Moon Glamour by Aimee Easterling (books to read to be successful TXT) 📕

unaware of the shifter byplay that had chastened me and my sister, but she understood that something had just happened.

“Great!” Kira’s honest enthusiasm blew away the bad air between them. “We’ve got veggie kebabs here and soy dogs in the freezer. If none of that sounds good, I think there’re some tofu burgers, but they’re yuck. For dessert—s’mores!”

And even though Kira had refused my help, she lifted the top bin off the stack now to hand to my sister then passed the next down to Clara. “Should we put them on the grill?” Clara asked.

“The other one.” Tank pointed with his tongs at a second grill smoking gently on the other side of the walkway. “No meat-juice contamination.” Then, facing Butch, who I’d forgotten about in the midst of teenage drama: “Thanks for your help today. I owe you one.”

Butch shook his head. “Don’t thank me.” The words, sounded oddly formal, not the usual shrug-off of unnecessary appreciation. Without further explanation, he left us alone with the pile of luggage, heading for a cabin at the end of the row.

Awkwardness hung in his wake. The girls were busy, but Tank’s face was now averted. Averted from me, the only person close enough to pay attention.

Despite my best intentions to ignore this thing between us, I reached up to cup his jaw, pulling his face back front and center. “Don’t do that,” I ordered. Then, realizing how abrupt I’d sounded: “Please.”

Beneath my fingers, Tank’s lips quirked ever so slightly. “Alright. If you insist.”

IF MARINA’S TIMELINE hadn’t hung heavy on my mind, the rest of the evening would have been delightful. Ryder built a bonfire out back, which is where we all retreated once dinner was ready. The girls roasted s’mores, getting punchier the more sugar they consumed.

“Watch this!” Kira demanded, grabbing the open bag of marshmallows and spraying a couple of dozen into the air...then catching each one in an athletic feat that only a shifter would have been capable of.

“Ooh, I want to try!” Clara’s response, thankfully, was sidetracked by our leader rising and brushing off the seat of her pants.

“Training starts tomorrow at 7. Don’t stay up too late.”

Then Lupe was gone into the darkness while Harper’s head cocked in question. “Training?” Of the three teens, she was the only one still acting like a guest rather than a hooligan.

“Not for us,” Kira answered before I could. “We get to sleep in then laugh at the ‘dults in the morning.”

“Who you calling a ‘dult?” Ryder growled, grabbing Kira around the neck. Butch scooted sideways away from the tussle while I tensed, not liking the idea of the tattooed male manhandling someone halfway between girlhood and womanhood.

Tank didn’t like it either. He’d been browning a marshmallow for my sister, but the end of the stick stabbed into the ground so fast I didn’t see it leaving his fingers. His demand was barely audible but scarier for the low register.

“Don’t touch her.”

Abruptly, the air stank of fur.

Just like that, the mood soured. Firelight reflected off of wolves in both Tank’s and Ryder’s eyes now. We appeared to be seconds away from a lupine explosion.

I considered calling for Lupe but hesitated. Clara was unaware of the existence of werewolves while my sister had only heard about—never seen—our dark side. If I called in reinforcements, were Ryder and Tank more or less likely to go wolf?

“What’s your problem?” Ryder’s dark eyebrows lowered into a ridge of shadow. “She’s just a kid.”

“Yeah.” Kira was the one who broke the tension. Scrambling out of Ryder’s hold—looser now—she pressed up on tiptoes so she could kiss Tank’s cheek. “Use your nose, you big goof.”

“Your nose?” Clara asked. She and Harper were both wide-eyed, but for very different reasons. Clara was trying to figure out what was going on. Harper, I suspected, was shell-shocked by memories of Nick.

Not that her father had a wolf inside him. But he liked to fight. Boy did he like to fight.

And...Tank didn’t. He inhaled once, long and slow. Then the sharp bite of electricity faded. “My mistake.” He dipped his chin, acknowledging his error.

Ryder, to my surprise, didn’t push the issue. Instead, he was graceful in victory. “Apology accepted.”

“Who wants to learn to juggle?” Kira asked, as if we hadn’t barely evaded a wolf fight.

“Ooh, me!” Clara clapped her hands.

And, just like that, danger dissipated into the night.

WELL, THE DANGER HAD dissipated, but my sister was still edgy. She reached for her marshmallow then winced as Tank’s hand landed in the exact same spot.

“Sorry,” my sister began, yanking her fingers away as if the fire had reached out and burned them.

“Let me tell you something I learned during my first year as a lawyer,” Tank murmured, body unmoving as if Harper was a stray dog as likely to bite as to flee from him. “Never apologize when you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Sor—” my sister started, only to catch herself before she could spit out the word a second time.

Tank shrugged. “And ask for what you want. You want the marshmallow, or you want me to finish roasting it?”

“I—” Harper’s eyes slid sideways, seeking escape. But Tank just sat there, still and silent. And eventually she cleared her throat and spat out a complete sentence. “If you want, you can finish browning it for me.”

“Is that what you want?”

This time, Harper didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

So he reached forward slowly, gently, then twirled the roasting stick by infinitesimal fractions between strong fingers. Beside us, Clara and Kira dropped marshmallows onto the ground while trying to juggle, their laughter easy and infectious. Butch suggested they move closer to the firelight. Ryder made snarky comments that managed not to sting.

And Harper engaged, ever so gradually, with the roaster of her marshmallow. “What’s it like being a lawyer?” she asked, voice so quiet Tank could have pretended not to hear her.

But he didn’t ignore her. Instead, he answered the same way he would have answered an adult. “It’s empowering. Knowing the law lets you