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Caleb offers me a sincere smile. "Don't worry about it. Seriously. It's not like we've got much else to do right now. We might as well talk about these things."
I raise an eyebrow at him. He's more down to earth than I expected. Most urban omegas I've met have been flighty, clingy, and more than a little helpless. I'm still not thrilled that I've been forced into this situation but, so far at least, it doesn't seem so bad.
7
CALEB
I've never really enjoyed camping. Roughing it in the woods with no power or plumbing is not my idea of fun. Maybe I'm spoiled because I grew up in town with all the amenities, but I'm doing my best to stay positive.
Let me just say, it's not easy.
Jordan lit the lanterns once it started to get dark outside. The cheery orange glow is pleasant, but it's not enough to ward off the chill from the night air. The only way to stay warm is to sit on the bed with my back to the wall and a blanket wrapped around my shoulders.
"Alright, here we go." Jordan enters the room with a load of firewood in his arms. "We'll get this place warmed up in no time. Then we can heat up some dinner." He heads to the woodstove and dutifully starts building a fire.
"How long will it take to heat up?" I ask as I wrap another blanket around myself.
"Not too long." He throws another log into the stove. "Once we get the stove going, all we need to do is keep feeding it wood and it'll keep the cabin nice and warm."
I nod and try to keep my teeth from chattering. "That's good to hear."
He puts the final log in and reaches for the poker, pushing the logs closer to the flames before he latches the stove door closed. Within a few moments, the flickering orange light in the glass window of the stove casts dancing shadows across the walls of the cabin.
"Alright, let's see if we can get some food going." He reaches for the cooler chest under the table beside the stove. "My mom sent us some homemade chicken soup that we just need to heat up."
"Homemade?" I chuckle. "Is she really that good at cooking?"
"She's amazing." Jordan grins. "I don't think I've ever tasted any food better than my mom's."
"Wow, really?"
"Well, I'm not exactly impartial, but yeah. She's the best."
"I guess I've got big shoes to fill," I muse absently as I watch him work. I'm not much of a cook. I'm decent enough and have prepared Christmas dinner without burning down the house, but I've never tried to cook anything on a wood stove before.
"Until we get the place hooked up to power, we can do most of our cooking at my parents' place," Jordan explains as if sensing my thoughts.
"Are you sure? I don't want to intrude on your parents."
"Mom's overjoyed at the idea, apparently." Jordan looks back at me as he slowly stirs the soup pot on the stove. "She's more excited about the idea of her son getting a mate than I am."
We spent most of the afternoon talking about our lives, trying to get to know one another. We'd agreed that we were going to make the best of this situation, even though neither of us was particularly thrilled about it.
I've grown up knowing I was destined to be mated to an alpha someday. I think I always knew I'd wind up being matched by the registry too, even though I tried to pretend that wasn't the case. So maybe I've just had more time to get used to the idea. Jordan, on the other hand, is still completely resistant to the arranged aspect of our mating.
Not that he's been rude about it. But he's made it clear that he's only going along with this because he's being forced to. He's not actually interested in trying to advance our relationship to anything more than casual roommates.
After dinner, we settle on the floor by the woodstove with a couple of beers and start talking about our childhoods. I tell him about growing up in my parents' pack and how strict my mother was. My young life was always tightly structured.
"That's a bit different from my upbringing." He chuckles and takes a drink of his beer. "Growing up in my family was pretty much like living in the wild. At least until I was old enough to go to school."
"School? Like...a government school?" I'm surprised he had a school in such a remote area.
"No, not quite." Jordan shakes his head. "There's a small school in one of the outlying towns that's run by a neighboring pack. All the shifter kids in the area go there to learn stuff they need to pass state tests. Legally, we're considered home schooled, but it's more structured than that."
"That must've been nice, though." I lean back and look up at the rafters overhead. "Public school was so stressful. I had to be so careful all the time."
Jordan takes another sip from his beer as he scoots closer to me on the floor. "Yeah, I guess it was nice. My mom used to tell me I needed to be extra polite to everyone. Don't talk back, don't fight, set a good example, all that stuff. And she always stressed the importance of learning how to read and write, even though I didn't see the point back then."
