I could feel my brother staring at me from where he was sitting at the table. I had just finished breakfast and was already packing up my stuff into a large basket Mom had let me borrow for all the supplies I need. There were handles on the sides which made it easier to carry.

Raising a brow, I kept adjusting all the paints around to fit better in the basket and directed to my older brother, “I can tell you want to say something, Wade. You might as well get it out now before he gets here.”

Sure enough, my older brother had something to say.

Wade growled out his disapproval of my going to the Square with Ridge. Alone. He made it further clear he disapproved of my decision to let Ridge into my life after what he put me through.

I sighed, running my hand down my ponytail. My hair was pretty heavy so already my ponytail was drooping.

Turning away from the basket to face Wade, I crossed my arms. I mirrored his defensive posture. He was leaned back in his chair, slouching a little and giving me a hard look.

The rest of my family was out and about.

My dad was with the alpha and Sawyer, sorting some arrangements with Alpha Hannibal. My sister was out with Mom looking for something to wear at the end of the week. And Cody… well, Cody had scampered off the moment Mark showed up and was already out the door when he shouted at us that Cody would be going swimming with his friends.

Wade was left behind, upon instruction by our dad, to ensure someone was around when Ridge picked me up.

Dad wasn’t too thrilled either about my decision to spend time with Ridge—outside what the alpha requested. Dad asked multiple times throughout dinner last night if I was sure I wanted to do this.

I think Mom could tell that I was getting bothered with the constant asking because she gently touched Dad’s arm and told him to trust that I knew what I was doing.

Dad simmered though he had to get the last word in of making sure my older brother was here when Ridge showed up. I rolled my eyes, grinning that my dad was such a dad.

My dad huffed, grunting under his breath as he was scooping a forkful of spaghetti, “Damn alpha male and his good looks…”

I know it was still raw about my mate situation and despite Ridge not knowing what he’d been manipulated into with Molly, Dad and my older brother were still holding it against Ridge that he’d deliberately rejected me because he had already found his mate.

Cece glanced at me, grinning as she squeezed my hand and assured me that everything would work out somehow. She did admit she was worried like the rest of my family but my sister believed I would make the right decisions in such a delicate manner as a romance. I appreciated her faith in me.

So my brother was taking his “duty” quite seriously. He had strolled in after finishing breakfast and pulled a chair to the middle of the dining area—right in eye-line of the door. He stretched his legs out and crossed his arms. Wade’s been sitting like this for the past fifteen minutes.

“Wade…” I dragged out, frowning as I dropped my arms to my sides. Chewing my lip, I mumbled out loud that I was already nervous about my decision to see how things with Ridge went.

“It doesn’t help at all when you are so angry with him and making me feel like I’m doing something wrong.”

I stared at my brother whose hard look faltered. His gaze stared back, his brows furrowed and then sat up. He sighed, resting his elbows on his knees then lifted his head to look at me again. I just stood there, feeling antsy because I was now wondering if this was such a great idea after all.

Wade got up, walking over and tugged me into his chest. I wrapped my arms around my brother and felt him sigh. He rested his head against mine, shaking it as he apologized for making me feel like I did. He didn’t mean to, Wade said, but it was the Big Brother in him that wanted to defend his baby sister who had been hurt in the worst way possible in our culture.

I grinned, snuggling more against him. I muttered into his shirt what a wonderful big brother he was.

Wade laughed, muttering, “Damn right, Gigi.” and I laughed, nudging him before pulling back.

Wade ran a hand back over his hair, pursing his mouth to the side and insisted on helping fill the basket. He let me know that he’d ease up on the Ridge situation for my sake. He added, however, that if Ridge stepped a toe out of line again—manipulated or not—Wade had every right to bash the guy’s head in.

I stopped putting my brushes into the basket, giving my brother a pointed look. Wade grinned, shrugging.

