I sat on one side of the booth with Ryder's arm thrown around my shoulders while Colin sat across from us. In this moment, sure we were dealing with Colin's hilarious melodramatic jealousy, but it was a fun moment where we had no real worries going on. We were just enjoying some snacks after school at the parlor like normal teenagers.
"What-the-f*ck-ever. I care about you too okay," Colin scoffed towards me after I told them about what Evan said me at lunch before we were interrupted by Meena. I added how, after school, Evan and I were able to have another conversation during the entire hour and a half of Ryder's football practice that I was originally planning to sit and watch with Colin (since he had to wait up for Ryder for a ride due to declining my offers). But Colin's declines didn't matter because obviously we three found our way to the diner after school. But now, me remarking about Evan's intentions to prove his allegiance to me and our pack and revamp the meaning of the Great Everton Pack was making Colin feel a joking sense of competitiveness. Ryder was busting up laughing as Colin listed all of the fun moments he and I had in the last few months despite our rocky start. I was just amused because he had it in his head that I ranked Evan above him in an imaginary Beta Olympics when that wasn't even the case. Ryder and I couldn't breathe from our laughing by the time Colin was offering me anything I wanted from him (from a week in his secluded trailer with just Ryder to him carrying me to my classes for the rest of the semester) so I would admit he was the best Beta ever...not best in town—best ever. I constantly pled the fifth with reasons to not only prolong the joke but also because of my loyalty to the Everton pack, but when he asked Ryder (who raised his hands defensively to say he was staying out of it), I could tell he didn't want to hear his own words audibly admit that Colin was a better Beta than his own best friend Preston ever was or could've been. I knew the latter as much as Colin, which is why I think Colin played up the comedy of it all.
"Dude, shut up," Ryder laughed while throwing a fry at Colin's ridiculousness. Colin finally broke character from his pedestal of ever-proving-Beta, which turned into a mockery of how he interpreted Evan to be. He dipped the assault fry into his milkshake and ate it as our laughs calmed down.
"Seriously though, Ash," Colin tried to transition. His eyes flashed up to mine. "If I haven't been able to prove it to you in the last two months that I'm sorry for how we started, I just want to say that I'm still sorry for saying that something bad happens every time an Everton is in town. From the leadership changes to the fire to the tragedies that happened here before we were even born, none of that was your fault so I shouldn't have taken it out on you." I smiled weakly at him because I appreciated the sentiment almost as much as it stimulated my curiosity on factors surrounding the inevitable mystery about my family; first the female Everton comments throughout the day and now allusions to past tragedies. But I focused on the appreciation for now considering the great, closed-off Colin Bourne was getting sentimental for once. His eyes shifted to Ryder at my side. "She's a hell of a girl for you and for our pack. Thanks for giving me to privilege to redeem myself. I should've just agreed with Kelvan that day when he said he liked you two together." Colin's eyes returned to mine and I saw the mischief return. "I hope you forgive me, but at this point I don't care if you do or not because you're still stuck with me."
I laughed as he wiggled his eyebrows and Ryder chuckled too and nudged my arm. "See, this is why I said Dakota was the only one nice enough for you to be around," Ryder reminded me in a false whisper-laugh.
"Listen, I stand by what I said that day too," Colin said while looking at Ryder before gesturing between me and himself. "We still have so much in common just by our mutual enjoyment of riling you up." I busted out laughing at the memory and him bringing it up to inherently rile up Ryder. Ryder balled up the nearest object (a used napkin) to throw at him. "Don't be jealous," Colin teased and I was amused with Ryder acting like he was narrowing his eyes to challenge Colin's claims. He lunged, causing Colin to stand up and lunge back as a false recovery while the fake-out caused Ryder to relax and laugh at his expected dominance that allowed him to scare Colin, even for a second. "Punk," Colin mumbled and then gestured between me and him once more. "Me and your girl are tight," he kept taunting to be true to himself and continue to rile up Ryder. But he knew his limits and shifted back into his jovial, dramatic side. "...although apparently not as tight as her and Evan."
