Chapter Nineteen
Rafe
We’d mated our first night together, and for shifters, that was enough. But one of us was human, and very little of what was between us had gone the way he would have expected his lifelong relationship to have begun. Humans, as I understood it from television, movies, and coworkers who legitimately dated, not like Jonah who had done whatever to meet company standards, often dated for months or years before deciding to wed.
And our mate had accepted us day one and never looked back. That was a tremendous level of trust for him, and while he’d never said a word about wanting anything different, Quill and I had decided over coffee early one morning that it was our job to remedy his loss.
Every human omega—again, we got our information from television and such—dreamed of a big wedding with family and friends coming together to celebrate their love. And since we adored Pierce and wanted him to have every happy experience we could, we put our heads together and planned a very special evening with our omega.
“Are you busy tonight?” I asked him on my way in the door from work.
“No, I’m free. Did you want to do something? Quill is working, so it would just be us.” He frowned. “I hate that you two are on such different schedules sometimes.” I could hear some of what lay between those words as well. He hated that he didn’t have a job yet. I wished he’d let me take that burden off him, but that was a subject that had come up too often. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know, just let’s go out and maybe do some shopping? I could use a new shirt, and one of the department stores downtown is having a sale.”
He gave me the side eye. I’d never been big on sales, since I hadn’t had to worry about money in a number of years. “You a sale? I thought you didn’t like ‘people picking through piles of wrinkled clothes.’”
“I don’t but it’s a nicer store and probably won’t be too bad. I just feel like getting out. If there’s something you’d rather do, I’m open.” Not really, but I hoped he’d just go along with my plan.
“No, no. I’m delighted to see you shopping like the rest of us, looking for 20 percent off.” And, my ace in the hole was he did like sales. He loved getting a good deal. “Shall we go now?”
“Why not. We can grab a bite on the way.” Because Quill was not working, but we were meeting him in two hours. “Somewhere casual.”
In the end, we actually ate at the mall. I’d never done that at least not since university because the food court was not my idea of a good time or a healthy meal. But a new place had opened near the store I wanted to take my mates to. Homestyle Italian cuisine. I still wasn’t much for the mall, but it was conveniently located near the actual shop I wanted to visit.
“Come on.” I signed the bill and stood up. “Let’s go see if there are any good shirts at the sale.
Of course, there were not. Even though it was a higher-end store, they were still piles of wrinkled fabric that I didn’t have patience for. So we wandered on and eventually outside the mall to a little back street where a jeweler who made custom items had his little shop. As we approached, Quill stepped out from a doorway and enfolded us both into a big hug.
“What are you doing here?” Pierce asked. “Aren’t you at work?”
He released us and tapped our omega’s chin. “Do I look like I’m at work?”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because things were slow at work, and Rafe texted me where to find you both. I know you already had a nice dinner without me, so where to next. Did you get any shirts, Rafe?”
I wrinkled my nose in disparagement. “No. They were all piled up and wrinkled.”
“He’s a shirt snob,” Pierce said. “It’s not like we can’t just toss them in the dyer to get the wrinkles out.”
“I just feel that if someone goes to the trouble to market an item, it should be at its best. Hey, what’s this place?” I stopped in front of the jewelry store. “I’ve never noticed it before, have either of you?”
“Nope, but then I don’t spend a lot of time shopping for jewelry.” Quill eyed something in the window. “Is that pin a porcupine?”
Pierce leaned in closer. “I think it’s a fox or something.”
“No, looks like a porcupine to me.” I pressed the buzzer beside the door. “Let’s go in and see.”
At first, I thought nobody was there because the shop remained quiet, and that would have messed everything up, but then a little old man came from the back, walking at a snail’s pace. “Hold your horses,” he barked in a surprisingly strong voice for such a small fellow. “I’m coming.”
The man pulled the door open and peered out into the barely lit alley. “Oh. Mr. Rafe. Please come in. I have your order all ready to go.”
“You placed an order?” Pierce was adorably confused. “What for?”
Mr. Bender wasn’t supposed to say anything, but he was extremely old and, fae or not, the years could add up.
“Come in and see what you think,” I urged. “You can give me your opinion.”
“Who is it for?”
“Omega,” Quill said, “if you’re not interested, I for sure am.” He marched inside, leaving us little choice but to follow. “Alpha, what did you order?”
“A gift for someone. Actually two gifts.”
We approached the counter, and the little man scurried behind it and lifted a velvet tray with two ring boxes perched upon it. “Here you are.”
By now, Pierce’s gaze was darting from the boxes to each of us, but finally I put him out of his misery and handed Quill one of the boxes, holding the other myself.
In synchronized fashion, we two alphas opened the ring boxes, dropped on one knee, and chorused, “Will you marry us?”
Pierce choked. “I don’t know how to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Kiss you both at the same time. But we’re already mated, and that’s even better than being a groom.”
“Mate, if you’ll just say yes, we can start to plan your wedding.”
“Then yes.” He held out both hands, and we slid the rings on. “I know just how I want it to be.”