Chapter 4

Anna

I hovered close to the front foyer as the guys made dinner for us tonight. I was pretending to be focused on playing fetch with the pups, but my ears were perked and waiting for a certain someone to come through the door. I was also avoiding Gemma and our usual arguments over dinner. That meant it was up to the twins to make sure we had something edible tonight. There was a sweet and spicy scent coming from that direction, so I had high hopes.

Today had flown by as I spent the entire day working on my magic. Austin and Cody weren’t going to be back until the pack meeting tomorrow, so tonight my focus was going to be on James. He might have been giving me the cold shoulder since I got back from the fae world but that was going to end soon. Hopefully tonight.

I sighed as I tugged the super-mini tennis ball away from Tigger so I could throw it again. He scrambled eagerly after it as Eeyore hid behind me, gnawing enthusiastically on a rope toy. We could always order takeout if Gemma insisted on having mushrooms for dinner again.

I chuckled to myself when I thought about one evening last week. Gemma had announced we were having ‘mushroom burgers.’ I think Cody had assumed that meant he was getting a burger topped with mushrooms. The combination of confusion and sadness on his face as he lifted the top of the bun looking for the burger still made me smile. He and I had escaped later that night to grab some burgers from a fast food spot down the road and ate them in secret while we hid in the garage. Cody was not the type of wolf who could be forced into vegetarianism.

The house had felt oddly empty the past couple days. I missed having the steady presence of all my guys close by. I also missed the closeness of the guys that were still in the house. Gemma’s presence put a buffer in between myself and the twins that I didn’t like, and she was making it very difficult to have quality time with them. Caleb and I had both been too busy to connect with some one-on-one time and James was still carefully avoiding me.

Finally I heard the creak of the front door and jumped to my feet. I smoothed down my hoodie and took a deep breath, trying to act like hadn’t been waiting on pins and needles for this. Quinn gave me a nod in greeting but stopped in the foyer when he heard Gemma’s high-pitched voice coming from the kitchen.

I sidled up to Quinn. “Did you get the stuff?” I asked in a low voice, glancing around to make sure no one else was paying attention to us loitering over here. Quinn was on guard duty tonight, but had agreed to bring by a special order for me before he went out.

Quinn chuckled. “Girl, you’re making me feel like I should be wearing a black trench coat.” He popped the collar of his invisible coat and peered at me.

I rolled my eyes and made a grab for the plain brown paper bag he had at his side. He blocked me and shook his head in rebuke. “Not so fast, Anna.”

I huffed a sigh. “What’s it going to cost me?”

Quinn tapped a finger on his chin. “Well, I’m going to assume that this is for Mr. Grumpy McGrumperton?”

I nodded and glanced around again. No one seemed to notice us being weird over here. The twins were throwing potatoes at each other instead of cutting them, so I guess potatoes weren’t going to be on the menu for tonight. Caleb was captivated by whatever he was doing on his tablet, and Gemma was staring blankly at the twins. James was, of course, nowhere to be found.

“I don’t want him to come down on me for this,” Quinn told me with a sly look. “He’s not someone I want pissed off at me.”

“This stays between us,” I promised, making another grab for the bag.

Quinn held it just out of my reach, so unless I wanted to make a scene and tackle him, I was going to have to negotiate.

“Your price?” I asked impatiently. Time was ticking, and I needed to get this done while everyone was occupied down here.

“A future favor of my choosing,” Quinn announced.

“Fine,” I agreed. “But I reserve the right to refuse if it’s too outrageous.”

Quinn chuckled. “The only thing outrageous is what I have in this bag.” He handed it over, and I peeked in.

It was everything that I could have hoped for.

The bag was full of hot pink, purple and red mankini briefs. The ones on the very top even had a glitter unicorn on the butt. “Oh, Quinn. You have really outdone yourself this time,” I said with a pleased purr.

“Right? I always deliver, just remember that.” He booped me on the nose before sauntering off to the kitchen.

I looped the handles of the bag around my hand and headed for the stairs. I had a couple more minutes before the guys would look for me so they could start eating.

Caleb stepped out of the kitchen and into my path. “Everything alright?” he asked with concern shining in his eyes. “You seemed kind of intense over there with Quinn.”

