Married to The Shadow Wolf

Five

Rip:

    "So how are you doing?" Audrey asked. 

    Ezra and Holland had brought a bunch of wedding magazines for me to flip through. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Audrey and Ezra had conquered at Ezra's wedding. Mikhail hadn't hesitated when I had suggested it because she had been human. He must have told Reggie. Those two spend too much time together. Her wedding was almost as big as the Kardashian-West one. 

    "I'm nervous," I said flipping through the magazine. 

    "Brutally honest. I love it," Ezra smiled. She's eating cheese fries. "Why are you nervous?"

    "Really and you're the plot twist artist here?" Holland asked rubbing something that smells crazy on her bruised arm. She's taking her new position in the pack seriously. I love it. We all have ground right now.

    "So, I've been looking for a spot for the studio around here. I have a couple of places lined up and if we play this right we could put up what you've been working on for the wedding in your new studio," Audrey informed us. At least she's not calling it a gift shop.

    "Oh, I like that," Ezra beamed, drinking her smoothy. 

    "Must you always feed, sharkzilla?" Holland asked. She had been staring at Ezra since she walked in with her earlier. 

    "Yeah," Ezra nodded chewing with her mouth open. She still has four more months of this to go. Not only that her newly improved metabolism is her favorite thing about being a wolf.

    "So, we have places to go then?" I asked pushing the stack of magazines away. 

    "Yes, Ezra want to come?" Audrey asked. "I have one of those barbie scooter things for adults. You won't have to walk," 

    "What?" Ezra laughed. "I can walk," 

    "Mikhail said..." Holland began. 

    "Mikhail can kiss my ass," she growled. "Do you know what he did this morning? He got up at five and was making all this noise. He woke me up and then got mad at me when I told him to shut the hell up. So, I ordered a bunch of things online with his credit card," 

    "What the f**k?" Audrey laughed.. "Your revenge skills suck," 

    "I can't really do anything right now. I'm a bit convex," she said flicking a fry at her.

    "Take the barbie scooter. I want to ride it," I said getting up. "Let's just disappear. That will teach Mikhail not to f**k with your sleeping, momma bear,"

    We left. Within an hour I got a text from Reggie asking me where I was. Then our phones started to flood with calls and texts from Mikhail. We had gone to two places and she was already falling asleep in the car. I am not excited about that. It looks painful and exhausting. Kids. 

    "We should have left her home," Audrey laughed. 

    "How many more places do we have left?" 

    "I saw the way you looked at the first place," she laughed. 

    "Yeah, but there could be a better one," I said. 

    "We have two more. We should stop and feed the beast," 

    I looked back at her. She's leaning against Holland who is also asleep. I think she's contagious. The two of them have their mouths open. I took a picture of them and sent it to Mikhail who started to flood my phone with texts again. He's mad and that's why I'm ignoring him. 

    "This place is too small," I said looking out of the window when we arrived. "And there is nothing around here," 

    "Moving on then," Audrey laughed.. "I think this place is going to be the one. It's close to the pack line. There is room for remodeling inside and out. The owners have been dying to get rid of it so it's a good price. I can work the kinks. You can start moving your s**t in and it's a twenty-minute drive from the house,"

    "We couldn't have started there?" I asked annoyed with her.

    "I wanted to keep Mikhail trembling," 

    She's right. Even before we got out of the car, the yard called out to me. It has a lot of room for sculptures. The dirty man-made ponds are already giving me ideas. The buildings are round. It has the potential for me to get the steampunk apartment beauty I had let go of back. The woman is coming out of the little squared door. This place is a work in progress and I have blueprints to start soon. Audrey has truly out done herself with this.

    "Ms. Rush, we didn't keep you waiting did we?" Audrey asked. 

    "No, I was coming out to greet you. Welcome," the little short lady welcomed us with a big smile on her face.

    "We'll take it," is the first thing that came out of my mouth. Audrey laughed. 

    "You haven't seen the inside yet," the woman shook her head.

    "I probably won't anyway most of it will be renovated. I love it," the woman nodded no smile. Her and Audrey went inside to discuss paperwork. 

    I opened the car door to look at my two sleeping princesses. Holland's head is facing upward, all the way back against the head rest. Her mouth is open and a gurgling snore is coming out of it. Ezra sat up looking at her with a deadly glare. The sound woke her up.

    "Good morning, sleeping beauty," I whispered. 

    "Holland you snore worse than Mikhail," she bit out shoving her. Holland's eyes snapped open. 

    "Why are you shouting I'd pinch you if you weren't so fat," Holland groaned. Ezra pinched her making her jump. "Ouch, Ezra. What the hell,"

    "You guys we found the place. Want to see?" I stopped them. Ezra scooted closer to me and I helped her out. 

    "Oh, my god. This place is a piece of s**t," Holland blurted out. Ezra shook her head. 

    "No vision. Now I know why you're not something creative, vet lady," she said looking around.

    "Alright, you are the proud owner of this place," Audrey announced, holding some paperwork up. "I'm going to drop you guys off I have to draw up the paperwork with the realtor. I'm guessing you're going to have blueprints drawn up soon?"

    "Yes,"

    "I'll need those for permits. Come on. Lets go home. I'm hungry,"

    "Me too," Ezra smiled.

    "We know," Holland groaned, walking her back to the car. 

    "I like it here too, Rip," Audrey smiled. "I think the lady wasn't telling us the whole story though. It  was like she was relieved to get rid of the place. We should have some seekers come look around. Once I'm done here, I'll join them. We'll start cleaning up, Michael Angelo," 

    She's right the drive back took twenty minutes. Mikhail is mad. He almost ripped the door off Audrey's truck when he opened it and pulled Ezra out and carried her inside. Reggie is pressing his lips together keeping himself from laughing. 

    "He legit annoyed me today," he informed me. "It doesn't happen too often. The last person to annoy me like that was Rosalie," 

    "She was mad at him. Suits him for waking up a pregnant wolf at five in the morning," I shrugged. "We found a place," 

    "In one day?" he asked amused. 

    "It's a twenty minute drive from here. It's perfect,"

    "When can I visit?" he asked. I smiled. Since the proposal he has been approaching me with a little more ease. 

    It isn't cautious. It never is or was. It had always been his fear. The fear of how I may react to his touches. It makes me feel bad sometimes and other times I'm glad he's cautious. Sometimes I can't tolerate it and he kind of knows it. I think, because he didn't dare come too close. 

    "You can't. Not until the wedding,"

    "You have a date?" he grinned.

    "I have a time frame. If it's met. I'll give you the exact date," I answered truthfully. "How does four to six months from now sound?" 

    His eyes lit up and the smile is there. It's my favorite smile. The one that makes me feel what I had once felt coming from him. It's that feeling that I've learned to crave and fall in love with. I hadn't said it to him and odds are I won't be able to even if I tried. I want to find the right words and I love you seems so plain and kind of lame. I wanted to say the right thing make it memorable for both of us because even if it's not where I want to be, this is progress and I don't want to backslide.