She walked up to him, stopping with just inches between them, and stared up at him. “Take me out on a date.”
He blinked. “Okay.”
She let out a breathless chuckle. “I mean,hello handsome.And also, we haven’t gone on a date. You’ve come by the coffee shop, we’ve texted, and hung out during the band audition. But you haven’t asked me on a real date. And I don’t mean here at the tavern, I mean somewhere else.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you think I didn’t want to date you. I was just–”
She put up her hand. “Giving me space, and I appreciate that. Don’t apologize. But I’m done needing space, and if you want to, I’d like to go on a date with you.”
“Hell yes.” He took her hand, opened the door and pulled her inside. She laughed and squeezed his hand when he stopped at the bar. “Hey, Dare.”
“Yeah?” His brother was filling a mug with beer.
“I’m going to take off for the night, if you don’t mind?”
Dare looked at him for a moment, then looked at Cass and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got the door, no worries. Have a good night.”
“Thanks.”
Trick led Cass through the tavern and out the back, heading to his house and truck. He opened the door for Cass and she climbed in.
Once he got behind the wheel and pulled away from the house, she said, “So.”
When she didn’t keep speaking, he said, “So what?”
“So I’m your truemate.”
He glanced at her. “You are.”
“And that’s why I feel so connected to you so fast.”
“There’s a supernatural element to things, yes.”
“Are you supposed to ask me to be your mate? Or am I doing it, because I had to ask you about going on a date?”
When he looked at her again, she was grinning.
“You’re making me feel like an ass.”
She leaned over and put her head on his shoulder, linking their fingers. “I’m teasing. But you should definitely ask me important things. Because I’m floundering a bit in this, since it’s all new to me.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Tonight, let’s just get to know each other. No expectations, nothing but you and me and a date that I should have asked you on before.”
“To be fair I might have said no earlier.”
“What changed?”
She was quiet for a moment, then she said in a low voice, “I can’t picture my life without you in it.”
Over dinner at a casual Italian restaurant, they talked about their lives. The easy things like favorite comfort shows, debating the various movie theaters and their popcorn and snack offerings, and even how they spent their spare time, both in their own kind of happy little rut.
When the topic changed to more serious things, she told him about her mom and dad, the childhood that had been framed by unhappy parents staying together out of obligation long after the romance had fizzled. Her sister Lauren, who had an ex and a sour look on love, but an adorable niece named Lucy who wanted to one day meet a dragon. And how abandoned she’d felt when Juliette went all in with Sigh.
“I didn’t really understand it, even after I met you and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Then Lauren got in my head. I was so mean to you on Friday, and I’m sorry. You’re not my dad, and you’re not my ex brother-in-law, you’re you, and I reallylike you.” She told him about talking to her mom, which had prompted her to text him Saturday, and that’s when he’d felt that things had changed between them.
When she asked about his own home life, he fiddled with a breadstick as the past rose up like a wave.
“Our parents were not truemates and only got together to have children. Our mother was from another pack, and our father was very dedicated to the alpha and high ranked in the pack. Our mother didn’t want to raise us, she left us to our father, and eventually she mated someone in her own pack who didn’t want a reminder of her past and that was all the contact we had with her.”