“He was holding my new dress hostage,” I lied, holding up the bag. “You know how he is.”

Caleb stared at me for a heartbeat, and I felt shitty for lying, but this was a personal prank and I wanted to keep it between James and myself.

“I’m just going to hang it up so it doesn’t get wrinkled,” I assured him.

Caleb gave me a smile and a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll referee until you get back,” he said looking over at the twins as Jason ducked beneath the counter and Mason leaped over it to get to him.

I laughed and headed for the stairway. My heart pounded as I ran up the stairs and I couldn’t help the glee that was bubbling up inside of me. The only thing that would make this better was if I could see his face once he realized what I’d done.

I slipped into James’s bedroom and went right to his dresser. I rolled my eyes when I found that the top drawer was nothing but black socks, the second was black undershirts and the third was black boxer briefs. The man had a major commitment to black.

I emptied the shopping bag so I could scoop up all his black underwear and shove it in there. If he wanted them back, he was going to have to come find me. James had been seriously avoiding me for way too long and if this was what I had to do to get him to come to me, so be it.

I laid his new and improved underwear selection carefully in the drawer, making sure to showcase the ones with glitter. I couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of James actually putting a pair of these on. I really, really hoped that he would.

I closed the drawer with satisfaction and picked up my bag of loot. Where could I hide this where James would never think to look? The first place he would check would be my room and then the twin’s rooms. I peeked out into the hallway to make sure the coast was clear before exiting his room.

I hesitated for a moment before heading to the supply closet that I had organized just last week. I couldn’t picture James searching for a bottle of Windex anytime soon, so I doubted he would think to look there. I rolled up the bag and tucked it way into the back on the bottom shelf. Unless someone decided to empty out all twenty bottles of Lysol wipes, they weren’t going to accidentally come across the bag of James’s goodies.

I smiled to myself and brushed off my clothes as I stood. This was going to be fun. I tried to wipe the smile off my face before I went back down to dinner. If I had that happy ‘I just planned a really awesome prank’ look on my face, the twins were going to tickle the truth right out of me. I wanted this to be just between James and me, so that he would have to come to me directly.

I walked back downstairs to see the twins picking up errant potatoes from around the house. It didn’t look like anything got broken, so that was a plus. “We can have oven fries tomorrow,” I told Jason as I picked up a potato that had rolled under the coffee table.

He grinned at me. “I love oven fries.”

“Me, too,” I said with a grin that was probably a little bit too gleeful. Luckily the kitchen timer went off and signaled that dinner was ready, taking the attention off me for now. “What’s for dinner tonight?” I asked cautiously, afraid of hearing ‘mushrooms’ anywhere in his answer.

Jason flung his arm over my shoulders as we walked back to the table. “Well, my girl tried teaching us how to make stir fry…”

Mason grinned as we came in range. “But we couldn’t remember all the ingredients, so we just used one of those sauce packets from the store.”

“Without meat for Gemma. With chicken for the rest of us,” Jason said with pride.

“Sounds good,” I told them, relieved that this was going to be an edible dinner. I had been trying to back off and let the twins do the job that was assigned to them with some gentle prodding in the right direction. With how much time I had to spend training and the additional responsibilities Austin had assigned to me, I really couldn’t manage cooking all the meals for the pack. Austin had made it clear that he didn’t expect me to, and advised me not to let the guys guilt me into it.

I helped plate up the food while Caleb grabbed some silverware for the table. The twins poured drinks and we carried everything over to the table. Gemma made a move to set her plate down in the spot between my twins and I tensed. I always sat between Mason and Jason when we had dinner together, it was one of our things. I wasn’t petty enough to be a bitch and make her move, but it was going to rip me apart if the twins were okay with this.

Relief flooded through me when Jason stood up and moved her plate to the other side of the table. “That’s Anna’s seat,” he said simply.

Mason patted the chair next to him. “Yeah, Anna. I got you a Blackberry Bold Rock.” I grinned at the sight of the bottle he placed next to him, I definitely needed a little bit of alcohol tonight. Something sweet and delicious sounded perfect right now.

Gemma shot me a dirty look, but I just shrugged and gave her a sweet smile. She was going to have to realize that replacing me was not going to be that easy.