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It was all very sweet and charming but entirely unnecessary. I hadn’t taken the arm he had offered me on the way to his car, and even now, several minutes into the drive to the restaurant, I wasn’t exactly sure how to break the silence between us. A big part of me longed for the drive I had taken with Randy from the airport. That car ride felt like it was years ago. Had it really only been a few hours?
Gabe’s hand flexed where it rested on the gearshift, drawing my attention to it. I could almost hear his thoughts, the ones telling him to reach over and stroke my exposed upper thigh.
Damn Mariam and her endless supply of scandalous dresses, I thought.Damn me for not having anything fancy enough to wear and agreeing to try this one on.
I wouldn’t have known what to do if he actually tried to touch me (scream, pull away, hit him? Or maybe melt a little and savor the contact of another person? Or would that be crossing a line?), so it was good that his hands remained firmly where they were.
“So….” I cringed.Real smooth, Ella.“Where are we going to eat? Is it far?”
Those were reasonable questions and safe territory. It didn’t give him any weird hope that this was going to work out, which was my biggest fear at the moment.
My stomach rumbled loudly in agreement, and I wantedto die right then, at that specific moment. Gabe glanced at me apologetically and returned his attention back to the road. We had been traveling for about a half-hour already.
“Geez, I’m sorry, Ella,” he said. “I didn’t even think about how late it was getting. I wanted to take you somewhere special, and we don’t have any fancy restaurants in Tumblewild. We’re still a little way out from Flagstaff. Should we turn around and go to the diner instead? I have a reservation, but I can—“
“No, it’s fine. This is fine,” I said, cutting him off. If I was going to let Gabe down easy and not cause a rift between him and Mariam, I wasn’t going to be a fussy date, too. I searched my mind for something -anything- else to say to keep the conversation going. “You’ve, um, gone there before on a date?”
You’d have thought I’d accused him of murdering a dozen puppies, the way he looked at me.
“Of course not! Ella, there’s no one else. There has never been anyone else. I’ve been waiting for you.” His hand moved now, but not toward me. Instead, he gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Has there been anyone else? You know, that you’ve… dated?”
He spat the last word out like it was poison. When I didn’t answer immediately, Gabe shifted in his seat, clearly more uncomfortable with the silence now than he was earlier. I looked out the window and felt the slightest hint of a smile on my lips. If having former boyfriends upset Gabe this much, I may have just found a way to make him a lot less interested in pursuing anything with me.
The restaurant was gorgeous. I had never been to anything nearly as fancy as the steakhouse I was sitting in.When the waiter asked about wine, Gabe looked at me to answer, and he seemed happy when I declined a glass. The moment was important somehow. Like it was a test, and I had passed. But I hadn’t turned down the wine to pass some stupid test; I had never tasted alcohol and had no interest in starting now. I was especially thankful for that on a night like this, where having my wits about me was all the more critical.
Around us were humans on dates with a partner. Probably some of them were enjoying a night out with their spouses. I wrinkled my nose at the cold, impersonal word humans use to describe their chosen mates. They would never experience the magic of a true mate connection as they weren’t shifters, but at least they could find another person to share their lives with. Maybe my love story would end up that way, too.
Gabe frowned at my reaction, misinterpreting my thoughts. “Is your steak okay?”
“What? Oh, yeah… it’s great. Everything’s great, Gabe. It was kind of you to take me here tonight.” I brought my napkin to my mouth before folding it and setting it back on my lap, a nervous fidget. I steeled myself, ready to go in for the kill. “It reminds me of a place I went with this other male I was seeing.”
That did the trick. If I wasn’t paying attention, I would have missed it, but nope— the muscles in Gabe’s neck tightened ever so slightly, and he swallowed a little too hard.
“I see,” he replied, trying and failing to sound casual. “Was it serious, you with this other male?”
I chewed on my lip, and my werewolf growled awarning to me. Ignoring her for the thousandth time that day, I answered with a response I hoped sounded off-handed and casual. “Yes, I guess it was. We considered becoming chosen mates.”
He gave a short nod and turned back to his plate. He pushed the food around with his fork before abandoning it entirely and leaning back to look me in the eye.
“Was it just that one other guy, then? Anyone else I should know about?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, there were a few others. Patrick, Lance, Jason…” I started listing off the male werewolves Mariam had told me about, the ones she had been seeing before meeting Trace. The fact that I was claiming any of them was hilarious, considering that I, too, had been waiting for my true mate and had never so much as dipped my toes into the dating pool.
The shadow across Gabe’s face changed. It didn’t go away, but it turned into something different. Something unreadable.
Without another word, he reached into his wallet and withdrew a few hundred-dollar bills. He pushed away from the table and gestured for me to follow him. I raised my eyebrows but complied.That was easier than I thought it would be.
My wolf shook with rage or maybe fear. She could tell that the male werewolf was really pissed off, and it made her uncomfortable.You should not have lied to our mate, she accused.
I did it for us, so we could put all this nonsense to rest, go to the mating ceremony, and go back home.There wasn’t really a way to explain this to her. Her instincts prevented her fromseeing the situation from my perspective.
The she-wolf paced with nervous energy in the back of my mind. I could feel her contemplating forcing a shift, but I would shut that down fast. No matter how upset she was, we couldn’t start sprouting fur and a snout in the parking lot of a human restaurant.
Back in the car, Gabe took a few deep breaths before starting the engine. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, and for the first time, I didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with forced conversation. Instead, I watched the stars above as we drove in the silent darkness, counting as many as I could in the warm Arizona sky. I gasped aloud as one took off. A shooting star, on tonight of all nights.
“What did you wish for?”
The soft-spoken question coming from the driver’s seat startled me. What would I wish for? Before today, that answer would have been simple. I would have wished for my true mate to show up and for my life, myreallife, to finally begin. But now, I was tempted to wish for the exact opposite. I wanted things to go back to the way they were.