"Colin—" I tried to interrupt to begin as reassurance, but it came out as a laugh instead.
"It's fine, it's fine," he sighed. "I don't know what y'all are gonna do for entertainment or for your personal, at-school escort service after I graduate this winter, but it's fine..."
I know he was being dramatic on purpose and we were all amused, but that just reminded me. "What are you gonna do after you graduate?" I asked him. I had assumed him flunking his original senior year was due to his absences and claims to "help the pack," but I recently learned from him that it was framed that way to protect not only his plethora of absences (that escalated during the spring semester for whatever reason) but also Preston's insinuation that the pack would need a little muscle and Zander-loyalists to stick around. I guess, much to Preston's dismay, the latter did serve the pack regardless of Preston's unsuccessful coup because I couldn't imagine anybody else filling in the Beta role other than Colin at this point.
"Uh..." he stammered and then glanced at Ryder while briefly trying to form his words. "I'm gonna stick around, take some online classes and see what this guy needs in the meantime while I figure out my life," his gaze returned to me. "On a serious note though, I...have invited my dad to come back to Tyriette. I'm even gonna have Thanksgiving with him in Vegas this year and then help him move back."
I couldn't explain how much adrenaline coursed through me at the excitement for him, but it was enough to startle Ryder into coiling his arm back to his side. "What brought that on?" I inquired even though I really didn't care about the answer especially when prefaced with the fact that he'll be staying around post-graduation. After his past and Tank and Dakota and the Beta-situation, I just didn't want him to be alone anymore. He didn't deserve the loneliness.
"You and your mom, actually. I no longer want to be a hypocrite about what I told you about forgiving her from before and he's not technically in any danger more than anyone else by staying here. I think I can control myself and at least he knows about us enough not to put himself in the same position my brother was in," he revealed with a sigh. Oh. His vulnerability faltered for a second in the very Colin way it was used to conforming in order to make room for his tough-guy façade. "Plus, I figured I should rub it in Trevor's face that my dad's coming back after he's complained the whole day about having to postpone his parents' return."
"Why's he doing that by the way?" I asked, looking between him and Ryder both. "Stella thinks it's his way of trying to break up with her but she also said he got spooked after something that Andrew did this weekend." I looked at Ryder, trying to figure out if he knew anything about what I alluded to. But he was unreadable and pursed his lips after drinking his drink.
"Maybe he is trying to break up with her," he shrugged without looking at me. "Good for her."
I rolled my eyes at his immaturity because even though he had no tells of dishonesty, I knew he must've known something.
"Well, seems like he's a good person to ask if it's something with Andrew," Colin suddenly said and I followed his nod to Aaron, who was dressed in some jeans with a black t-shirt with the pizza parlor's logo on the front pocket and carrying a bucket with cleaning materials for the tables. I knew Rod worked here but didn't know Aaron did. He originally headed to clean the immediately dirty tables that were emptied, but after halfway cleaning a booth, his gaze found ours. He picked up his bucket and made his way over here. Colin frowned. "If I'm mistaken, werewolves have better hearing and I'm pretty sure we—or at least I—didn't invite him over here so why is he headed this way?"
I shushed him even though there was no way Aaron didn't hear the purposeful insult. He set the bucket of cleaning materials onto the end of our table, more to Colin's side than mine and Ryder's. Of course Colin scoffed.
"I need your help," he told Ryder sternly. Ryder's smirk that remained on his face throughout the entirety of our engagement—and all day, for that matter—finally faded when he glared up at Aaron. I could tell that the direction of this conversation most likely wouldn't allow me to inquire him what I really wanted to in terms of my brother's actions.
"Do you need my help or do you just want it because Andrew can't help you for some reason?" he asked. Aaron didn't like that question but pushed past his annoyance of it and shifted his green eyes to Colin's dark hazel ones.
"Fine, then you," he named, already making Colin scoff pathetically. "I want to be Andrew's beta again. Choosing Evan was premature on his part. I need to be better."