The sound of an engine cutting off made Wade go over to peer through the window. He grumbled that he saw Ridge’s truck parking. He let the curtain fall, narrowing his eyes and returned to help me finish packing the basket.

When Ridge knocked, Wade got the door. He insisted. I wasn’t going to argue. Wade said he was going to keep his cool and that’s all I could ask of him.

My brother’s “business” look was on when he opened the door. He stared at the person standing outside and then greeted, “Beta.” which was replied with, “Hey, Wade.”

After a moment of being stared down, Ridge cleared his throat and asked, “Is Gianna ready?”

Wade stared at Ridge still. His eyes narrowing and I dumped the rest of my stuff into the basket, not bothering to organize it. I hugged the basket to me, scurrying to the door and announced, “I’m here!” while discreetly nudging my brother aside. I gave Wade a look again and my brother rolled his eyes.

Ridge grinned, nodding, “Let me get that,” and reached for the basket. He held it so easily even though it felt like a ton to me.

I turned to my brother, raising my brows and told him I’d be back tonight. Wade mentioned that Dad gave me a curfew of nine o’clock. His gaze switched over my head to the Beta, repeating it for him.

“We expect Gigi back at nine o’clock, Beta. Sharp.”

I looked over my shoulder at Ridge whose eyes narrowed a bit at my brother. He obviously picked up the stern tone in my brother but decided not to acknowledge it. Or at least I thought he wasn’t until Ridge’s green eyes switched to the gold of his wolf. Those eyes shimmered at my brother, his teeth grit when Ridge growled out, “I heard the first time.”

Glancing back and forth between the two males, I decided that was enough testosterone for the time being. I whipped around, kissing my brother’s cheek and bid him goodbye before shoving Ridge to turn around and followed him off the porch. He didn’t look behind him when I waved goodbye to my brother.

It was a tense walk to the truck and I decided to give Ridge a moment. Alphas tended to be more hot-headed than average pack members. Warriors were up there but we had practice in keeping our tempers in line. Most of the time, anyway.

Ridge opened the bed of the truck with one hand, placing the basket into the bed and sliding it further back before shutting the tail. There was other materials I’d need to cover the floor from getting paint on it. His hands gripped tightly to the metal and I stood by him as Ridge stared straight ahead. He was taking deep breaths.

When he composed himself, shutting his eyes, Ridge muttered an apology for being so tense. The Beta looked behind him at my house. He narrowed his eyes, gritting his teeth and mumbled that he knew my family was well-aware of our situation but that even if it was well-deserved, Ridge had a hard time taking the biting tones and looks.

I slowly nodded, understanding that this was his alpha blood talking. While trying to act decent because of what I was put through, Ridge’s alpha male side wanted to show Wade who was more dominant.

Ridge’s biceps and forearms shook with the tension, his gaze still looking behind me. I let out a small breath, reaching up and placing my hand on his arm. Ridge’s gaze dropped to mine. I tilted my head, my brows furrowed as I told Ridge to remember this wasn’t about my brother… my parents… or even Molly.

“This is about you and me, remember?” I raised my brows. “We have to forget everyone else if this is going to work. They might not understand why we are wanting to be friends but that’s okay.”

I noticed my hand was still on his arm and immediately retracted it back to my side. A warm flush rising to my face. I tucked my hair behind my ears, swallowing hard and weakly smiled at him.

“Are—Are you okay now?” I asked quietly.

The Beta was still looking at me. That green hue of his focused on me and darkened a little. I reeled my lips in, waiting for him to say something though the silence was making me fidget.

Ridge finally shut his eyes, bowing his head behind his arm and nodded that I was right. He muttered how it was just a little annoying to deal with the looks my brother was giving him. I nodded, not able to provide anything that would amend for Wade’s glaring. I mean, if not my brother then my dad would be doing it instead.

“Let’s go,” Ridge sighed, walking around to my side and opening the door. I glanced at him, lowering a brow before climbing into my seat. He shut the door for me then went around to his side.

