Knight had not woken up in a good mood. He hadn’t slept well at all and his usual morning coffee didn’t taste quite right, even though the barista insisted that everything was the same as always. Including that first night at Sue’s, and the following night at Knight’s, the two of them had shared a bed for four consecutive nights.Above everything else that was pissing him off that morning was the knowledge that the only thing different about last night was that Sue had stayed at her own place.Knight hadn’t thought it a big deal when Sue told him that her new friend Andrew—who apparently worked for him, but Knight couldn’t have picked out of a lineup—had asked her to have drinks with him.It was ridiculous that after just four nights, Knight was so used to having Sue’s body beside him, and her scent in his nose, that he couldn’t sleep without it. It pissed him off, in fact.As the morning wore on, he managed to shake his bad mood a little. He found that focusing on work, the routine
Sue woke up on Saturday morning wishing she could stay there for the day. She cracked open an eye and glanced over at the clock on her nightstand, squinting her eyes at it to be able to read the time without her glasses.It was nearly eleven. She closed her eyes again and rolled over to the other side of her bed. It was empty. That shouldn’t have been strange, but it was. She had only been...whatever they were...with Knight for less than two weeks. She shouldn’t be so used to the werewolf sleeping beside her, but she was.She knew that she should get up, maybe pack a bag for her stay at the werewolf hotel. She should also take a shower and do some laundry.Guess I should get up, she thought to herself even as she buried deeper down under the covers. Just five more minutes can’t hurt.The next time she opened her eyes was because she received a text alert on her phone. She reached over to grab it and saw that another forty minutes had passed.“Shit,” she said as she rubbed her gritty e
The early afternoon sky was warm on Knight’s skin as he waited in line at the coffee cart. He knew Sue well enough now to know that the human had trouble getting up in the mornings. Even though it was already past noon, he was sure that Sue was still dragging her ass. He had tried calling Sue to let him know that he was coming over, but her phone had been engaged. He knew to order Sue a coffee filled with enough sugar to kick-start her brain. As he waited behind two young women, he started thinking that he should probably discourage Sue from all the sugar she eats. It was then that he realized he wanted Sue to be around for a long time.A surprised smile spread across his face as he stepped forward to place his order. He split the difference and ordered an only mildly sweet coffee for the human. Just as he was paying, he felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket. He slid it out and glanced at the screen before answering it.“Hey. I’ve been calling you,” he said as he put their drink
The drive to the hotel was, in a word, tense. Knight kept his eyes forward as he drove them there, making minimal effort to have a conversation with Sue. For Sue, awkward silences were unbearable. She had the tendency to ramble away in an attempt to fill them.She was in the process of blathering on about what little she actually knew about fracking when she suddenly remembered the promise she had made to Sarah.“Oh shit,” she said as she slumped back in her seat. Knight looked over at her for the first time in a while.“What? You forget something?”“Kind of,” Sue said, cringing at what she knew she had to do. “Sarah called me. She and Jared are having some issues and she called off the wedding.”Knight didn’t seem surprised or particularly bothered by the news, so Sue kept talking. “Apparently Jared’s been acting weird and distant over the whole thing, so I told Sarah that you’d talk to him.”That got Knight’s attention. “Why would you do that? Why would I get involved in their rela
Knight had been to his grandpa’s hotel on several occasions. He and his mom had been for dinner a few times since it opened last year and he had stopped by in its early days to see how things were going. His grandpa wasn’t exactly hands-on with the place, leaving the day-to-day stuff to the manager. In fact, Knight was pretty sure that his grandpa hadn’t even been out to the place in months, which was why it was such a shock to see the man standing in the lobby talking to Knight’s mom.“What’s the matter?” Sue asked as Knight stopped dead in his tracks the moment they set foot through the door.He saw his mom discreetly scent the air before she turned to him with a big smile on her face.“Not a word about Angel,” he quickly warned Sue. He didn’t want his mom to get upset. Sue nodded quickly, needing no further explanation, for which Knight was grateful. Knight smiled back at his mom and slowly walked over to her. He wasn’t nervous about introducing her to Sue. He just hadn’t planned
The moment they were shown out into the garden to their luxury treehouse, Sue felt as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The treehouse itself was more like a cabin built up high with a wooden spiral staircase leading up to it. It looked like something out of a fairytale with its strings of fairy lights hanging along the wraparound porch.Although Sue’s mind was whirring and she was dying to ask Knight about his conversation with Jared, she was completely distracted by how charmed she was by the place. There were a few more treehouses on the land, but they were far enough away that they wouldn’t hear each other. Considering what Knight had promised her in the car on their way there, Sue was grateful for that.“Wow,” she said after she and Knight climbed the stairs and entered the cabin. There was a big bed with a dark wooden frame and an emerald-green throw over it. There was an area with a tabl
A few days after their stay at the hotel, Knight had given Sue the keys to his apartment and told her he would meet her there later. When Sue asked why, Knight had told her that he was going to the clinic to donate blood to his sister, like it was no big deal.Knight had been completely closed off to the topic of Angel and Carlos, either changing the subject quickly or completely shutting down altogether. Sue didn’t think it was a healthy way of dealing with things, but she knew that if she pushed him too hard the werewolf would just get angry at her.“Stupid, stubborn werewolves,” she muttered to herself as she let herself into Knight’s apartment. She put her overnight bag down in the hallway and shrugged off her jacket before throwing it on top of her bag. She had mostly finished writing up her article, but she had left some spaces for questions she had devised for Knight’s grandpa.As she walked into the kitchen, she had the vague notion that it might be nice of her to make dinner
Knight hadn’t been to visit Angel at the clinic, even though she had asked him to. Perhaps he was a bad person, but it wasn’t his job to look after her. He had paid for the clinic and he had donated blood, but that was where he drew the line. Even when he had gone in to donate, he hadn’t gone to see her. It was more than a lot of people would have done for a complete stranger.Sue had tried to talk him into seeing her once. It had led to their first real fight. Sue had gone out to sleep on the couch afterward, leaving Knight feeling like a real prick. After ten minutes of Sue’s absence, Knight had gone out to apologize, only for Sue to beat him to it.It had been a relief when Sue finally admitted that it should be Knight’s decision. He had to admit that a big part of not wanting Angel in his life was his mom. She had been through enough, thanks to Carlos. Knight wasn’t going to put her through any more.It was Saturday, the day before the pack barbeque, and Knight and Sue were stayin