Page 14 of UNAwere

‘Stay by me,’ he says, his voice low.

‘What are you gonna eat?’ I ask, following him inside.

A lady in a green dress and white apron greets us with a wide smile. Briggs asks for a table, and she ushers us to one, pouring us mugs of coffee from the decanter she holds. She gives us menus and then leaves us to peruse.

I scan the options.

‘Pancakes sound so good,’ I say, moaning. ‘Don’t they?’

Briggs adjusts himself on his side of the booth, not saying anything. His face is covered by his menu, and all I can see are the sunglasses on top of his head. I look back at my menu, humming.

‘Oh! Waffles! Even better.’

When the woman comes back over, she takes our orders. I get the waffles and smile when Briggs orders them, too.

‘You’re a fan of waffles?’ I ask.

He takes a sip of his coffee, using it as an excuse not to answer me.

‘So, how long have you been doing this job, Briggsy?’

He sets his mug down, nostrils flaring. He has big nostrils. A big nose. It’s crooked, like it’s been broken before. But it suits his face, and I feel like any other nose on him would look wrong. Misplaced. For the first time in my life, I wonder what his wolf form looks like, and it surprises me. I’ve never wondered that about any Were I’ve met. But this man… He’s all wolf.

My eyes go to his hands, which are sitting on the table, close to his knife and fork, as if he’s readying himself to use them in a fight. They’re big. Calloused. The tops of them sprinkled with dark hair. I trail my gaze up his arms, thick and hairy, from where he’s rolled his shirt’s sleeves to his elbows. There’s a big scar on his right forearm, raised and twisted.

‘Where’d you get your scars?’ I ask, curious.

‘Fighting,’ is all he says.

‘The one on your face?’ I draw a line down the side of mine to mimic the one I’m talking about.

‘Yup.’

My brows quirk. ‘Karvers?’

‘Father.’

‘Oh…’ I hadn’t expected that. I want to ask what happened, but I have a feeling that would be a little too close to prying. So, I go back to taking him in.

‘Everything about you is just… big,’ I say after a moment.

Briggs’s gaze snaps to my face.

‘Oh. I wasn’t meant to say that out loud.’ I bite down on my tongue, feeling my cheeks heat. ‘Sometimes I talk so much that I forget people can hear me when I do.’

He lets out a soft sound, something close to a snort.

Before I can try to think of something else to say, to turn his attention away from the fact that I just called him “big”, our food comes. I start to eat, keeping my head down. I’m surprised that Briggs has the same effect on me that Drew had. I guess it doesn’t help that I’m a woman in my thirties and the last time I even kissed a man was five or so years ago.

That had been a time. I’d succumbed to the pressures of trying to mother my fourteen-year-old sister. She’d been getting bullied at school, and I’d started smoking from the stress of trying to get her through it, while also working and managing Nolan’s affairs while he’d been away. The smoking had led to going to bars. And the bars had led to a couple of one-night stands, where I was drunk enough to ignore the fact that I’m not sexually attracted to men unless I feel close to them. And I don’t really ever feel close to men.

‘You should eat before they get cold.’ Briggs’s voice snaps me from my thoughts.

‘Oh. Thanks.’

‘You alright?’ He doesn’t sound concerned. Only obligated to ask me.

‘Fine.’ I cut into the waffles, which are dripping in maple syrup and surrounded by strawberries and scoops of ice cream. I moan when I take my first bite, and Briggs’s eyes scoot away from my face. He swallows hard, clearing his throat. ‘These are so good.’ I look at his plate, seeing he’s already eaten half of his. ‘How good would Nutella be with them, though? Heck, I love Nutella. My sister once bought me a one-kilogram jar, and I ate the entire thing in like three days with a spoon.’ I sniff, remembering how that ended up. ‘I didn’t feel very well for about a week after. Probably TMI, but woof, did that go straight through me.’