After what was supposed to have been a nice, celebratory dinner, a moment of peace after the chaos, Knight drove them back to his apartment. It had been eerily quiet in the car. Sue usually found it hard not to talk continuously, especially when she thought Knight was tense about something, but tonight Knight had found it hard to get two words out of Sue.“Blair’s a bitch,” Knight finally said to fill the silence as he let them into his apartment. “She’s the stereotypical, superficial model type. That’s why I broke up with her.”Sue just nodded and went straight through to the kitchen to get a drink. Knight hung back in the doorway, watching as Sue pulled a bottle of wine out of the rack and opened it.“Are you mad at me?” Knight had to ask. “Do you think I should have handled that differently?”“No,” Sue finally said before taking a long sip of her wine. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at all. I’m sad.”Knight felt a pang in his chest knowing that someone from his past had caused S
The only downside to dating Knight, Sue decided, was coming into work with him. Knight liked to be at the office early, and rather than make her own way there, Sue went with him. The only good side was that Knight stopped for coffee on the way, so Sue could sit in the break room, usually alone, and drink it in peace. There were always a few people at the office already, no doubt wanting to make a good impression on Knight.She sat on the couch with her coffee in one hand and a banana in the other. Ever since she and Knight had gotten serious with each other, Knight had started insisting that Sue eat a little healthier. It kind of annoyed her that she had to eat a banana instead of a bagel for breakfast, but then she remembered Knight’s reasoning for it.“I want you around for a long time,” Knight had told her. “I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you.”After hearing something like that, Sue couldn’t very well complain. Still, she really was missing those bagels.“Oh.” Bo
Knight wasn’t antisocial, no matter what Sue said. He loved Sue and he loved his family, but it was a Tuesday night and he really just wanted to be at home with the game on, not meeting Jared and Sarah for dinner. It had been a few weeks since that trashy magazine had printed photos of him and Sue, and Knight’s anger over it had only just started to abate. Those at work who hadn’t known about the relationship before certainly knew now.“She’s my best friend and he’s your cousin,” Sue pointed out as they made their way into the building. “Can you at least pretend that you’re having fun?”Knight shot her a big, fake grin, which just made Sue roll her big doe eyes. “Honestly, anyone would think I was making you eat a salad the way you’re acting.”Knight had to admit that it wasn’t quite that bad. At least the place Jared had chosen had good food.“Okay, I’m sorry,” Knight said, taking hold of Sue’s hand. “I promise not to be…”“Grumpy?” Sue helpfully supplied with a wry grin.“Right. Th
It was late by the time they got back to Knight’s apartment. The whole drive home, Knight had been fielding calls from his mom and his grandparents about what had happened after seeing it on the news. It was scary to think how close the bomb had been to them. What was even scarier was the thought that someone he knew could have easily been inside that hotel.“Are you okay?” Knight asked her as he let them inside.“Yeah,” Sue quickly answered. She ran his hand over Knight’s arm before he removed his jacket. “I’m just tired. We were at your grandpa’s hotel just a few weeks ago. I can’t stop thinking, what if it had happened there?”“I know,” Knight said. He kissed the top of Sue’s head. “The world can be a shitty and scary place sometimes.”“You think it was a humans-first group?”Knight shrugged a shoulder. “Or a werewolves-first group who objected to humans being allowed in. Or it could be something else entirely.”Sue nodded and rubbed at his arms.“Here, let me get you a drink,” Kn
Sue wasn’t exactly sure what she had expected when Knight agreed to let her come along to see Carlos in prison. Her knowledge of prisons was pretty limited to HBO shows and porn. They drove down a long road, passing two security huts along the way. There were guards all around, including on top of the walls, and they all had guns.Instantly Sue felt on edge. The large building up ahead was a depressing gray structure with high walls all around with barbed wire on top. She still hadn’t completely gotten over the shock of the bombing last week and her nerves had been on edge since—not that she would ever let Knight know that. The werewolf had enough on his mind without Sue adding to it.“You always take me to the nicest places,” Sje said in attempt to lighten the mood.“You sure you want to do this?” Knight asked. “We can turn back.”Sue looked over at the werewolf and saw that he, too, was uneasy. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, given that Knight was about to face the man he had
“I’m starting to think this is a bad idea,” Sue said as their car sped down the highway.“You’re just nervous,” Knight tried to appease her. “You’ll be fine.”“I’m not nervous,” Sue insisted in a petulant tone. “I just think we should do it another day. My mom might not even be home. Joey’s probably out with friends or something. We should just go home and come see them another time.”Knight glanced over at his passenger with a concerned frown. As someone who loved his family and never went more than a few days without seeing them, Knight couldn’t really understand why Sue was so freaked out by the fact that they were about to visit them.“What’s really going on?” Knight asked. “Is it me? Are you nervous about me meeting your mom?”“No,” Sue said a little too quickly. “She’s just never been completely okay with the way I've live my life.”“What do you mean?”“Well, any time it comes up, she changes the subject and acts like nothing happened,” Sue explained.“Well, it’s going to be pre
Sue had thought the worst part of their day was going to be facing her kidnapper and Knight’s abusive stepdad. Learning that her brother had been living like that was far worse. Sue felt like a terrible sister because Joey hadn’t felt he could tell Sue the truth when he showed up at her apartment.“She’s not always like that,” Joey said from the backseat of Knight’s car, his voice uncharacteristically small. “It’s only when she drinks.”“I’ve seen humans react in various different ways when they’re drunk,” Knight said. “Some people can’t even drink a little without it changing them into something else.”Sue thought about her dad and how, not for the first time when leaving that house, she wished he was still alive.“My dad used to have a beer when he got home from work, every day. Just the one. Sometimes on the weekend he’d have more, but it only ever made him even friendlier,” Sue told them. She smiled as a memory she hadn’t thought about in a long time came to the surface. “One Chri
Sunday family dinner at the West pack house was crazy on a typical Sunday, but throw in the fact that the women in the house were in full-on wedding mode, and that Joey was with them, and things got a lot crazier.“You’re grilling?” Knight asked his grandpa as he came out onto the porch with a couple of bottles of beer in his hand. It wasn’t unusual for his grandpa to fire up the grill, but usually Sundays meant a roast of some kind from his grandma.“I needed an excuse to get out of the house, and your grandma’s busy,” Lenard explained. He held his hand out for the beer that Evan had brought him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for Jared, I just don’t want to have to give my opinion on napkins and chair covers.”Knight smiled at that and perched himself on the railing. “I don’t think Jared does, either.”“Oh, really? You’d be surprised,” Lenard told him with an amused twinkle in his eye. “I heard him arguing with a florist the other day on the phone, saying that if the peonies weren’t