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“Riven has a lot to work through, and one of those ways is through working out. If he’s not at the gym, he’s doing physical labor,” I explained.
“Hmm,” was all she offered before taking another bite of her food. She groaned as she bit into the bacon. I’d added a little brown sugar while it was cooking.
“Who cooked?” Her brown eyes were full of curiosity. The way she focused on you during conversations made it seem like you were the only two people in the room. Right now, I had the brunt of her focus and it felt so fucking good.
“Me,” I answered with a grin. “Is it good?”
Shaye rolled her eyes but didn’t hide her smile. “From that smile, I think you know it is,” she laughed. “Are you the cook of the pack?”
“Oh, god, yes. You do not want Riven, Micah, or Lake in the kitchen. Unless it’s a quick sandwich or something. I do most of the cooking, but I make them do the prep work sometimes so it’s not all on me.”
“As you should,” she said with a wink. “This is delicious. It’s been a long time since I’ve had some solid home-cooked food. College cafeteria food is not exactly amazing.”
Sometimes it was easy to forget that she was younger than us. She had an old soul vibe about her. The difference was only a few short years but mentions of college while we were running a business felt so strange.
Riven was the oldest at twenty-six, Micah just under him at twenty-five, I was twenty-three, and Lake and Shaye were both twenty-one. It wasn’t exactly an age gap but it felt like our lives had taken us in very different directions.
“You know, I want to know more about you, Shaye. I don’t want to make it too intense. How about we play a game of twenty questions to lighten the mood of it? You ask me a question, then I ask you one.”
She thought it over as she chewed on her toast, finally answering after she swallowed it down with more coffee. Noticing that her cup was almost nearly gone, I got up and made her a fresh mug, pushing it in front of her.
“Alright, you go first,” she said, taking another bite and finishing off her plate.
“What’s your favorite color?”
She let out a surprised laugh. “I was expecting something way more profound than that. “Probably turquoise.”
The color of Everett and Lake’s eyes.
Everything about Shaye was wrapped up in the twins. I couldn’t imagine caring about somebody that deeply, but then again, I’d never had an omega before. I’d never been in love, either.
Just looking at Shaye, being near her, made it seem a lot more possible.
“What’s yours?” she questioned. Her head cocked to the side as she waited, a small smile on her lips.
“It depends on the day,” I answered honestly. “Sometimes it’s green, like the color of leaves in the spring when you walk through a forest. Sometimes it’s blue like the surface of the lake during summer days. Right now, it’s brown,” I said as I met her gaze.
“The color of coffee?” she asked, chuckling to herself as she brought her knees up into her chair and took another sip.
“No, the color of your eyes,” I clarified.
Her cheeks turned a beautiful pink, but she managed to roll her eyes, deflecting again. That seemed to be her go-to, but I wasn’t about to give up.
“Next question,” I said, tapping my chin as I thought it over. “When you were growing up, what was the one place you wanted to visit?”
“That’s easy. My favorite book was this fairy tale retelling ofBeauty and the Beast, and the main girl ran this library. The library was sentient and could choose whatever book you wanted to read at the time. It just read your mood and found one for you. Every time I read it, I could just picture myself spending hours there, reading book after book.”
My eyebrows rose. I wasn’t expecting a fictional answer, but I kind of loved that she wasn’t afraid to be honest. She was one of those genuinely unique people that didn’t try to fit in. She was just herself. I loved that.
Her dream also sounded like my nightmare.
Dyslexia was a bitch. I struggled through school and I hated reading. In fact, my chest tightened just at the thought of it.
I’d spent way too much time being bullied in school to have any fond memories. I was never able to escape to new worlds the way she was.
“What’s your favorite book?” she asked. She must have seen something on my face. Her eyes widened for a beat before she was waving her hand in the air, as if erasing the question completely.
“Okay, different question. Why the forest in the rain? That was oddly specific for a color question.”