I'm sure Colin had loads of prompted insults surrounding Aaron's natural inadequacies. In fact, I knew he did because he stammered a laugh before Ryder took the opportunity to respond for him in a more diplomatic manner.
"We can't help you," Ryder answered for Colin and his gaze went back to his tray of fries as his way of ending the conversation.
"Come on," Aaron pleaded and then crouched to lean at the height of the tabletop to address Ryder once more. This time more desperately. "You were one of the reasons I even accepted the Bite in the first place and didn't choose to Escape by—"
"Okay. I'm gonna say this quick and only once," Ryder suddenly hissed at him in a lower tone. I couldn't see his eyes from here but I could guess they had a red hue when speaking to someone as low in ranking as Aaron—one for defying Ryder, another for insinuating a memory about threatening the life of Preston for an Escape. "Preston Bit you, technically making you one of mine yet you went to Andrew for training—which was probably better for you considering all the insubordination I wouldn't put up with. You were a beta. Over another Everton wolf. Yet you blew it. If you want advice to be a better wolf or a better beta to your pack, then ask the alpha of your pack." He scolded Aaron as he rightfully should because even I began feeling a bit betrayed that Aaron jumped into asking Ryder and Colin for werewolf lessons instead of trusting my brother. Now, Ryder was really done dealing with Aaron and his lag in werewolf transition mostly as a means of pack boundary preservation. Before Ryder or Colin could say anything else to desperate Aaron, something shifted in their postures and I glanced at the front door of the restaurant to note exactly what that was. I stiffened myself at the scent. Lee Leonard walked in without his usual smug expression until he took one sniff in the air to smell the scent of four other werewolves beneath the aroma of baking pizza.
His gaze remained at our table as he walked until he got to the register. He presented his surname for the order and Aaron was called by his manager to help carry five boxes of pizza, box of wings, three bags of breadsticks and two 2-liters of soda. Aaron quickly carried the pizzas with the liters of soda in his arms and Lee followed him out with the rest but made sure to go down the aisle nearest our table. Now, his gaze wasn't towards the lot of us, it was connected to only me. I knew he would move to say something stupid in a matter of three seconds even though he didn't plan on breaking his stride towards the exit. "We're having a family game night tonight. Feel free to stop by, Ashlynn. You're always welcome wherever I am."
Even though the invitation was falsely innocent on the surface, we all knew he was interested in me and wanted to antagonize Ryder, especially when he winked at the end. I could feel Ryder's body quivering in aggression as he carefully watched Lee exit. The Leonards backing off was a courtesy of respecting political, Lycan territory but this didn't have anything to do with werewolf boundaries or unchecked entitlement; he was a man who liked me and neither Ryder nor I liked that. I put my hand on his nearest thigh and he relaxed a bit but still briefly closed his eyes to contain himself for a moment while Colin muttered insults about Lee even after he was out of the building. By the time Aaron was re-entering and being summoned to the kitchen, someone had taken over his busboy job.
"He needs to stop that," was all Ryder said even though his hand had found its way to mine beneath the table.
"It doesn't mean anything," I said. Well, at least it didn't mean anything to me.
"He's just a punk," Colin agreed.
"Not Lee. I don't care about him," Ryder dismissed. "Aaron."
"Him too," Colin mumbled as a joke even though I frowned because there was a stiffness to Ryder's absolutism right now. Usually he helped people in his own unique, tough-love kind of way but Aaron brought out a special kind of impatience in Ryder—especially given everything he's reluctantly helped him from the time he got back to Tyriette. Ryder shifted forward in his seat and continued eating his fries while I could see wheels turning in his head to formulate an explanation. When he finished, he looked over at me.
"I know we've been lenient about these things, but he can get into real trouble with that depending where he goes," he elucidated, making me wonder why he mentioned our region. "...since he is set to graduate this year and has proven to be unpredictable."
