Chapter 15: Bonfire Party Night
1587 Words
Chapter 15: Bonfire Party Night
~ Yates ~
The auditorium was empty, which was the only reason I had pulled Fanny in there instead of somewhere more private. I needed walls between whatever she was feeling and the rest of the school before it became a problem nobody could walk back from.
She yanked her hand out of my grip the moment the door swung shut behind us.
"Don't stand there and pretend you didn't enjoy that," she said.
I stared at her. "Why would I enjoy watching my girlfriend and the new girl go at each other in the middle of the cafeteria?"
"Because you like her," she said flatly. "And don't insult me by denying it."
"Fanny —"
"I see it, Yates. I'm not stupid and I'm not blind, whatever she seems to think." Her shoulders were tight, her jaw set in that specific way that meant she had already decided how this conversation was going to go and was simply waiting for me to catch up. "I don't like how comfortable she's getting here. Like she belongs."
"She doesn't know anything," I said carefully. "She's new. She's figuring things out."
"So you're in her head now?" She turned on me. "You know exactly what she thinks?"
"That's not what I said."
"Then what did you say?"
I exhaled slowly. "I said you've decided she's a threat. I don't think she's thought about it that deeply."
Fanny laughed once — short, sharp, humorless. "She's never going to be better than me. I want to be very clear about that. She is nothing. She is a small, fragile, completely unremarkable human girl who wandered into the wrong town, and the moment she gets too comfortable, I will remind her of exactly what she is and what she isn't."
"Okay," I said, because arguing with Fanny when she was like this was roughly as productive as arguing with the weather. "I hear you. But you almost lost it in there, in front of half the school. If I hadn't stepped in, you would have put a human into coma. You know what that means for the pack."
She held my gaze for a moment.
Then some of the rigidity went out of her shoulders.
"Whatever," she said.
She reached over and took my hand, threading her fingers through mine with the ease of someone who had done it a thousand times. "Take me to the diner downtown. I want steak."
"The cafeteria has —"
"If I go back in that cafeteria right now I will find her," she said pleasantly, "and I will put her in exactly the coma you just told me not to put her in." She smiled up at me. "So. Diner."
I looked at her for a second.
Then I leaned down and kissed her once, brief and easy.
"Diner," I agreed.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you too," I said.
And we left.
---
Blackthorn hollows was already alive by the time we arrived that evening.
The bonfire had been going for a while — tall and orange and throwing long shadows between the trees, the kind of fire that made the whole woods feel like somewhere outside of ordinary time. Kegs had been set up near the tree line, red cups already scattered across logs and flat rocks, music drifting from somewhere deeper in the trees. Students from multiple packs had come out — Fanny's pack, the Meadow Creek, spread across one side of the clearing, and mine, the Nightshade, taking up the other without anyone having to say so. That was just how it worked.
My father was still alpha. I was next, when the time came. Everyone here knew it, including me, including Fanny, who had built her entire future around that particular fact.
Jerome had claimed a log across from us and was working through his drink with the contentment of someone who had nowhere else to be.
"Heard we're getting a new coach by Monday," he said, pointing his cup in my direction.
"That's what they're saying," I said.
"Then it worked exactly how it was supposed to." He grinned.
"It did," Fanny said, her voice carrying that particular satisfaction she got when a plan closed the way it was meant to.
I tightened my arm around her shoulder and she leaned into me, and for a while it was just the fire and the music and the quiet comfort of a night that wasn't asking anything complicated from me.
Then Fanny turned and kissed me, slow and deliberate, and Jerome made a noise of resignation.
"Right," he said. "I'll just be over here not existing."
I heard him stand up and walk off, but I wasn't paying attention to where he went.
When I opened my eyes a few minutes later, I saw them.
Elodie coming through the tree line.
And Gwen beside her.
I pulled back from Fanny so fast she blinked in surprise.
"What —"
"Who invited the human girl?" I said, already scanning for Jerome.
