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Fifteen
Charlie
* * *
Charlie sat in the busy breakfast café, her knee impatiently bouncing up and down. The savoury smells coming from the kitchen were delightful but she was too nervous to be hungry.
She continued scanning the entrance for Eve while her coffee grew cold. She didn’t know what was stressing her more, the possibility that Eve was her mate, wasn’t, or was and having to tell everyone about them.
There was a good reason why she’d kept it quiet from Jack all this time and she was fairly certain her involvement with his sister would drive a wedge in their friendship. If Eve turned out to be her fated mate, Charlie would do it though. She wasn’t going to keep something so important a secret.
The bell above the door rang and Charlie sat up, relieved to find Eve entering the café. She wore a sensible blouse with long sleeves that covered up her skin and any potential mating marks.
Charlie waved, the flutters in her stomach far from settling down. It wasn’t every day she might discover whether someone was her fated mate or not.
Eve’s smile lifted in recognition and she came over to the table.
It dawned on Charlie that this was the first time they’d agreed to meet up in public and she had no clue how to greet Eve. She stood up for a hug which turned into an awkward kiss on her jaw.
“Guess that’s something we might have to work on,” Eve said as she sat down in the opposite chair.
Charlie knew the other woman well enough by now that she could tell that Eve was nervous too. It was the slightly higher pitch of her voice, the way she avoided eye contact, the fiddling with her earrings.
It took her a moment to properly register Eve’s sentence.
“Might?” Charlie echoed, the implications sinking in. “Does that mean you have a mating mark?”
“Right to the point, huh? I don’t even get a cup of coffee first?” Eve’s attempt at a joke fell flat as she didn’t smile herself. “But, umm, yeah. I woke up with a mating mark.”
Charlie’s chest tightened. “Is it mine?”
Eve’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “How would I know? I don’t know what your shifter mark looks like.”
“Right… We don’t actually know each other that well, do we?” Charlie remarked as she thought back to the time they did spend together. There’d been good conversations, playful interactions, and steamy moments. It was definitely a healthy start to a relationship, but start was the keyword.
“No, we don’t.” Eve sounded just as uncertain and worried. “But if this mating mark is yours, then I hope we can keep figuring each other out.”
“I’d like that,” Charlie replied as she fiddled with her coffee cup. “And what if it’s not my mating mark?”
Eve’s gaze locked onto a spot over Charlie’s shoulder. “Then I probably should’ve gone to the meet & greet at the Crescent Lake hotel.”
The real meaning of her quip wasn’t hard to decipher. If they weren’t fated mates, this was over. It was a shitty ending to something beautiful and fun but Charlie didn’t see the point in continuing either. The knowledge that they weren’t fated would always sit between them like a splinter in a wound, never letting it fully heal. They would always wonder and worry what was out there, whether they shouldn’t have settled.
That was no way to live, no way to love.
“How do you want to do this?” Charlie asked. “Do you want me to show you my bear mark or do you want to go first?”
“Depends. I’m going to assume your mark is in a pretty intimate place because I didn’t see it even when you were wearing your bikini.” Eve rubbed her arm, slightly displacing her sleeve. “Mine is right here.”
“Maybe we should’ve done this in private after all,” Charlie said, wondering why they hadn’t thought of that last night. Doing it in public was supposed to lessen the pressure but nothing could change what a pivotal moment this was.
Eve shook her head and almost impulsively pulled her sleeve up. “No, there. Bandaid. Off.”
Charlie stared, her heartbeat deafening between her ears. The turquoise pattern on Eve’s forearm had the typical rounded rectangular lines that all bear marks had and swirled with confidence over her skin like it had been there forever.
“Well?” Eve prompted.
“I think that I’ll be showing you the mark in my intimate place soon,” Charlie said slowly, still processing the new information.
