Chapter 2 #2
“Thank you,” Harper said. She picked up the shaker jar of Parmesan cheese and almost covered the eggplant fries in Parmesan cheese, then picked one up and dragged it through the marinara sauce.
Harper took a bite, and chewed appreciatively, her eyes looking into Clay’s as he watched her eating.
She took another bite, then another as she finished it off. “So, good,” she said.
“You have no idea,” Clay said.
“You didn’t even eat one yet!” Harper said.
“I just know it’s good,” Clay said as the waitress came back and set their drinks on the table. He picked them both up and sniffed them. “Alright, thanks,” he said, handing Harper’s water to her.
The waitress looked at him like he was a little off now, and walked away.
“She thinks you’re crazy now,” Harper said, laughing as she dipped another eggplant fry in the sauce.
Clay couldn’t help grinning as he shrugged. “Works. She won’t flirt with me anymore.”
“She may never flirt again,” Harper said.
Clay laughed. “It wasn’t flirting. It was way over the top.”
“A little. Okay. But you were a little touchy.”
“I didn’t like it. At all.”
“You have the right to not like it.” Harper’s gaze drifted off behind him as she saw the pizzas coming their way. “Ohhh, pizza!”
~~~
Cristie walked past their king sized bed on her way to the shower. She paused, looked over at it, then glanced toward the bathroom before she shrugged and flopped across their bed.
It wasn’t five minutes before Remi, softly whistling to himself walked into their bedroom and came to a stop when he saw her lying there, arms stretched above her head, flopped like a rag doll as she watched a TV that hadn’t even been turned on yet.
“Might be able to find a more interesting show if you turned it on,” he said.
Cristie smirked at him. “Smart ass.”
Remi grinned. “Thought you were going to take a shower.”
“I was, but then I saw the bed and decided I was too tired to worry about a shower right now. I just want to lie here for a while.”
“Our house, our rules. Lie there as long as you want.”
“Exactly what I thought,” Cristie said.
Remi walked over and picked up the remote off the nightstand and handed it to her.
Cristie took it from him and turned on the TV then started immediately started flipping channels.
“Can’t find anything to watch?” he asked as he went into the bathroom.
“Meh. A couple of things, but nothing that holds my interest as much as wondering why Kaiser left without so much as a goodbye,” she said, not even looking his way.
She heard him brushing his teeth, then the water shut off, then nothing.
She glanced toward the bathroom and found him standing in the doorway looking at her. “What?” she asked.
“I’m guessing now is when you want to talk about this?”
“Everybody’s gone home, or to their guest houses. All the food has been split up and our share of the leftovers is put away. All the extra cake is in our fridge. And it’s already cleaned up outside. What’s there to do other than talk about why my best friend came to you about leaving and not me?”
Remi shrugged. “We could talk about why Keegan was crying earlier today.”
Cristie narrowed her eyes at Remi.
Remi stood there, silently waiting to see which would give in first.
“I could, but then I’d be breaking the trust of a Pride member who came to me as her Alpha — kind of.”
“Alpha kind of?” Remi asked with a grin.
“I’m kind of her Alpha, but not really fully. And I kinda grabbed her and pulled her into the house when she started crying, so she didn’t really come to me, I brought her to me.”
“Ahhh, I see. Thought you said you would have told me anyway.”
“I would have. And I will. But I think I need to know why Kaiser left first.”
“You can’t call him just to rub his face in his reasons. They’re…” he hesitated, looking for the right word to describe Kaiser’s actions, “noble.”
“Noble?!” Cristie said.
“Yeah, in my opinion they absolutely are.”
“Okay, tell me. Then I’ll tell you.”
“Promise me, Cristie.”
“I will not even tell him I know unless you and I agree that he should know that I know. And if we can’t agree, I will not talk about it to him, I will just continue to harass you until you agree that I can tell him.”
Remi laughed. “At least you’re honest.” He walked over to the bed and sat down on its edge, grabbing one of the huge support pillows that graced the bed for when they were watching TV in bed rather than stretching out relaxing, and shoved it behind his back so he’d lean against that and the headboard, rather than their sleeping pillows.
“Alright, he came looking for me after the dinner your dad had to introduce me to everybody. He and I talked that day, then he showed up here later that night.”
“Yeah, I wondered what the hell y’all talked about.”
“Keegan,” he said simply.
“Keegan?” she asked, her brows raised in question.
“Not at first while he was still at your dad’s, but later when he came looking for me.
He was confused, and feeling guilty, and hurting even.
I told him I knew that one of the girls at the family dinner was his mate.
There was no way he’d convince me otherwise, and that I thought that was why he was hurting.
He broke down and admitted that I was right.
He said that he had no idea, not even a hint until the last time he’d been home, and that it was killing him knowing that she was right here and that she had no idea.
What made it even worse was that he knew that he could never have her.
He wanted to know how I dealt with knowing that I might never have my true mate at my side. ”
“But you do.”
“But at that time, you still hated me.”
“I never hated you. I resented you.”
“Same thing. Anyway, after we talked, or maybe as we talked, he decided that he was going to leave.”
“Why? Why not stay and talk to her, talk to her parents?”