Chapter 7 #2
“Hi, I’m sorry for your wait. Are you ready to order?” the young man assigned as their waiter asked, standing at the ready with his pad in hand.
“Bring me the biggest, thickest steak you have. AuGratin potatoes, and I want the garlic butter sauteed mushrooms on top of it,” Kaiser said.
“Oh, that sounds wonderful! Same!” Cristie said, closing her menu and handing to the waiter.
“It’s a big steak,” the waiter said, looking at Cristie.
“You’d be surprised how much I can eat. Besides, if I can’t finish it, I get breakfast out of the deal, too,” she said, grinning at him.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said. “Would you care for an appetizer?”
“You?” Kaiser asked.
“Not me. I just want my meal,” Kristie said.
“Same. Just the meals,” Kaiser said, looking up at the waiter.
“Got it. Would you like me to bring you fresh drinks, or would you care for anything else to drink with your meal?”
“Ice water for me,” they both said, then laughed as their eyes met.
“You got it. I’ll put your orders in.”
“Thanks,” Kaiser said, then picked up his whiskey and sipped it.
“So, is that all that’s been bugging you?” Cristie asked.
“I think that’s enough for one night,” Kaiser said, winking at her.
“I don’t. What’s the other thing? The thing that has you at odds with your father?”
“It’s not really one thing. I’m just on edge. I know that, so I’m just doing my best not to lose my temper. It’s not his fault I’m on edge.”
“Agreed. But what has you on edge. All the celebrity that comes with the career you’ve chosen? Seems to me that nobody knows it as well as he does. He might have a sympathetic shoulder.”
“No, just being here with you and being able to share it with you already made it feel a little lighter. Just something he said set me off and I was already irritated. Like I said, though, wasn’t his fault.”
“What did he say?”
“Isn’t this supposed to be about you? Me taking you out to make sure you’re okay?” he asked, laughingly.
“I’m not saying a word about me until I’m no longer worried about you,” Cristie said. She looked around animatedly. “Mate? Dragon? Not me, don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’m good — on all fronts!”
Kaiser laughed again. “Fine. He said, and I quote for the most part, ‘you don’t understand the pull that finding your mate can have on you’.”
“That’s what set you off?”
Kaiser nodded slowly.
“But you’re not mated. So, why would that…” she stopped speaking and her eyes widened. “You found her!”
Kaiser looked at Cristie, weighing his options, and made a split second decision.
“No, I haven’t. But I’m tired, Cristie. I don’t want to date.
I don’t want to waste my time. I want my mate.
I’m craving a safe place to be, and I don’t mean a house.
I mean emotionally. I want to claim my mate.
I want to walk up to her and tell her who I am, and that I’m hers.
I want to have her look at me the same way I look at her.
I don’t want to have to spend the next five or six years watching and waiting for the right time. ”
“Why would you have to wait five or six years? Do you know who she is?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure it’s already hopeless and it would take me that long after I meet her to undo the damage my image has done.
I’m plastered across media every week with somebody new.
I don’t even have to have dinner with them, all I have to do is be seen eating at the same restaurant, and Lord forbid I enter the lobby of the some hotel the same day any famous female does.
We’re sharing a room and married before the end of the week, even if we never actually see each other in the hotel.
What kind of reputation is being shown to my mate?
What’s she going to think about me? She’s going to despise me, think I’m a womanizer, an asshole that tosses women away without regard for who they are as individuals. ”
“Until she spends five minutes with you and sees for herself how genuine you are. Sees just how huge your heart is, and how strong your loyalty is. Then none of that other stuff will matter.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I am.”
He gave her a hint of a smile. “I’m pretty sure she’s already completely unimpressed at this point.”
“Maybe. But maybe not. She may not even be aware that you’re alive.”
“That’s a complete possibility as well. And if she does know I’m alive, it doesn’t matter to her one way or the other. She’s not impressed.”
“If so, that’ll change the minute you two interact. Maybe she’ll be the type that thinks she can save you.”
Kaiser burst out laughing. “God, I hope not. Besides, I think she’s more the ‘I don’t need your sorry ass anyway and why are you taking up space near me?’ type.”
“That’s exactly the kind of female you need,” Cristie said.
Kaiser nodded, but still didn’t seem quite right. “And what kind of male do you need?”
“Someone who is content to let me be me. Someone who is honest at all times, even if the truth might hurt me.”
“That’s a tough one,” Kaiser said. “We all want to protect our mates from pain of any type.”
“True enough. But if he has ultimate faith in me and my character, my strength and my ability to overcome whatever the issue is, then he’ll know that though the truth might hurt me for a little while, I’ll overcome and I’ll be the stronger for it. That faith in me is what I need.”
“I like that. That’s not at all what I expected you to say.”
“What did you expect me to say?” Cristie asked.
