Page 77 of Novice Girlfriend

“Yeah, I needed that too,” she said quietly. “And I’m sorry.”

It took me a minute to think of what she meant and then I flinched, totally forgetting she’d slapped me. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t.”

“Wes helped me see that. I’m sorry. I’m struggling, and the thought of losing you—you not fighting because you don’t care if you die when…” She looked into the freezer and pulled out more food. “Sorry, Bev. I wish I was stronger. I’m not. I’m sorry I slapped you when you’re dealing with so much.”

“You are too, and you’re doing great. I was trying to tell you that I’m not normal.”

“No, you’re extraordinary. Don’t you ever act like you’re broken. You’re better than the rest of us, little sister.” She put more on my pile and walked away.

Okay then.

I brought it up after heating it according to all of the instructions Clare had outlined and found Wyatt sitting there tense. “What now?”

He scrubbed his hands over his head rougher than he probably should. “Just learning why my brother has been trying to get in touch with me again.”

I winced. “Yeah, I just learned about that too. Apparently, Taylor’s people found more dirt. I don’t even know what.”

“Fuck.” He stood and helped me with the food. “My friend from the gym who keeps being a dick to you—he really is a good guy. I’ll beat him into behaving, but—I guess—I can’t—”

“This should be good,” I chuckled darkly.

He was quiet a few minutes while we got settled. “Part of Dustin’s issues is that you haven’t offered to adopt me into the Millen family.”

“What?” I gasped. “Does he have any idea how fucking stupid that is?”

Wyatt reacted like I’d slapped him. “Thanks.”

“No, I’m not…” I looked at my food, suddenly not hungry.

“I can smell the smoke from you working through this from here,” he mumbled after a few minutes. “Sorry.”

I gave a half shrug. “I might be missing something, but you’re already in trouble because of what happened—what people think happened. If I adopted you into my family—we have the same last name, everyone will assume it’s because we’re together. That could ruin your career.”

“I don’t think—”

“And your brother would do everything in his power to have you take over as the head of the Millen family,” I continued. “You’re older. People would think you’re more powerful, so of course you could. How the fuck would we explain when you weren’t?”

His face went pale. “That’s a really good point I didn’t think of because I would never try and Dustin knows that. Okay, yeah, so clearly—sorry.”

I relaxed some. A few slow breaths and I really did. “If you want to live here and get the protection of this place—protection some other way, of course you can. I…”

“What?” he asked gently.

“You’re the adult,” I whispered, trying to control my emotions. “Why do I have to save everyone? I’m sorry, I would, but I’m drowning all of the time. If you had asked or told me—no, I would have thought it was a bad move, but—your friend is an asshole for being mad at a student who didn’t offer something that huge to their professor.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty fair,” he muttered. “I told him you wouldn’t trust me any more than he would a Shaw with the way we were raised to distrust each other. You weren’t in the position to take risks. He backed off and took what you said in front of the others to heart, but—he just admitted that was part of it, and I realized I didn’t know why you didn’t offer either.”

And then everything with Quinn happened, so he didn’t know either.

“I would if I didn’t think it would complicate things more,” I told him. “I would. I’m going to adopt someone I barely know to save her and I would you. Of course I would, but I think it would give us more trouble when you already have the disownment.”

“You’re right. Sorry, everything is just such a fucking mess.” He gestured to the TV where Jason Berns was trying to deny what Tracey had said about his magic.

“It always is.” I wasn’t offended when he snorted.

We watched the chaos in silence. Neal Wyatt brushed off the whole lawsuit as not worth his time and the money was nothing to the Wyatt fortune. He joked he saw it as a charitable donation since I was putting it towards the legal fees of witches who needed it instead of wasting money on his own legal fees.

But he wouldn’t forget Jean trying to make it into something more than it was. He hadn’t been the only one to “misunderstand” the relationship between me and his brother, so this was all silly. And he didn’t have time for silly, so he hoped the witches he helped with this money remembered where it came from.