Chapter 6
REMY
But three days after you walked into a room and scented your mate for the first time, it was a freaking eternity. He was coming over to my house, to my space, to see me alone. I still couldn’t believe I’d clarified the by-himself-part with him. I was not on my A-game that day.
What I wanted to do was just tell him he was my mate, have him tell me back that I was his, and follow up with some naked fun and marking each other. If he had been any kind of shifter, that was how it would’ve gone. But he wasn’t. The alpha was human.
Maybe his humanness was why my koala could sense him over the phone. I didn’t know. That whole thing didn’t really make sense to me, but he had, there was no denying it.
Now that we’d met him, my beast was thrilled. He was still not being ideal, because he wanted the omega with us now, but I was no longer spiraling out of control. I was worse than a kid the night before Christmas, waiting to get their gift.
For the first time, being efficient at work became a problem because it gave me too much downtime to think. How was I going to handle this human/shifter mate thing? Did I date him the way humans did and hope for the best? Did I tell him what was going on and cross my fingers he didn’t freak out?
I called Steven, who aside from some congratulations had zero words of advice, but he did promise to come and help me get the house ready, which was something I hadn’t even considered until then. Once he said it though, it was all I could think about. I needed to have my best foot forward.
Hari was coming into my space. I wanted him to see it and like it, and want to stay.
I wasn’t a messy person. The house was clean, but you wouldn’t know that from the way I went into deep-clean mode.
I scrubbed and vacuumed and dusted. I rearranged things.
I wondered if my furniture looked too new.
If he would see that my pretense of buying furniture had all been a lie.
I was getting furniture, furniture that I didn’t need.
There was no way he was going to look around and not realize the desk was an excuse, though.
There was no decent place to set one up, which was the reason why I worked at the kitchen table in the first place.
I moved the plant stand that my grandmother had given me when I moved into the bedroom and wondered if that would leave enough space for the desk by the front window.
That was the beginning of my furniture rearranging obsession.
As his arrival got closer, time slowed, and my overthinking went into overdrive. I moved furniture around in every room, over and over again. I went to the store and bought different kinds of foods to have in the fridge in case he wanted a snack, as well as different drinks.
“This would be so much easier if my furniture didn’t look so freaking new,” I grumbled, not for the first time.
The one thing I couldn’t get rid of, no matter how much I cleaned, was the smell of eucalyptus. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to, because if I got my koala agitated, it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Finally, it was time for him to come. He’d given me a window when he would be here, and in a few minutes, we’d be reaching it. I kept peeking out the front window, checking out the cars as they passed by.
Mine.
Yes, yours.
I was being ridiculous, standing at the window like this, but not as ridiculous as me then marching to the bathroom to check in the mirror to make sure I still looked good. As if anything had changed in the past two minutes since I’d done it before.
Of course, that was when he knocked on the door. My cool had gotten up and fled. I ran to the door and opened it. His scent slammed into me.
My koala pounded at me to be set free. Mine! Mine!
Yes, he’s ours, but you need to stop. He’s human. Remember, he’s human. I’d told him that so many times already, but it didn’t stop him. He was running on pure instinct at this point.
“Hi.” I waved, as if he wasn’t just standing right in front of me.
His cheeks pinked, and he was so freaking adorable and awkward standing there.
He had a little leather bag of what I assumed were his work supplies.
And best of all, he smelled amazing. Not in the way Kevin thought he did with his cologne.
No, this was a woody blend of yum, some of it sawdust from work, some of it his natural scent. It was warm, almost like a hug.
“So, can I come in?”
“Yes!” I jumped out of the way. “Yeah, yeah, sorry. Come on in.”
“You said you had a place for the desk?” he said.
“Um, I did, but then I don’t know...” Because I never did, and the current idea I’d landed on wasn’t good.
“Oh, so you don’t need me?” His shoulders fell.
“No, no, no! I mean, I want the desk. I just don’t know where would be best. Maybe you could help me?” I was making an awkward situation so much worse.
I gave him a tour of the place. He kept pointing and mumbling to himself as we entered each space. I tried not to hover too much, not to distract him. All I wanted to do was get closer, but humans tended to frown on people randomly touching them.
“Okay, honest opinion,” he said, all professional-like. “Probably the bedroom is your best bet. It feels like there’s some furniture in there that doesn’t belong, and if you move them, I think it could work.”
“Yeah,” I grabbed the back of my neck, “when I was moving some things around, I took them out of the living room, thinking maybe that would be a good space. Can I get you snacks or drinks or something?” Why did I ask him that now?
“Snacks?”
I nodded.
“Why don’t I take my measurements first?” he offered and opened his bag, fishing out some supplies. “Most of your furniture seems kind of new, I’m not sure it will blend in.”
“Most of it is new,” I admitted, “but it’s not the same quality as what you make.”
He righted his shoulders a little bit. I’d said the correct thing.
“No, this was mail order. It’s not bad, though.”
He checked, then re-checked the measurements over and over again, asking questions, some of which I wasn’t sure why, but I answered them. Maybe he, too, was nervous. That was a good sign, right?
He mumbled to himself, something about not slowing down on purpose anymore. Did he always talk to himself? If so, it was all kinds of adorable.
Hari finished up his measurements, and I offered him snacks again, feeling like the timing was finally right. I was wrong.
“I actually have another appointment,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “But, like, maybe we could go out sometime?”
“On a date?” Please let him mean on a date. I couldn’t think of anything better than spending more time with him other than spending forever together. Gah, if I said those words out loud he’d think I was a creepy, soon-to-be stalker and serial killer like on Dateline.
“Yeah? Unless that’s stepping over a boundary.”
“No!” I’d already made him feel self-conscious. Ugh. “I’d like to go on a date with you.”
His phone started to beep. “I really need to go. I’ll text you and we can pick a date and time?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I didn’t want him to leave, and I watched him every step of the way to his vehicle, out the driveway, and down the street. I already missed him. My koala did too. It was safe to say I was going to be watching my phone from now until he texted.
My koala pushed me to go after him, and I compromised by making a cup of tea. It was hardly the same thing, but it worked.
We have a date! I shot a quick message to Steven.
Another step forward. He added a heart.
That was exactly what I wanted, too… to keep moving forward. Would I like it at shifter mating speed? Absolutely. But this would do. This would do.