Chapter Eleven #2
“Family usually is.” Something in Quinn’s tone suggested he knew all about complicated families. “Want to sit? Unless you prefer to spend your break standing.”
They claimed a small table by the window, Quinn folding his large frame into a chair that looked child-sized beneath him, smiling at Sasha like he hadn’t just stolen all the oxygen from the café.
“So what brings you to our humble café?” Sasha leaned back, trying for casual. “Besides the promise of time-travel coffee.”
“Would you believe me if I said fate?” Quinn’s eyes crinkled at the corners like he’d just shared an inside joke Sasha wasn’t privy to but secretly wished he was.
“I’d believe you were a smooth talker.” The words came out before Sasha could stop them. So much for playing it cool.
Quinn laughed again, the baritone sound pure honey that did things to Sasha’s equilibrium. “Guilty as charged. But honestly? Just needed to get out of the house. Complicated family.”
“You too, huh?” Sasha glanced out the front window and noticed Marcus was gone, along with whoever he’d been talking to. “Cyril’s is a good choice to take a break.”
“I can see why.” Quinn’s gaze stayed on Sasha. “Good coffee, good atmosphere…good company.”
Which was definitely flirting. Heat crept up Sasha’s neck again. When was the last time someone had looked at him like that? Like he was someone worth smiling at?
Time slipped away like steam from a cup. There was something familiar about Quinn, comfortable in a way that made no sense. Like they’d had this conversation a hundred times before, just in different words.
“I should probably—” Sasha glanced at his phone. His break had ended five minutes ago. “Crap. Cyril’s going to—”
“Here.” Quinn pulled out his phone. “Can I get your number? I’d like to continue this conversation when you have more time.”
Sasha’s thumbs moved across Quinn’s screen, adding his contact info while trying not to overthink it. Just a number. People exchanged numbers all the time. Didn’t mean anything.
“When do you get off work?” Quinn pocketed his phone like he hadn’t just detonated Sasha’s whole emotional landscape.
Sasha could practically hear the crossroad moment, that split-second where saying yes or no would lead down completely different paths.
“Why?” The word came out more cautious than intended, completely forgetting a reason was already given.
Quinn smirked. “Because I’d like to hang out. If you’re interested. No pressure.”
Every rational part of Sasha’s brain screamed that this was too fast, too good to be true. Gorgeous strangers didn’t just walk into coffee shops and ask out baristas with complicated family drama and trust issues.
But something in Sasha’s chest, some stupidly hopeful thing that hadn’t been completely beaten down by disappointment, whispered why not?
“I’m off at three.” The words tasted like possibility. “There’s this food truck parked a few blocks over. Good gyros, better people-watching.”
“It’s a date.” Quinn stood, and for a second, Sasha thought he might… But no. Just a smile and a wave as he headed out the door.
Sasha sat there a moment longer, wondering if he’d imagined Quinn. His pocket buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
Looking forward to three. -Q
Butterflies. Actual butterflies, like he was sixteen again and not twenty-eight with a crappy rental and a couch that probably still smelled like his cousin’s feet.
Standing up to head back to the counter, he caught his reflection in the café window. Same tired eyes, same coffee-stained shirt, but something in his expression had shifted. It was lighter. Or maybe just stupid.
Time would tell which one.
Chapter Two
Sasha’s voice was a melody Quinn couldn’t stop humming as he walked through the front door like a mate-drunk idiot.
The human wasn’t just his mate. He would become the thread running through every moment, binding it all together.
Even Sasha’s smallest gestures, like brushing a strand of hair from his face, had felt monumental.
His mate. Fuck. Quinn had finally found him.
That slender little redhead with glasses he wanted to tear off just so he could kiss him raw, kiss him stupid, kiss him until there was nothing left but breath and need.
Quinn was ruined, and he didn’t care.
“Hey!” He ducked when Newt buzzed past like a neon mosquito hopped up on sugar. “You were supposed to stop at the red light!”
Newt paused mid-flight to stare down at him, blue brows furrowed. “What red light?”
"Newt!”
The fae’s violet eyes widened. “Gotta go!” He shot up the stairs just as Preston stormed out of the kitchen, nostrils flared.
“You ate all the fruit again! I don’t go back to the market for another four days!” he shouted up the stairs. “Vaughn’s replacing them, and not from the grocery store!”
Quinn chuckled as Preston jogged upstairs after Vaughn’s mate.
“Makes me glad I’m single,” Wade said as he joined Quinn, both staring up, waiting to see if another one of Newt’s magic spells misfired.