I made small talk to distract Ridge from the bristled waves coming off him. It worked when I asked him if he thought blue and purple were a good gradient combo, or red and orange. Ridge’s face scrunched in concentration. He hummed, looking out the windshield and shook his head that he kind of liked both. I laughed, scolding that that wasn’t the answer I was looking for.

He shrugged, a grin tugging at his lip. “I think they are both great. What are they going to be used for is probably the better way to figure out which one is better.”

I mentioned I wanted to coat the walls of the square with one of those gradients but I wasn’t sure which would be a better fit with the rest of the mural.

“Can I see what you have?” Ridge prodded, he gave a small nod to the two guards letting us out the pack gates.

“Sure,” I replied, reaching into my messenger bag to pull out the sketchbook I was using for brainstorming.

Ridge glanced at the papers sticking out of the sketchbook and he blanched. “Holy shit, Gianna! How many sketches do you have?!”

The sketchbook in my lap was thick but there were torn out pages sticking out and I could understand his surprise. I blushed, raising my shoulders as I peered over at Ridge. My nose scrunched as I replied there were maybe thirty.

“Thirty?!” Ridge laughed, shaking his head. “You’re something else, you know that?”

I glanced to the side, pursing my mouth and nodded in silent agreement. I got told that quite often by my family.

We discussed some of my favorite sketches and Ridge put his two cents in about what were the larger scale pieces of the mural I definitely wanted in the square. He reasoned that getting all the bigger stuff out of the way left room for smaller drawings when I filled in the negative space.

My head whipped around, eyes wide and my jaw almost dropped to the floor of the truck. I craned my neck forward at the Beta who glanced at me then did a double take.

His brows furrowed a little. “What…?” he squinted at me.

I couldn’t help the small intrigue rising in me, making me smile.

“Ridge… How do you know about negative space?”

Ridge’s brows rose, staring out the window then he wore a smug grin as he told me that perhaps he was reading up on some ‘Art lingo’ the night before. He said he wanted to at least understand ‘my world’ and it was just a bonus if he could impress me.

The Beta peeked my way, raising a brow as he asked, “Did it work?”

I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. I bit my lip, facing the window and couldn’t stop smiling. Tucking my hair behind my ear, I slowly nodded that it worked. A little. I glanced at him, pointing out though that speaking “Art” to me wasn’t going to win me over.

“But it’s a start,” I commended with a short shrug of my shoulder.

I could see him grinning from the corner of my eye as he chuckled, “Challenge accepted.”

.დ.❧

The first day of working on the mural in the square consisted of a lot of measuring, painter’s tape, and finally painting the base coat. Ridge was the one to help me measure everything because, let’s be honest here, I am not the greatest in math or anything pertaining to it. Ergo, I handed the heavy measuring tape to Ridge instead. He complied, giving me a weird look when I admitted that I couldn’t read the measurements very well.

He marked each width in pencil, providing the measurements in tiny numbers. This was done for the entire square. It made it easier for me to spread out the sketches I made the night before and figure out which page went where.

Ridge helped by taping my suggested pages to each wall. Then he rolled out transparent plastic for when I started painting the two coats of base paint. I handed Ridge a brush to help me. He just stared at the brush in his hand and then the wall before looking back at me. He warned that if it came out ‘crappy’ it was my fault.

Chuckling, I assured Ridge it was a ‘base coat’ and it was hard to screw up. I did have to stand next to him, holding my hand behind his to show him how to make the brush strokes on the wall. When his green eyes glanced my way, our hands halted the paint strokes and I could feel my face heat up the longer we stared at one another. I offered a small tight-lipped smile then slowly backed away.

Tucking my hair behind my ear, I nodded at the wall. “I think—think you got the hang of it now.”

It was awkward for me but I made sure to do my work of base coat painting on the far wall just to give me a chance to catch my breath.

As the Alpha predicted, there were already some townspeople and pack members looking into the square entryway and I was glad the alpha assigned Ridge to keep them at bay. He did a good job of blocking the doorway and announcing that this area was closed for the week.

