Page 24 of Tiger Betrayal

She made it to the first stoplight before he texted. My brother is coming over tonight. Do you want to hang out with us?

I’m busy. Indefinitely. Good luck with your brother. Send.

It was a twenty-three-minute drive from that stoplight to the library she needed. Once parked, she grabbed the journal in her passenger’s seat, her purse, and the candy bar Craig had given her. Dinner of champions.

This week, it’s her.

How disposable was she?

Laramie clenched her fist and then pushed open the library doors and looked around. She pulled out the journal and flipped to the green tab she’d marked the right page with. She drifted around the library, looking for the right window, the right corner, the right bookshelves.

Probably they had been rearranged at some point, so it took her a while. The seating area wasn’t there anymore, but the window was just the same, and the view outside matched the sketch.

Because we fuck. That’s all it is.

Her parent’s love story had been so beautiful. What had she been thinking?

This couldn’t be her story.

She sank down against the wall and sat right where her parents had met all those years ago. She read her mom’s journal entry describing the first time she saw Laramie’s dad. Her eyes prickled as she read it for the thirtieth time. She had nearly memorized this entire journal, but it didn’t matter. There was still a feeling of connection when she read her mom’s words, in her mom’s pretty cursive writing.

She finished the last line. I’m calling it. I’m going to marry him.

Laramie clacked the book shut and stared out the window. The view looked vaguely familiar to the journal sketch, but so much had probably changed in all of those years. It had been so long ago since her parents had laid eyes on each other for the first time here.

She’d been saving this memory lane adventure for a special occasion—one where she really needed to feel her parents’ presence, and today, after everything, it felt right. She closed her eyes and imagined them here, smiling shyly at each other. They had no idea they were going to love each other so deeply. That they were going to live life to the fullest every moment until her dad had died. They didn’t know that her mom would worship him for the rest of her days, or that she would paint such a beautiful picture of him in Laramie’s head as she grew up without him. Mom had never moved on. How could she? Her love for her father was perfect.

The entire reason Laramie had moved here was because of this journal she’d found after her mom had passed away last year. The old house had felt so empty before it had been sold, and she was chasing ghosts. She knew she was.

Laramie was okay with that.

She just wanted to feel close to her mother again.

She hugged the journal tight and then wiped her eyes and opened it, turned to the green tab page, and flipped the page over to expose the blank back side. Mom always left the backs of the pages blank. As a love letter to her mother, Laramie had been sketching the places she visited. The places her parents had been.

She pulled a pencil from her purse and began drawing the window.

And she felt less alone.

Chapter Ten

Stellan didn’t understand.

What was she doing here?

He cocked his head and watched her sketching in a thick, old, worn-out journal. Maybe she just really liked libraries, but he’d watched her. He’d followed her here. He wanted to fix whatever was wrong with her. Somehow. He didn’t know. She was hurt and it was making his insides feel split open.

Her eyes had been puffy when she’d come out of the bathroom at the end of her lunch break, and he’d been confused. He’d wanted to talk to her about Mars. Wanted to vent to her. Wanted her to understand a complicated layer to his life, but she’d been upset. He was awful at fixing things for upset women.

His mom had always been upset.

Every day. He’d always tried to fix it for her too.

He leaned against the bookshelf behind him. Stellan could see her over the top of a row of books. She was curled into this defensive little ball, but as she sketched, she relaxed. When she dragged her knuckles across her cheek though, he knew she was crying.

He hated this feeling inside of him. It made him want to throw up. It made him want to Change into his tiger and rid himself of all human emotions.

Everything he touched turned to mud, and now he’d turned happy, beautiful, full-of-life Laramie muddy. It hadn’t even taken him long.