"Getting in trouble for wanting to be better?" I asked. I didn't think that part was very ridiculous. In terms of lycanthropy, as far as I knew of, werewolves here didn't even shift into wolves very often—at least not in my pack. I heard about Ryder's guys shifting all the time for fun, but me, Andrew, Evan and Aaron? Not so much. We had the same, if not more, knowledge about phasing than Ryder's pack yet we never really used our abilities and treated the werewolf secret like the binding factor instead of the very power, privilege and threat it was like it used to be used as. In fact, I wanted to learn more than what I knew and tap into my wolf more than I had in the last three months of treating her like some burden that needed control, minimalization and silencing. In that sense, I didn't think Aaron was wrong.
"For challenging pack structure," Ryder clarified. "We're not New Englanders or in the Midwest. Pack hoppers, deserters and Omegas can be considered as bad as banished wolves and he's come off as all three at some point or another."
"Omegas?"
"The name is kind of counterintuitive. They're the lowest ranked Lycan by simply not having a rank," Colin clarified for me. "No pack association, no Maker association, and no real Alpha loyalty. They're lone, they're dangerous, they're—"
"They were you at one point, no?" I reminded, forcing Colin to consider taking the judgement out of his voice. I understood Aaron's fearfulness of everything could get him categorized as any or all of those epithets Ryder listed, but come on. There's no way these arbitrary labels carried any real weight other than them trying to categorize and control people. How many rules were there to lycanthropy and why did everyone know them but me! "What does that make everybody who isn't an alpha or beta? A gamma?" I asked with a snorting laugh.
"Mostly deltas actually. I'm out of a gamma for now considering Colin moved up and Zander is too sketchy and seasoned," Ryder named with nothing but seriousness. Um. "But..." his hand slid back onto my leg and his composure relaxed, "as long as Aaron squares away whatever he needs to with Andrew and stops being a thorn in our sides, it's not my problem and more than that...not my job."
"Or mine," Colin said for clarification.
"If you're lucky," Ryder teased and tossed around a smile. I chuckled once and tried to distract my Aaron-worrying or any worrying in general. We suddenly felt the booth slightly vibrate and Colin was prompt to present his ringing phone above the table.
"Speaking of delegation..." Colin said while checking the screen and I could see Zander's name from here. He began scooting out of the booth to take the call. "I'm guessing the Tank problem is taken care of." He held his phone up to greet Zander and began exiting the parlor through the patio door that was near our table.
I frowned. "Did I cause something with Tank—"
"What did I say this weekend?" Ryder cut me off and repositioned himself to face me. I thought he would say it sternly, but he said it like a life-coach trying to coax me into an optimistic belief. "They have their own drama. It doesn't include you or even me. And, like Colin said, I'm sure Zander's handled it."
"But why is Zander the one—"
"Can you just let people handle their own bullshit that doesn't actually involve us for once?" he asked in a dramatic whine with a chuckle before grabbing my face; I was surprised he wasn't scolding me for my insanity or frowning in discontent. "You care too much about people who don't care as much about themselves, babe. I love that about you however right now...trust them and trust me, okay?"
Him acknowledging my habit was a negative reinforcement I needed and caused me to respond with an "okay" before he quickly kissed my forehead and then my nose. Again, he repositioned and put his arm along the backseat to prop up his head while his other arm was tense against the table to square his shoulders towards me. His being was incredibly relaxed while gazing at me. "You know, I was serious yesterday, Ashlynn. I want us to be as happy and free as we were yesterday all the time. We can just focus on us and school and the future. Throw in the safety of my boys and my family and that's all I care about. Nothing else. No outside noise. I promise you that along with my clean slate."
It was weird how much he sounded like Evan right now with his own Ryder twist. In fact, I felt incredibly honored and humbled at how tethered I was to the powerhouses in this town. With that came the worries and the responsibilities, but also the incredible potential to celebrate all of that love and essential freedom that Ryder was alluding to. I saw both ends of the spectrum gazing into Ryder's eyes yet the lightness of life weighed out. "I love you," I told him as a response. He smiled effortless with a breathy chuckle before leaning forward and pressing his lips to mine.
"Gross," was all the returning Colin had to say at the affection, causing us to laugh once more.