“Are they gone?” Jalen crept from around the corner, a bowl tucked against his chest, cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk.
“You ate the fruit.” Quinn grinned.
Jalen’s brows shot up. He swallowed and wiped his mouth. “Prove it.”
Wade pointed at the bowl the human was clutching like a feral raccoon.
“Oh.” Jalen popped a grape into his mouth. “Guess I better get rid of the rest of the evidence.”
“Why is Newt on the run if you’re the fruit felon?” Wade asked as Quinn snagged a strawberry from the bowl. If Preston caught him eating it, he would just say Jalen made him do it.
Jalen smacked at his hand. Quinn let him. He was getting another strawberry, and nothing was going to ruin the fantastic mood he was in.
“If you’re not willing to take some of the blame, then keep your paws out of my bounty.” Jalen ate another grape. “And Newt ate some, so that still makes him guilty.”
Quinn imagined Sasha as a part of this mayhem. How would he act? Would he run and hide at Preston’s wrath? Probably. Zeppelin’s mate could get heated over his farmer’s market haul.
“Jalen?” Preston shouted from upstairs.
“Shoot! Newt ratted me out,” Jalen growled before popping a slice of peach into his mouth. “Gotta run, fellas.”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said as Jalen took off for the other set of stairs that led to the opposite wing of the house. “I think the mates are entertaining. We could use a few more, don’t you think?”
Wade stared at Quinn as if he’d lost his mind. “You’re nuts.” Then he chuckled, because the shit was too crazy not to. “Got a few hidden in the bed of your truck?”
Heading toward the stairs on the right, Quinn threw over his shoulder, “I think my mate would fit right in.”
“If you’re lucky enough to find him.” Wade cocked his head, his brows slowly furrowing. “Hold up. Have you found him?”
With a shrug and a shit-eating smirk, Quinn jogged up the steps, wondering how fast six hours could pass. He was dying to see Sasha again. The way those glasses made his blue eyes pop… And that smile? If Quinn was prone to dreamy sighs, he would’ve fogged up the café’s windows.
Phone in hand, he sprawled across his bed and thumbed open his messages.
The mattress creaked under his weight as he shifted around a bit, staring at the single text in the thread.
What did you say to someone who’d completely obliterated you in zero-point-two seconds?
“Hey, nice meeting you. By the way you’re my fated mate” would get his number blocked faster than Sasha could hit the buttons.
Nothing screamed waving red flags than telling a guy you just met that he was your forever person.
He settled for: Hope work’s not too crazy.
Simple. Casual. Opposite of, “I can smell your scent from memory and it’s making me want to howl at the ceiling.”
The message showed delivered but not read. Ten minutes passed. Nothing. He checked to make sure the WiFi hadn’t crapped out.
Sasha was working. Not everyone could lounge around texting when they should be steaming milk and dealing with caffeine-deprived customers.
Rising from the bed, Quinn moved to the window. He had six long-ass hours to kill before seeing his mate again. The word still felt weird as hell, like a strange new dialect.
Mate.
My mate.
Sasha.
Chill.
Cool mountain air drifted through the open window, carrying the scent of pine and thirst. Quinn braced his forearm against the frame, gazing out at the peaks that surrounded their territory. The late-morning sun painted them gold and purple, shadows pooling in the valleys like spilled ink.
Somewhere down in that valley, his mate was steaming milk and pulling shots, completely unaware that his entire world had just shifted on its axis. Or maybe not shifted. Quinn was the one feeling magnitude-worthy earthquakes, while Sasha probably just felt tiny trembles.
Finding your mate was supposed to be this huge, life-changing moment. And it was. But nobody talked about the terror that came with it. The knowledge that someone out there could completely wreck you without even trying. That their rejection would carve out pieces of you that would never grow back.
Didn’t even mentioned it would feel like drowning and learning to breathe at the same time.
Zeppelin’s reflection appeared in the window glass beside Quinn’s like a nosy ghost. “Tell me about this barista.”
Quinn rolled his eyes hard enough to see his brain. “Wade’s got a mouth like a broken faucet.”
His alpha chuckled. “In his defense, he said you were practically floating up the stairs.”
Okay. That got a smile out of Quinn.
“Barista at Cyril’s. Sasha.” Just saying the name made his chest ache in the best way. “Red hair, these glasses that pop the shit out of those blue eyes. Skinny in that way that makes you want to feed him.”
Zeppelin clapped him on the shoulder, the gesture carrying weight beyond the physical contact. “I’m happy for you.”