Chapter 4
MIKA
Just inside the apartment door, I motioned Gabe to the loveseat opposite the equally wide television and handed him my phone with my favorite food delivery app open. "Pick a restaurant you like, and then we can order something to eat."
"You're trusting me with your phone?" He looked skeptical.
"I am." I didn't want to say it too soon and screw everything up, but the longer I sat with Gabe at the bar, the more I knew. He was my fated mate. Probably. Definitely.
He smelled like mate, and my meerkat wanted to scent mark him, claim him, and make him ours. It was way too soon, though, especially after Gabe shared his fear of being alone with alphas. I needed to take my time and ease him into the whole fated mates conversation.
I dipped down onto my double papasan chair.
It was almost impossible to sit on the edge of it, but I leaned forward over my knees, waiting for Gabe to hand me my phone.
I loved curling up in my meerkat form and watching television from here.
This time, my meerkat wanted to curl up beside Gabe on the plush oversized cushion.
Like my meerkat, my mouth had a mind of its own around him. First, I'd asked him out for drinks. Then, I'd asked him back to my place to basically Netflix and chill, without the chill. Next, I would be kissing him.
Tonight was too soon for that, though. I needed to learn more about him and let him know more about me. Or meerkats, which was not the same thing, though I cupped my phone with both hands when he handed it back.
"The Greek restaurant looks good." It was the fanciest restaurant I had pinned, which wasn't lost on me, but when he ordered the tabouli, one of the least expensive items, I splurged and got us some vegetable kababs to go with my eggplant wrap.
"Are you vegetarian?"
I'd placed the order online and mumbled it aloud to myself. He must have heard me.
"In this form, somewhat."
Gabe's brows scrunched together above his nose when he was confused. It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. I didn't want him to think I was a complete dick, so I held in my laugh. "My meerkat eats anything," I said instead, "so I try to watch my diet the rest of the time."
"Interesting."
I fished the remote from under the papasan cushion and waved it at him before pushing play and setting it in my lap.
"You're about to learn a ton about meerkats.
" I hoped his current expression of mild concern wouldn't change to disgust by the end of the introduction, which showed them digging bugs from the ground and eating them.
Thankfully, he was more interested in the narrator's story than he was in the events happening on screen. A man with a pleasant British accent introduced each of the main characters in the meerkat mob.
Gabe's throat clicked when he swallowed. "A group of meerkats is called a mob? Does that mean you and your family are …"
I hit pause to stop the introductory music and laughed. "Meerkat shifters prefer family, and not like the mafia "familia," either. We're all related and we mostly like each other, but we're no organized crime syndicate."
Gabe still looked skeptical.
"One time, I told my mom I'd applied to work at the electronics store at the mall, and she got so mad. She said it was a front for the Russian mafia and wouldn't let me interview when they called me back."
His genuine laugh in response made my chest tingle. "My omega dad says the same thing. He wouldn't let me shop there."
"Their prices were outrageous," I remembered.
Gabe nodded his head toward the television, and I grinned at the subtle sign he wanted me to push play again. Already, we'd moved to nonverbal communication. I didn't want to read into it too much, but it was a good sign that he felt comfortable in my home.
The show followed a meerkat mob with our same matriarchy structure. It went into basics about meerkat family dynamics, but our similarities ended there. My family were meerkat shifters, which meant our human minds controlled our behavior most of the time.
A knock at the door signified the arrival of our food as the credits rolled on the first episode. I wriggled to my feet and grabbed the paper bags sitting on the rainbow welcome mat outside my door.
"Wow, food's here already?" Gabe called. "How long are these episodes?"
"An hour." I dropped the bags on the coffee table before him.
He blinked. "I've been watching some dude dramatize the lives of meerkats for an hour?"
"Yep."
"Wow. I can see why people love this show. It's addicting."
I handed him the remote while I gathered utensils and bottles of water for our meal. He surprised me by pausing it and helping me arrange the takeout containers on the coffee table. When I sat on the floor to eat, he did the same without questioning.
"I'm sorry I don't have TV trays," I said. "I usually sit in the papasan, and there's no comfortable way to eat there, so I prefer to sit on the floor."
"I don't even have a coffee table in my efficiency apartment. This is a million times better than getting crumbs in my bed."
I laughed at his honesty. "I don't have a spare room, or a desk, so when I work from home, I work in my bed. My coworkers tease me about crumbs all the time."
"No spare room?" He glanced around. "Still, this is nice. My building is so old, it's crumbling. Sometimes I worry a good rainstorm is going to send all the roof tiles crashing to the ground." He shrugged. "Can't compete with the location, though. It's only two blocks from the courthouse."
