Page 91 of Havoc's Fox

“You know what?” Emmalyn asked, taking her bowl of chili and standing up. She snatched her glass of iced tea off the coffee table and looked haughtily down her nose at her older sister as her voice raised to shout at her. “Neither are you. All I hear is poor me, I’m so upset. I got hurt and no I can’t see past it. My mate hurt me…”

Analise’s mouth fell open in shock as Emmalyn continued to mock her and yell at her.

“Yes! He did. But he’s not the same as he was then. Hell, he probably didn’t even have pubic hair back then! He wasn’t a grown male who makes grown male decisions! He was a kid! He fucked up. He fucked everything and everybody up. But he did the grownup thing afterward. He did the right thing by his daughter, and he’s doing his very best to be the male we all knew he could be once he got his head out of his ass!”

“Your point?” Analise said, her voice clipped as she got to her feet.

“He’s got his head out of his ass. But yours is so far up your ass that I’m sure if you open your eyes wide enough you can see sunlight though your own mouth!”

“I can’t believe you just said that to me!”

“Well, I did. And you want to know something else?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway!” Analise yelled.

“Everything that happened is partially your fault!”

“What?!”

“Yes! Your fault! All you wanted to do was sit home, read a book, swing on the porch swing. Well, he was a freaking Wolf! He wanted to go out and have fun. Ride his bike and go hang out with his buds and have a few beers. He wanted to party and see what life was about, and all you did was sit home and not understand why he wouldn’t sit home with you!”

“I was shy!”

“I get that! But you didn’t even go out riding his bike with him. When he shifted and went exploring you wouldn’t leave our property. You can’t expect a wild Wolf shifter, much less one that just hit puberty to not have an adventurous side. You didn’t even make an effort.”

“He wouldn’t even take me to eat sushi! When we went to school dances he wouldn’t stay more than thirty minutes and he was ready to go!”

“I’m not saying he was perfect. Far from it, he needed his ass kicked and regularly. But why is he the only one that needed to adjust his behavior? He’s not, you should have adjusted yours, too! You were two very different people with very different views of what you wanted. All you could see was you and all he could see was him! You should have never been together. You should have never even been friends. You had nothing in common. Neither of you made an effort to even slightly accommodate the wants or needs of the other. All you did was make each other miserable. Not just him, both of you! Until now! Until this particular point in time when you’ve both grown and changed and you’ve come out of your shell, and he’s calmed down and figured out what values are. Now is when you needed to meet. Now is when you were meant to be together, not back then! For fucks sake, forget you knew him. Introduce yourself to him and start the fuck all over!”

“Emmalyn!”

“I’m going to eat my chili! Leave me alone!”

Analise still wore a stunned look on her face as she slowly sank back down to sit on the sofa. She couldn’t believe Emmalyn would say those things to her. Those were horrible things. Insulting things. She couldn’t help it if she’d been so painfully shy back then. And Havoc didn’t need to have flaunted his girlfriends in her face either. She sat silently, thinking of things as they’d been. Well, maybe he didn’t actually flaunt them, he did try to hide them from her. And he begged her to go with him so many times she couldn’t possibly even count them, and she always told him ‘no’.

“Was it my fault?” Analise asked aloud.

“Part of it sure as hell was!” Emmalyn shouted from her room.

Analise scowled in the direction of her sister’s room. But she didn’t argue with her. Everything Emmalyn said had been true. But it didn’t make any difference in the fact that she had to go back to work. She didn’t want to lose her job and her job was in Boston. They had a problem and they needed her.

She picked up her phone and walked outside to call Havoc. She needed to let him know. She dialed his number and sat down on the porch swing while she waited for him to answer.

“Hey,” he said, the deep timbre of his voice carrying through the phone causing her to shiver just a little.

“Hey,” she answered.

“What’s up?”

“I thought I’d call you as soon as I knew.”

“Knew what?” Havoc asked.

“I have to go home. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?! You said you had another week.”

“I did, but there are some problems with the shipment of artifacts they’re receiving. They need me to help identify and repair the broken pieces.”