“Thanks,” Dean said, taking the stack of papers that Janie had collected from the floor. The bear shifters had been working extra hard to make a mess as they rummaged through his things. Good thing he never kept anything important at work. They would just have to try harder next time they wanted to keep him down.
“Are you going to be okay? That cut is really deep.”
Janie’s beautiful face was filled with concern, and Dean took it into his hands and kissed her on the forehead. She seemed to be very upset, almost to the point of tears. The whole thing must have been very scary for her, so he couldn’t blame her for feeling a little bit emotional. He might just feel the same way himself if he were in her shoes. Kiera could be a huge bitch when she wanted to be, which was often. Especially concerning the divorce, apparently.
“I’m fine! You really have nothing to worry about. Shifters heal pretty quick. We’re miracles of nature, they say.”
He winked at Janie, but it still didn’t bring the easy smile he loved so much to her lips. He was starting to really miss that smile.
“Seriously, it’s going to be all right. Nothing Kiera said can change the fact that we’re going to get through these obstacles one way or another. It’s going to be just fine, I promise.”
“Yeah, but…”
Janie cut her words off quickly and Dean furrowed his brow in confusion. What was she so upset about?
“Why don’t you take the day off?” Dean said with a heavy sigh. “Everything has been a little bit ridiculous lately, and I know you wanted to come in and be a big help, but look at us. We’re both hurt and tensions are high. Maybe it would do you some good to go home and relax. You can unpack your boxes and get settled in. That might help you start feeling a little better about all of this. It’s always nice to get a fresh start!”
“Maybe,” Janie said, but her tone was doubtful.
Dean watched her walk away, a frown tugging at his lips. Something was going on, but she wasn’t going to talk to him about it. It was probably just a Kiera overload. Lord knew he’d had his fill of her for the next century. And they’d only seen each other two days in a row. He imagined his personal hell might be a crowded hall full of Kieras.
“Well, either way, sleep helps everything. Why don’t you go and get some rest then? It will put things in perspective for you.”
“Yeah…I think perspective is important,” Janie said with a quiet sigh. For some reason, the sentence had a ring of foreboding to it and Dean studied Janie closely. What might she be thinking? It was odd for her to be acting this way. Most of the time, she was the one trying to get him to look on the bright side.
“Good,” Dean said, suddenly feeling a little bit insecure. “I guess that means you will be needing a ride back.”
Dean pulled out his cell phone and started dialing the number for his limo driver, but Janie shook her head.
“I was thinking about taking a walk. Might help to clear my head. But thank you for the offer. I hope you feel better soon. If it gets red and inflamed please go see a real doctor. All I did was patch you up a little. You might need something more.”
“All right,” Dean said. “I promise.”
Janie nodded, and some of the worried tension left her face before she let herself out of the room.
He was worried about Janie, and almost followed her out of the room, but the phone rang suddenly.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Resner! Do you have any comments about the-”
Dean slammed the phone back on the receiver and cursed. He had lost his temper and brought all of this onto himself. No wonder Janie was feeling upset. Her image was on the cover of every tabloid paper in the city, and everybody in Stonybrooke was quickly going to learn the story that the tabloids were trying to tell. Scandal, treachery, or bravery?
Sure, nobody read the tabloids to get the facts straight, but rumors were always a pleasant way to spend the time. Everyone wanted to get the latest gossip and feel as if they were keeping up with the stories of the people that they had a perverse fixation on.
Dean obviously had more than his fair share of people with a fixation on him. And so, for better or for worse, they wanted to see him at his extremes. See how he reacted to scandal, to failure, and to success. But mostly, people were interested in the failure part.
“Fuck this,” Dean growled. He would almost rather the tabloids dig up his murky past, running around with gangs of human-wolf hybrid kids who didn’t feel like they had a place in the world; vandalizing and terrorizing people because it made him feel important to be able to get a reaction, any reaction, from somebody else. He had been sorely lacking in parental guidance when he was a kid, just like those kids on the team that Janie had attempted to set him up with.
In fact, it was likely that some of those very kids might be offspring of the same thugs he had run with when he was younger and looking for some kind of meaning to his life. Somebody who might recognize him and say that he had power.
It wasn’t until Maurice had taken him aside and told him that he had potential, and that if he wanted to, he could work in the diner, that Dean realized he could be noticed for something a hell of a lot more important than smoking cigarettes in front of a billboard or spray-painting graffiti on the lawn of his principal. He could do something with his life. He could earn money. And, if he wanted, he could play football.
That’s when his life had taken a turn for the better, but not before he had already done a whole variety of things that he regretted. His miserable past was an open book as far as he was concerned, if the tabloids would have just left Janie out of it. She was an innocent in all of this. She hadn’t asked to go on some extravagant date at a restaurant he’d inadvertently shared with his ex-wife. She’d simply wanted to talk to him.
Now look at them. Janie was at home with her tail between her legs, frightened and miserable, and it was all his fault. Why didn’t he ever know how to deal with relationships properly? It was unfair for people to expect him to know how to treat others when he had never been treated with love, kindness, or respect. At least not until he had been drafted. Then he got a whole lot of artificial love, sycophantic kindness, and a tiny iota of respect.
That wasn’t the kind of thing he could live off, though. He was going to have to work harder than he ever had before to bring his company back to the height of its power. He had done everything he could to do things right once he had realized that life was what he made of it and he alone. He wasn’t going to let a crazy bitch like Kiera get in the way. No. He was going to play it exactly as Janie had told him. He was going to succeed, no matter what.