Finding Home

Chapter 8

Willow's POV

Lia ended up being 10 minutes late for her shift due to my heated make-out session but I couldn't bring myself to feel bad about it. I haven't stopped smiling since I walked into the pub. My mind kept replaying everything that has happened since I got here a week ago. I feel like I'm waking up after a really long sleep. Like for the last year and a half of living on the road I was in some sort of half-awake half-asleep kind of haze. Just going through the motions. I can't remember anyone specific from any of the dozens of towns that I had stayed in. I remember trails I hiked, trees that I saw, lakes and rivers that I had gazed into but no faces, no people, no names. Now getting here I feel connected again. I feel friendship, I feel attraction and it's like I am feeling them for the first time. Like when you walk into school for your very first time and make your very first friend on your own. That is what I felt like right now. Excited, scared, yes, but mostly excited.

So here I sit on my regular stool holding a bottle of corona with a lime wedge in the neck contemplating life. When Evan plops down beside me with a heavy sigh and a groan while he buries his face in his hands.

"Whoa, who sneezed in your corn pops, Ev?" I asked as a way of greeting while taking another swig of my beer.

"Ha ha ha. You got jokes huh? Give a guy a break I didn't get much sleep last night" he rubs his hand down his face.

"Did the wolves keep you up too? Man they were crazy loud weren't they?"I said a little too excitedly if the look on Evan's face was any indication.

"Uh, yeah, something like that." he replied as he downed a shot of whiskey that Lia had just handed him chasing it with a beer.

"Hey Lia" I called out to get her attention. Once she got over to us I said "I was meaning to ask you but, uh forgot to when I got in your truck earlier. Why was The Den closed last night?"

She laughed "Oh you mean you were too dazzled from making-out with my brother on the front porch to think straight?"

That caught Evan off guard so much so he spat his beer on the counter "You were kissing the Alpha?" He asked shocked. "Well I knew you had a thing for him with the puddle of drool under your chin when you saw him on Friday, but you actually kissed him?"

"Evan! Why do you make more work for me to do?!?" Lia scolds him as she sprays a disinfectant on his spat beer and starts wiping it up.

"Hey, I wasn't drooling that much." I said indignantly slapping his shoulder.

"Uh yeah you were Shorty, there was practically a line connecting your face to the bar." He drew his finger from my chin to the bar top as if he were demonstrating the path the drool allegedly took.

"That's disgusting." I say while swatting his hand away. "Besides it wasn't just me kissing him, he kissed me too, it was mutual kissing and you didn't answer my question Lia. Why was the pub closed last night?" I wasn't going to let her deflect.

"Uh, the owner said to shut down for the night." She answered albeit hesitantly.

"Fine. I'll just ask Dom when I see him tomorrow." I shrugged and finished my beer.

"You're seeing him again?" Evan asked while wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at me.

"Yeah, why is that a big deal?" I asked while folding my arms across my chest and lifting a single eyebrow at him.