Page 57 of Full Moon Frenzy

The moon was nowhere to be found, and she had never felt quite so safe.

Trapp

At the very least, Trapp had thought that, with Grayson and Vanessa’s wedding still practically an entire calendar year away, he was marked safe from having to perform carefree wedding frivolity when he felt as though his life was imploding.

He should have known the universe was having too much fun at his expense.

The impossible is happening this weekend — everyone is here! We would love for all of you to join us for a cocktail hour so that everyone can meet before the wedding itself!

He read the text from his sister-in-law-to-be through bleary eyes, groaning. It was informal, hastily planned, in town. They weren’t even shutting down the business of the trendy wine bar, simply commandeering it.

He could wriggle out of it, Trapp told himself from his nest of blankets. He’d certainly not be missed. He’d not seen Grayson since the night he’d left his brother’s house with his dignity lost in the grass with his missing flip-flop, but if he skipped this event, if he couldn’t put his own self-pity and misery on the shelf for one night and be the old Trapp, smiling, charming, friend to all, he risked fracturing his relationship with his brother, and that wasn’t something he was willing to risk.

Trapp didn’t know what it said about his own character that Grayson, abrasive and conniving, mercurial Grayson, was his most favorite person in the world, and he didn’t care.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d been performing all week. The benefit of the full moon taking place almost immediately after his forty-eight-hour shift was that those two days did not count towards his mandatory ninety-six, and feeling sorry for himself had been all he’d done.

It had been another wet, stormy full moon, which on its own would have been irritating enough. That he had woken in a pile of spiky sweetgum pods — the same sort of tree that was planted in front of the townhomes in Adriana’s development — was one he could not explain. He had no idea what his wolf had gotten up to beneath the storm, deciding he didn’t want to know.

He had been spared the indignity of facing his family after his coffee shop outburst, as their monthly post-moon brunch was aborted thanks to the same storm. Under normal circumstances, Trapp would have been first on site, bringing his own chainsaw to clear the tree limb that had come down on the roof, going through the kitchen windows, cleaning up glass, and having half the work done before the repair crew even pulled up. But on that morning, his body had ached, his temple throbbed, and he’d opted to rot in bed instead, after the early morning group text from their father.

But now he had to prepare himself for a live studio audience, Trapp thought decisively, grimacing at the thought. He was going to smile. He was going to laugh and joke, set people at ease with his bright eyes and easy-going nature. He was his brother’s best man, and he was going to be the local hero who’d been missing in action; the best Trapp Hemming Cambric Creek had seen in years.

The wine bar was packed. Their party had spilled out onto the patio, where a long table had been set up with small plates that the staff kept full and a selection of wine. It was a noisy churn of bodies, a nonstop din of laughter and voices, and it was easy to lose himself in it, keeping his megawatt smile in place, laughing and nodding on cue, not really participating in any of the half-dozen different conversations he drifted through.

Trapp felt his smile turn slightly feral when Shay Marsh approached him, laughing with Harmond Hastings. Breathe. Harmond was one of Grayson’s closest university friends and the heir to Hastings-Durning Pharma. Losing his cool in front of these well-heeled guests would be the definition of bad optics, but Dr. Marsh needed to tread carefully. He needn’t have worried. Harmond was in the middle of retelling a fraternity story, and all Trapp needed to do was smile, nod, laugh on cue. Keep to the script. You’ve been doing this your whole life.

When Lowell appeared at his elbow, he exhaled in relief, instantly feeling slightly less in the spotlight. The errant Hemming sibling had arrived that morning. His girlfriend had come home for a family event of her own, a girls’ weekend with her cousins, which meant Cambric Creek was at the mercy of its most chaotic son.

“I love it when you get in trouble,” he crowed to Trapp, once they had turned away from the existing conversation. “I’m the number one now, bitch boy. You have to answer to me. It’s not been made official yet, but I think we both know I’ll be taking over best man duties.”

“Lowell, we’ve had this conversation before.” Grayson’s voice came from behind Trapp, already laughing. He doesn’t sound mad anymore. Of course, Grayson was also good at sticking to a script. “You’re not the best, and you’re barely a man. I’m going to make you whatever the wedding equivalent of a court jester is.” Trapp accepted the shot Grayson handed him, as Lowell threw up his hands in offense.

“Owen said you got in trouble at work?” Lowell hissed, once Grayson’s attention was redirected. “Everything okay?”

His smile was hard. He wasn’t surprised that they all knew. With Jackson at City Hall now, it was no surprise that civil service matters filtered through his office. “Never better.”

Grayson had entered the story Harmond was telling, increasing the volume and pulling the rest of the party in. Lowell was sucked into the orbit of belonging, drifting away from Trapp as if he were floating, leaving him alone for the moment. Good. Maybe you can let your mouth rest for thirty seconds. He hadn’t realized how exhausting smiling actually was.

“Have a good turn?”

Trapp jolted violently at the unexpected voice at his elbow, sloshing the contents of his wine glass over his knuckles.

Tris Tatterswain always had a smug look on his face, a knowing little smirk. A dangerous smirk, because he did, in fact, know everything. Tris was the silent eyes and ears of the whole town, and had been working for their father for years, keeping Jack abreast of civil unrest, gossip from the business owners, and problems around the neighborhoods. Underestimating Tris was a mistake, not one any of his family made. That’s why he’s on the payroll.

It was unsurprising to find Tris there that night. He wasn’t in the wedding party, but he was so deeply enmeshed with the Cambric Creek elite that not inviting him wasn’t a consideration.

Trapp shrugged, forcing his smile to stay in place. “I suppose so. Woke up in one piece. That’s always the best indication. I’ll be looking forward to the end of this rainy season, though.”

Tris hummed in agreement, sipping from his wine glass. “I was working late on a project for the heritage museum that night. I thought I saw the most curious shadow moving through the yards . . . I’m over on Finchmere, you know, on the hill? Same development as your brother. Closer to the front end. That was quite an exit you made the other day.”

He had an entire lifetime of practice being Trapp Hemming, and if Tris Tatterswain thought the disclosure would break his mask, well, Tris hadn’t grown up with Jack Hemming as a father.

Outwardly, he beamed, eyes twinkling, laughing lightly as if Tris had made a joke, never breaking. Inwardly, though, his lungs had frozen. Trapp wasn’t sure how long he could go without breathing, but he supposed he was about to find out. Adriana was on Finchmere, on the hill. The same development that Owen lived in, on the front end. If Tris had witnessed his furious exit from her townhouse, then it was safe to assume Tris already knew everything. But what does he mean by curious shadow?

He’d woken in his own familiar space, the same spot his wolf returned to every month, surrounded by those annoying, prickly little pods, as if his fur had been full of them in his other form. The same tree in Adriana’s yard.

He never found out what Tris might have said next.