Stray (Shifters #1)(36)

“Of course I was.” The ends of the strand went into my mouth, and I chewed automatically. I was worried about Jace. I just hadn’t known how to make the situation any better.
Ethan growled and pulled my hair away from my face, giving it a brutal tug for good measure. “Jace thinks he loves you,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one overheard.
Suddenly I found my bare feet fascinating. Big toe, like a thumb on my foot. That one would be opposable, if I were an ape, I thought, wiggling it for good measure. Middle toe, longer than the first one. And those tiny little ones on the end, which weren’t terribly well articulated, in spite of theoretically functioning joints.Ethan snapped his fingers beneath my nose. “Faythe, did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you.” I made myself meet his eyes. Whatever I might have been, I wasn’t a coward. But not from lack of trying.
“I’m not going to ask you how you feel about him, because I’m pretty sure I already know the answer. But I will say this. Let him down easy, and do it soon, before this gets out of hand. You’ve already screwed him up emotionally by leading him on.”
I bristled; if I’d had fur, it would have stood on end. “I didn’t lead him on,” I snapped, standing straighter. I was glad to finally have something I could legitimately argue about.
“The hell you didn’t.” His eyes blazed. “He told me you let him kiss you, and I heard what you didn’t say to Marc.”
I blinked, turning one ear toward him as if to improve my hearing. “What I didn’t say to Marc?” Okay, now I was confused. The list of things I hadn’t said was endless, no matter how much Marc claimed I talked.
“He asked if you wanted Jace to touch you, and you didn’t say no. If you’d said no, Jace would have known the truth, but since you didn’t, he thinks he has a chance with you. But if he takes one more shot, Marc will kill him. He won’t be able to stop himself. And it will be your fault.”
I exhaled, frustrated and angry. “You can’t blame me for something I didn’t say, and you certainly can’t hold me responsible for anything Marc does. If you have a problem with his behavior, take it up with him.” I glanced away, fingering a swirl in the wood grain of the china cabinet. “Besides, I didn’t let Jace kiss me.” Ethan started to object, but I cut him off. “Well, maybe I did for a minute, but I was about to push him away when Marc came in.” That sounded weak, even to me, and Ethan didn’t buy it for a second.
“Frankly, Faythe, I’m a little creeped out by having to think about what my sister does in private. But apparently you’re not thinking about it enough. These aren’t house cats you’re playing around with. They aren’t college boys, either. If you don’t tell them both the truth, someone’s going to get hurt. And it won’t be you.”
A spark of irritation flared in my gut, only slightly smothered by encroaching guilt. “First of all, I’m not playing around with anyone.” I glanced away from his face, hesitant to admit the rest. “And I’m not sure I know what the truth is.”
“Well, figure it out. Fast.” With that, he stomped off to the living room, where I could hear Jace and Parker trying awkwardly to comfort Kyle.
I was relieved that Jace was okay. And I really had been worried about him. But I had no idea how I could have prevented Marc’s temper tantrum. Okay, maybe I could’ve pushed Jace away a little sooner, but honestly, I was getting pretty tired of being held responsible for Marc’s lack of control. What concern was it of his what I did with Jace? Absolutely none. 
But he’d made it his business, and that was the bottom line. I was starting to understand that in the real world nothing else mattered.
Around nine, my mother put Nikki to bed in my room and said I could either make a pallet on my own floor or sleep on the couch. I told her I’d stay in the guesthouse with the guys, and Ethan promised to keep an eye on me, since Marc’s Faythe-sitting shift had ended. My mother just nodded. I don’t think she’d heard about my threats to abandon the Pride. I hadn’t seen or heard her talk to Daddy since breakfast.
An hour later, Mom ran out of chores to keep her mind off the tragedy at hand. She’d dusted the entire house, cleaned up the buffet and stored the leftovers, and made enough tea and coffee to keep the bathrooms occupied for the rest of the year. Since courtesy forbade her to vacuum around our guests’ feet, she settled for trying to drive me out of my mind with inane questions. It was her second-favorite hobby, and one she’d perfected ages ago.