Fanny followed my gaze, and her expression closed over like a door being shut.
Jerome reappeared from the direction of the kegs, raising his hand before I could say a word.
"That would be me," he said.
"Jerome." I kept my voice even. "Why."
"Because she's interesting," he said, with the complete absence of apology that was one of his more aggravating qualities. "And mysterious. And I thought it would be good for her to come."
"You thought," I repeated.
"I did. I know, rare occurrence." He turned before I could respond further. "Excuse me while I go be a decent human being and say hello."
He walked off.
Fanny watched him go. "He's such an idiot."
"Yeah," I muttered.
But my eyes had already drifted back across the clearing without my permission.
Gwen was standing near the edge of the firelight, holding a cup she had presumably found somewhere, talking to Elodie with her back half-turned toward us. The fire caught the side of her face, and she was laughing at something Elodie said, completely unaware that anyone was watching her.
Mate, Jack said quietly.
I looked away.
"Would you be happy?" Fanny said from beside me.
I turned back to her. "What?"
"When I'm your Luna," she said, studying my face in that careful, reading way she had. "Would you actually be happy?"
"Yes," I said.
Liar.
I ignored him.
"Of course I would," I said, and leaned down to press my lips to her forehead. "You've always been the plan, Fanny."
She seemed to accept that, settling back against my side.
Jerome came back a few minutes later and dropped onto the log.
"Where'd they go?" I asked, before I had made a decision to ask.
"Getting drinks," he said. "The kegs over here are done."
"Done?" Fanny said. "Already?"
"Whoever got to them first had no self-control." Jerome shrugged. "I've got a full keg in the truck. They went to get some."
"Yates," Fanny said after a moment.
"Mm."
"Can you picture me as Luna? Actually picture it?"
I opened my mouth.
"Absolutely," Jerome said, beating me to it. "Completely. You'd look incredible."
"Thank you, Jerome," she said, genuinely pleased.
"You can't say that to my girlfriend while I'm sitting right here," I told him, leaning forward. "It does things to me."
"Like what?"
"Like jealousy, which is apparently a concept you've never encountered."
Jerome grinned. "I'm terrified."
Fanny laughed and kissed my cheek, and I kissed her back properly, and Jerome sighed for what felt like the fourth time that evening.
"Ahem."
I pulled back.
Gwen was standing two feet away, Elodie just behind her, both of them holding empty cups. Gwen's expression was completely neutral — no apology for interrupting, no awkwardness either. Just direct.
"Sorry," she said, not sounding particularly sorry. "Jerome, where can we find a drink? The kegs on this side are empty."
"I just told them —" Jerome started.
"He said he's got one in his truck," Elodie added.
"Right," Jerome said, getting to his feet. "Come on, I'll grab it for you."
They followed him off into the dark.
Fanny watched them go.
"She did that on purpose," she said.
"She needed a drink," I shrugged.
"She interrupted us on purpose."
I didn't argue with her. I just kissed her again instead, and felt the tension in her ease slightly.
The fire threw its orange light across the clearing, and Finn's speaker shifted to something slower, the music threading through the trees quietly. Finn — who had played his part in the staged fight so convincingly even I had almost believed it — sat across the clearing now with his pack, completely unbothered by the world.
I pulled back from Fanny slowly.
"Come on," I said, low enough that only she could hear. "Let's get in the car."
Her expression shifted immediately — from guarded to something warmer, something that was only ever for me.
"Finally," she said, taking my hand.
We walked away from the fire together, deeper into the dark between the trees.
Gwen, Jack said from somewhere underneath everything. Mate.
I said nothing back.
I kept walking, Fanny's hand in mine, the firelight fading behind us.
And I made a decision, quietly and without ceremony, to give Jack nothing for the rest of the night.
Not a single word.
Not even a denial.
Just silence.
Which, as it turned out, was the loudest answer I could have given.
- Writer