Three hours in—with the base coating done and my sitting around to start sketching out the mural—I was almost done with the first wall of the Square.

There was a lot of detail to go into everything but that would be taken care of when I painted. For now, I was just sketching out what I had on the pages. It still took a while because of how much I had crammed in. I tended to forget the scaling was going to be more difficult.

There were moments when I asked Ridge his opinion on the wall sketch and he’d tilt his head one way and then the other. His eyes squinted, taking it all in as he backed away for a better view. The way he studied the wall made me feel excited yet nervous all at once. I’ve never seen someone look at my artwork so intensely before. And I noticed that he did this with the tree in my room too.

We took a break shortly after the first wall of the Square had been completely sketched out. Ridge and I sat in the center of the Square on a blanket he’d brought along for us to sit on.

We stared at the wall, chewing on the simple lunch Ridge’s mother packed for us. It was awfully sweet of her. And she was as good of a cook as Dad. Well, almost. I might be biased because I love Dad’s cooking.

Taking another forkful of macaroni salad, I nodded that if I kept up the sketching as I did today, I might be able to finish the two other walls by Wednesday. Then I would be able to start actually painting everything Thursday and Friday.

“It’ll be done by Saturday morning. Afternoon, the latest. Just in time for the party.”

Ridge hummed, biting into the peach he pulled from the basket between us. He finished his container of Macaroni salad in, like, three bites. I’m being dramatic, of course. But you understand that the man basically inhaled his food.

“This is going to look great, Gianna.” Ridge stared at the wall, looking from one side to the next. “Everyone’s going to love it.” He looked at me and smiled.

That warm fuzzy feeling filled my chest and it made my coy shell take over. I averted my eyes to the salad I was eating, stuffing my mouth with another hefty forkful and then glanced at Ridge, smiling without opening my mouth. I figured it was smarter to not say something stupid.

Ridge seemed to notice my behavior and he grinned, raising a brow. He pointed out that I wasn’t one to take compliments very well. A chuckle came out as he took another bite of his peach, muttering under his breath that I couldn’t take a compliment and Molly couldn’t get enough of them.

The air stiffened at that moment. I think he realized what he said and instantly straightened, looking at me. I could feel his wide-eyed stare as I kept my gaze on the container in my lap.

“Gianna… I didn’t mean…”

I shook my head, putting on a small smile. I shrugged that it was OK. That… That it was something I wasn’t going to give him a hard time about. It was reminded that he’d been with Molly for a long time and even though they weren’t together, it would take time for Ridge to just move on. If he even did.

Perhaps I was a little bitter with that last part.

I suddenly lost my appetite and placed the container down after covering it with the lid. I placed it back into the basket and stood up.

“Gianna…”

Ridge was getting up and I kept moving forward, kneeling by the wall to pretend to inspect my work. He was behind me now, I sensed him. He moved to the side, kneeling next to me.

“It’s OK, Ridge. It really—”

“No, it’s not.”

Ridge made me look at him with the growl he spoke with. I frowned, studying the irritation on his face. Ridge let out a long breath, frowning as he grumbled how I might be right about Ridge mentioning Molly was because of his past relationship with her but that was something he wanted to avoid doing from this day on.

“You said the point of us attempting to be friends involves only you and me, right?” Ridge lowered a brow, waiting for my reply.

I just nodded.

Ridge nodded then sighed, “So then stop saying it’s OK I mention her. It’s not, Gianna. It isn’t fair to you especially but to either of us if I bring her into what we are trying to mend. That she broke anyway.”

The tall Were groaned, sitting on his backside and pulled his knees up to rest his arms. He covered his face with his hands, raking his fingers through the front of his hair. Ridge groaned again, now reclining til he was on his back, looking up at the open sky above us.

The tarp covering that protected the Square during the rainy seasons was removed for the time being so the bright blue sky was our ceiling.