I knew the moment she settled next to me on the couch, knitting bag in hand, that it was time for me to retire for the evening. I just didn’t know how best to pull off my escape.
“What did your father want with you this afternoon?” she asked, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
Swatting her hand away, I shot desperate looks at Ethan and Parker, where they sat across the room, still huddled around Kyle, who clutched a nearly empty bottle of whiskey. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Jace. Not until I knew what to say to him.
“Faythe?” my mother said, and I turned back to look at her. “What did your father want?” I tried to relax my fists as I watched her run one hand over her smooth gray hair, turning the edges under. It made me want to shake my head like a wet dog, until I looked as different from her as was humanly possible, considering that I’d inherited her nose and cheekbones.
I wanted to lie. Damn, I wanted to lie, because one of my biggest goals in life was to avoid discussing men with my mother. But eventually she’d find out the truth. “He wanted to talk about my boyfriend.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“His name is Andrew.” I stared hard at Ethan as I answered through gritted teeth, but he only grinned and waved. He thought I deserved it.
My mother reached into her bag, pushing around balls of colored yarn and knitting needles with both hands. “What year is this boy in?”
Keep it short and simple, I thought. That was what Michael told all his clients before they took the stand. “He’s not a boy, Mom. He’s a grad student. In the math department. He wants to teach.”
“Children?” She glanced at me with one hand over her heart, clearly aghast.
So much for simple, I thought, mentally cringing. “No, college.”
“Oh. Good.” She smiled in polite relief, digging again in her bag. “I was afraid he might like children.”
That was my mother’s secret code for “I’m glad you aren’t thinking of marrying this man, because you know you can’t give him any babies, and it would be wrong to condemn a teacher to a life without children.” Nothing was ever simple with my mother, which was strange, because she seemed never to think about anything complicated.
“You know,” she continued, pulling a small bundle of pale blue yarn from the bag. “By the time I was your age, I already had two boys and was pregnant with Owen.”I closed my eyes so she couldn’t see how far they’d rolled back into my head. “I know, Mom. You and I are different.”
She made an odd, cooing sound and I reopened my eyes to see her carefully spreading out the small bundle. It took on a vague, curved shape, curling over one knee.
“We’re not as different as you think, dear.”
Yeah, right. My mother was a regular rebel without a cause. “Sure, Mom. I’m your carbon copy.”
“There’s no need for sarcasm, Faythe.”
I huffed in disdain, and the sound came out clipped and harsh. “If you really believe that, then we’re nothing alike.”
She sighed, taking up a long, metallic blue needle in each hand. “I intend to have a serious conversation with you someday.”
“I can barely contain my excitement.” I watched as she began to knit-one and purl-two, or whatever it was that made the separate threads of yarn hold together. The shape of that little blue bundle looked so familiar…
“You know, I wasn’t born a wife and mother.” She took both needles in one hand for a moment, glancing at me as she smoothed out the length of yarn trailing from one. “I was your age once.”
“And by your own admission, you already had a husband and two and a half kids.”
My mother frowned, lowering her knitting to her lap. With disapproval clearly visible in the frown lines around her mouth, she really did look like me. Or like I might look after another quarter of a century, if my life didn’t drastically improve. “Really, Faythe. Half a child? Is that any way to refer to your brother?”
“I just meant that you hadn’t had him yet.”
“I know what you meant,” she snapped, knitting furiously. I stared at the yarn in growing horror. I knew what she was making. A bootie. A tiny, pale blue baby bootie. My mother was the Denis Rodman of subtlety. A master craftsman in the art of creative manipulation. Without saying a word, she’d reminded me once again that my life was off track by her standards and shown me what I should have been thinking about. “Really, you place too little value on life. Particularly on your own.”
“What are you talking about?” Determined to ignore the bootie unless she mentioned it, I met her gaze, hoping to drive her away with a little confrontational eye contact. “I value my life very highly.”