"My mom hates this place. She complains about everything from the tile to lack of water pressure and everything in between," I said. "She secretly wants me to move back home and build a house on the compound."
Gabe laughed. "Are you sure you're not in the mob?"
Before I could object to his well-timed joke, he pushed play on the show again. I sometimes felt physically sick when watching anything too graphic during a meal, but this episode, focused on a skirmish between two meerkat mobs, was pretty tame.
"Do you run?" he asked when the credits rolled at the end.
"Me? Not unless something's chasing me."
He pointed to the screen, now counting down before it would flip to episode three. "What about your meerkat?"
I laughed. "That's different. It doesn't feel like running. We don't walk in meerkat form. We're always scouting, foraging, or fleeing."
"Or attacking?" He pointed to the screen again. The first shot of the opening sequence showed a meerkat mob running at the camera like a stampede.
"Not so much," I said. "We're human, and we're the only meerkat family in our part of Northern California. If I had to guess, I doubt we've had a rivalry over land since we came to America three generations ago."
He sighed, and a flicker of disappointment crossed his expressive face.
I leaned over and pressed the pause button on the remote. "You want me to attack someone?"
He shrugged. "No one in particular." A pretty blush crept across his cheekbones. "It's just a fantasy."
"This I have to know." I wanted to know all my mate's fantasies, especially the ones that made him blush.
"It's silly, really." The color in his cheeks deepened. "I always thought my alpha would be the kind to fight for my honor."
I'd heard it before. Omegas wanted bigger and stronger alphas, and I didn't look the part. "I assure you, if anyone insulted you, I'd give them a piece of my mind." Before he could apologize, I added, "I'm down for role-play, if that's part of your fantasy."
He blinked. "Role-play?"
"I can talk a friend into insulting you at the wedding.
" I knew just the guy, too. Mild-mannered alpha shark by day, but slip Isiah fifty dollars, and he would start a commotion whenever and wherever we asked.
He'd missed dinner at the restaurant, but he'd been a blast at the dance club afterward.
Gabe had missed his antics while he and Becca were getting tattoos.
"That's … rude." He frowned.
"Then I would defend your honor and sweep you off to my hotel room ..." From the look on his face, I'd gone too far with my version of fantasy events. "Or we could dance and ignore him the rest of the night."
He barked a laugh. "I liked your version, don't get me wrong …"
"Are you a virgin?" I asked.
"No." His blush crept down to his neck. "I've had sex. Just … not with an alpha. Once you knot, you can never go back."
I'd heard that infuriating saying so many times. It made my skin crawl. "Knots aren't everything." I rarely knotted during sex, and when I did, it was an inconvenience more than anything. My partner and I were stuck together until it went down, and heaven help us if we had bad breath or body odor.
I'd also heard plenty of omegas spouting their purity culture fear of alphas biting and marking them before they were ready. I knew of only one accidental bite that left a true mark. It had stuck because the pair were fated mates.
"If future us want to share a hotel room after Bruce's wedding, that would be really cool." Gabe's soft admission completely derailed my line of thought. "I'm not ready for that tonight, is all."
I grinned and nodded. "Agreed. No sex tonight. And besides, I doubt my insult guy is available on such short notice."
His shoulders dropped a couple of inches as he shook his head and rolled his eyes at me. Still, he laughed. "You are ridiculous."
"I prefer funny," I quipped.
"Fine. You're funny, but still ridiculous." He pushed play on the remote, I scooted back onto the papasan, and we watched another hour of meerkat shenanigans.
This episode had the violence they'd been teasing all season.
It was hard to watch, especially since the defending mob's baby meerkat didn't survive.
I wasn't ashamed to admit I had tears in my eyes when somber music played along with the rolling credits.
I dug a box of tissues from the storage shelf beneath my seat and wiped my eyes.
"Aww." Gabe clasped his hands and studied me with his own tear-filled gaze as I handed the box to him. "I was biting my lip the whole time, trying not to cry in front of an alpha."
"You never have to hide your feelings around me," I said. "Besides, alphas cry, too."
He nodded. "Yeah, but so many of them pretend they don't." He dabbed at his eyes and smiled. "I'm glad you're not like that."
My mom didn't raise me like an alpha, and I'd always worried my upbringing would ruin my chances with any future mate. Now, I was grateful for her unorthodox methods. I would never be a traditional alpha type, but I could be an alpha worthy of my gorgeous omega mate.