I peered at him over my shoulder, Ridge still staring up. He sighed, taking a second and then mumbled, “Maybe I was stupid to try this. I messed up the first time of getting to know you and now I’m doing it all over again!”

Ridge scoffed, shaking his head, “What a crappy Do-Over.”

I faced forward.

There was so much hurt I felt for Ridge at that moment because things between us weren’t the greatest before. This time around though, I can honestly say that Ridge was trying. He was really wanting for us to have this friendship work and the guilt he had was only working its way into everything. Looking upward, I mentally told myself that Ridge wasn’t the only one who wanted this friendship to work.

I scooted back a little, lying backward until laying down beside Ridge. From the corner of my eye, he had his eyes closed. I placed my hands on my stomach, clasping them together and crossed my ankles.

Squinting at the pure blue sky that was a few shades darker than my real wolf eyes, I pondered what to say to Ridge that would show him he needed to be able to ‘let things go’ to make this thing between us work. Just as I had to ‘let things go’ too.

“You’re not stupid, Ridge.”

I saw his eyes open, turning his head a little. But I kept focus on the sky.

“You were in a eight year relationship,” I told him. “Things between you and her aren’t going to disappear over night. That’s not how it works. At least from what I’ve noticed between my parents… and other mated couples.”

I squinted more.

“I think you might be too hard on yourself about this whole idea of yours.”

This time I tilted my head to meet his green gaze.

“I can see you are trying. You are wanting to make this work. But the first moment that you feel you mess up and you instantly start scolding yourself.”

I sighed, shrugging a shoulder and pursed my mouth to the side. I mentioned that it didn’t help I made that guilt of his worse by showing how hurt or awkward I feel about the whole thing. I told Ridge that I was just as bad at this as he was. He squinted at me and I grinned a little, saying how he was trying to not feel guilty and I was making him feel that way anyway when I get awkward.

I looked up at the sky again, taking in a long breath and let it out slow. I could smell the bakery that was about a block from the Square cranking out a new batch of treats.

Shutting my eyes, I hummed at that delicious smell. It soothed me as I continued reassuring Ridge that he couldn’t be the only one putting effort into this newly established friendship. That I had to put just as much effort.

I peeked an eye at him, raising a brow and teased, “But if you compare and contrast Molly and me again, then yes, that does make you stupid.”

It seemed to work as I saw the corner of his lip tug up into a grin. I smiled back at him.

We faced the “ceiling” again, listening to the wind blow through the trees, making the leaves flutter. Ridge mumbled that he loved that sound and it was why he’d go into the forest every now and then when he wasn’t on Alpha-Beta duty.

“I can sit there and listen to the wind in the trees all day if I could.”

A small hum of agreement escaped me. My eyes shut and I sighed, “It’s like music.”

I felt him look at me and I kept my eyes shut as I tried to tight-lip my smile. When I turned my head to look at him, Ridge lowered a brow, grinning in that way that made my heart skip.

And then Ridge whispered, “You know…” His gaze looked over my face, letting out another small sigh. “If this was eight years ago… I know it wouldn’t have taken me long to fall in love with you.”

I stared at Ridge, brows furrowed. And then I lowered my gaze slightly to where Ridge moved his hand between us.

Biting my lip, I watched my own hand slip out from where it rested on my stomach and laid it next to the Beta’s. Then I stare up at the sky again, swallowing as I slowly moved my hand until the back of it was touching his. Ridge said nothing but said so much in the way he hooked his finger around one of mine. I smiled a little, glancing at him to see he was doing the same up at the “ceiling”.

As I was still sneaking a stare at the Beta, I noted Ridge wasn’t at all bothered by what he said or was doing. Not that I was either. I just wasn’t expecting him to say something like that. But then again, I hardly knew what to expect from Ridge Beaumont. Probably why I had a feeling that if I was denying that I was in love with Ridge already… I wouldn’t be soon.