow to my strange delight, I saw that Blaine's table manners were a bit lacking, but he was trying, which I found somehow further endearing. It wasn't like he was a total caveman; he'd put his napkin in his lap after Nick and I had, and he wasn't chewing with his mouth open or anything outright gross like that; but the way he ate, sort of leaning over his plate a bit and taking large bites, highlighted his state of being a bit rough around the edges.

  He didn't hold his fork quite properly, either, holding it with a completely closed grip, like one might use when holding a shovel. Also, and maybe I found this most endearing of all, though I knew certainly not everyone would find it so, he'd brought a bottle of whiskey to the table to fill glasses for himself and Nick, which he'd done. But a couple of times, he absentmindedly picked up the whole bottle itself and took a swig, as if this was maybe how he was accustomed to drinking his whiskey during dinner.

  He certainly was a mud bucket of sorts, but I was beginning to feel like he was my mud bucket. I was at least beginning to feel like I badly wanted him to be my mud bucket, and no other woman's. I was beginning to strongly feel the same about Nick, too, although since he wasn't a mud bucket, I'd have to think of a unique nickname for him later.

  Once I'd finished my second helping of casserole, something I never would have dreamed of doing during my training days, Nick asked if I wanted any more of anything, or maybe some dessert; but I said “no, thank you, pretty stuffed.”

  "I might take another splash of wine, though...or even another full glass."

  In addition to fantasizing about hearty chicken-and-rice casserole during my trek to Kentucky, I'd also dreamed about crisp, chilled chardonnay. And now that I was finally enjoying it, I just couldn't resist a second glass.

  While I sipped it, Nick knocked back the remainder of his second whiskey, neat, and Blaine took a few more drinks from the bottle, neither of them wincing in the least. I'd personally never been able to take even a mini-sip of whiskey without outright grimacing.

  I was maybe halfway through my wine when Nick said that he and Blaine wanted to talk to me about something and then ask me something. Heart soaring, I sensed that the question would be in regard to me moving in. However, my soaring heart was soon to plummet.

  CHAPTER 13

  Before Nick could speak again, asking me what he and Blaine wanted to ask me, a loud knock sounded at the front door, which was around the corner and down a long hallway from the kitchen.

  Frowning so hard he was almost glowering, he rose from his seat. "Sorry, Eva. One second."

  Whoever it was that was knocking on the front door knocked again before Nick had even made it to the hallway, making me think that some very urgent situation was going on somewhere in Helena.

  It turned out to be a very urgent situation just outside of Helena, maybe a half-mile beyond the walls. A dozen or so Helenian shifters had come across just as many Borderliners, and a battle was currently raging. Nick and Brent had to go immediately, although they each took a second to brush a quick kiss against my lips before they did so.

  A little worried for their safety, even though I knew they were both incredibly strong shifters, I paced around a little, finishing the rest of my wine. After that, I poured a third glass, almost without even being aware of doing the action, completely preoccupied with thoughts about what might be happening during the fight.

  I'd just finished the third glass when I decided that I was just going to stay put for the evening, no matter how late Blaine and Nick got home, and no matter that they hadn't formally asked me to move in with them yet. I was pretty sure they'd been about to, and besides, with no cell phones, if I went home, I'd have to wait until morning to find out if all was okay, and if they were okay.

  Over the course of the next hour, I cleaned up the kitchen; did the dishes, put the leftover food away, got it back out again, nibbled on a few more bites of salad and casserole, and somehow, unbelievably, knocked back almost an entire fourth glass of wine during all this, not even realizing that it was indeed my fourth until I'd nearly finished it and caught sight of the fifth-full bottle on the table.

  Feeling incredibly stupid yet giggly at the same time, I realized I was drunk, and for the very first time in my life. I'd been buzzy before, but never drunk. And now I'd somehow gotten that way without even realizing I was heading in that direction. Whether because I'd had a large dinner, or because of my preoccupation about Nick and Blaine, the alcohol seemed to hit me all at once.

  Thinking that I'd probably bett
er get off my feet before I fell off them, I made my way out to the spacious living room, head spinning, and had a seat on the couch, pulling a dark gray knitted blanket over myself.

  At some point, probably within twenty minutes or so, I dozed off, waking what felt like not a very long time later to the sound of footsteps coming down the hardwood hallway that led to the living room.

  Blaine reached me first, scooped me up in his arms, and spoke in a low voice near my ear. "You look so beautiful when you're asleep...or passed out, as the case may be. We saw that wine bottle on the table. Naughty girl."

  Something about hearing Blaine call me a naughty girl in his gruff, gravelly voice sent a shiver of something absolutely delicious racing down my spine.

  However, still thoroughly drunk and not wanting to look him in the eyes, I buried my face against his hard chest. "Just tell me that you, Nick, and all the rest of the Helena shifters are fine."