“I expected you to say someone who is loyal to a fault, even if it doesn’t always make their lives easy.
Someone who is reliable and stable, strong without wavering.
Someone who is innately good. Someone who knows you and still can’t wait to wake up every day and experience the day with you as though it was an unknown adventure.
Someone that you feel safe with. Someone you can be yourself with, and know there’s no judgment, just happiness that they get to see the you that no one else does. ”
Cristie watched Kaiser as he spoke, her suspicions growing by the second. “Why are you describing Remi?”
“Am I?” Kaiser asked innocently.
“You know you are.”
“Maybe, but am I right?” he asked.
“How do you know those things about him?”
“You’ve described him to me over the years. How even as a child, he was protective over you. Which is part of why your father protected him and saw to it that he was given to people who would adore him and love him like he deserved to be loved.”
“You know how when you are kids and you grow up with family or even Pride members, and you grow particularly close to some of them and share all your innermost thoughts and opinions with them, and then later when you’re an adult and things have shifted to a place you never thought they’d be and those you were particularly close to use those adolescent words to try to remind you of what you’re supposed to still know? ”
Kaiser grinned smugly. “Nope. Not a clue.”
“Yeah, you do. And it’s a reminder to me to stop being an open book to some people,” she teased.
“You don’t really mind that I know you that well, do you?” Kaiser asked. “I’m a safe place, even if I know you better than you sometimes. Besides, I’m sure you’re holding some things back and not confiding them at the moment.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But aren’t I allowed that?”
“You absolutely are. As long as you understand that it’s a choice and not a necessity. If and when you do need a sounding board, I’m here. In the meantime, mull over whatever you need to. No judgment here for not coming clean with me.”
“Thank you, Kaiser. I appreciate your understanding.”
He put his hands on the table, still clutching a knife and fork and leaned a little toward her, staring directly into her eyes. “Remember that. Remember this exact moment and exactly what we just discussed.”
She opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that, their server approached their table with two huge sizzling platters, one in each hand, and another server following him with a large serving tray in his hands.
The platters their steaks were served on were metal and obviously heated so that the steaks would sizzle when placed on them.
The metal plates were seated in wooden cutouts that held the blisteringly hot metal plates in place.
“Your dinners,” he said, putting one in front of each of them.
“Be careful not to touch the plates themselves. If you must adjust them, please make contact with the wood only.”
He turned back to the server following him and lifted two smaller white plates filled to almost overflowing with AuGratin potatoes and put them beside their steak platters.
He turned back to the tray the second server was still holding and took two bottles of condiments and a gravy boat off the tray.
“I’ve brought steak sauce, ketchup, and a gravy boat filled with more sauteed mushrooms in so much melted garlic butter it should be illegal. ”
“You’re my hero,” Cristie said, already licking her lips as she reached for her fork and knife to begin cutting into her steak.
He grinned at Cristie. “Best compliment I’ve gotten all evening.
” He turned back to the server behind him and took two large glasses of ice water off the tray, putting them beside each dinner plate, then taking a basket of a fresh sliced loaf of French bread off the tray and set it between them.
“This is good dipped in the butter, too. Or even the juices of the steak and the butter as you go.”
“You’re a genius, too,” Cristie said.
The server laughed. “Enjoy. I won’t be bothering you all the time, but I’ll be glancing this way from time to time. If you need me, just signal me and I’ll be right here.”
“Thank you very, very much,” Kaiser said genuinely.
“Not a problem, sir. Enjoy.” He quickly left their table, leaving them to enjoy their meals in private without the usual interruption to ask how they were doing and if they needed anything else, making sure that the other server was ahead of him and did not have an excuse to linger.
“I like him,” Kaiser said.
“Me, too,” Cristie said, using a piece of French bread to soak up some of the juices from her steak. “The man knows what he’s talking about with this bread.”
“I might start making reservations and asking for him. I like that he’s pretending that he doesn’t know me.”
“He’s really good at it,” Cristie said, as she cut her first bite off her slab of meat and placed it in her mouth.
“Same as usual?” Kaiser asked.
“Better,” she said around a mouthful.
Kaiser tried his and nodded enthusiastically. “Been a while, but damn, this does taste better than usual.”
“Standing date, twice a month?” Cristie asked.
“At least,” Kaiser agreed.
“You know what else I think?” Cristie asked as she concentrated on cutting bite after bite of her steak and chewing appreciatively.
“What else do you think?” he asked, as he did the same.
“I think that we should trade cars. Yours is easily identified and if anyone tries to track you, they’ll only find me getting out of it.
They’ll never be able to track you in mine.
They don’t even know what I drive. It’s in my mom’s name.
I never bothered to change it to mine. It’s a hardship, but I think I can handle it,” she teased.
Kaiser started chuckling. He nodded at her and winked.
She winked back.