Extra First Date Pt 1
I was not ready.
“Sylvia,” Ivy said, raising her eyebrows at me. “Please breathe.”
“Trying,” I squeaked, which was embarrassing for a woman my age. I was staring in the mirror and trying not to feel like a teenager masquerading as an adult. “I look stupid.”
“I resent that.” Jade stepped from out of my closet, holding up a few of my more ratty shirts with a wrinkled nose. “Why are you still hanging onto these?”
“Why not? They make good pajamas.”
“You know how they say, ‘dress to impress’?” Jade said, raising amber eyes to mine. “That applies to you, as well. You need to impress yourself just as much as you need to impress anyone else.”
“This does not impress me,” I said, turning back to the mirror and looking anxiously at myself. “This terrifies me.”
Jade had lent me a dress for the evening, a green dress far prettier than anything I was used to ever owning, let alone wearing. It was a simple ankle length sundress that flared out around my legs, but the neckline dipped just a little too low into my cleavage, and she had given me some very sparkly jewelry to match.
The feeling of the dress’s fabric brushed against my skin insistently, which might not have bothered me a couple months ago, but now I felt it all the more keenly. I felt everything more keenly; my heart raced about twice the speed it did before, and my nerves were almost always on the edge of getting keyed up, as if I was prepping myself for a battle that was literally never going to happen.
Being a werewolf was a whole experience.
“You look amazing,” Ivy said, reaching up to tuck a freshly curled lock of red hair behind my ear. “Jade is the local goddess when it comes to fashion. Girl’s a genius: trust her intuition. She’s put you in all the right colors.”
“A redhead in green is just about the best combination out there,” Jade said promptly, throwing my shirts down in disgust. “And I’m getting you a new wardrobe.”
“You absolutely are not, Jade.”
But she just beamed at me. “We’re going to be sisters, you and I, and sisters look out for each other. That includes going shopping together.”
My whole face turned scarlet, and I moaned, rubbing my cheeks and trying to dispel the butterflies that had exploded in force throughout my gut. “I’m going to die.”
“You’ve been dating Aegis for basically ever at this point,” Ivy pointed out. “Why are you this nervous?”
“We haven’t been on an official date yet,” I wailed. “I mean, we spend a lot of time together, but it’s… you know.” I turned pink. “Always with the kids.”
In reality, we hadn’t had any “personal” time together since I’d been staying in the safe house. Aegis never complained, and I was too chicken to really ask him for a date- just the two of us- but it was his mother who had put her foot down.
“You two need to get out there and act like a couple,” she had scolded. “I will stay with the kids, you two need to get out at LEAST once a week, and you need to start now. This week! I’m putting my foot down!”
And that was that.
“Did he tell you where he was taking you?” Ivy asked, perching on the edge of the bed and grinning up at me. The enormous scarring that covered nearly half her face had settled into a calm existence, but I still felt an ache of guilt when I saw it. She had gotten that for my kids, and she would carry it forever.
“No,” I said, tearing my mind away from more frightening thoughts. As a werewolf, it felt like my mind was running at least 50% faster at all times, thoughts flying through like water in a colander. “I have no idea what we’re doing tonight.”
“My brother’s no idiot,” Jade said, grinning. “It’ll be great.”
Before any of us could respond, the doorbell rang, and I felt my pulse pick up at about a mile a minute.
“Oh, no,” I whispered, eyes widening into huge spheres. “He’s going to think I’m ridiculous. What if he’s taking me out to, like, a baseball game, and I look like I’m about to step into a limousine?!”
“Are there any baseball games going on right now?” Ivy asked, eyebrows raised again.
“No,” Jade said. “There are not.”
“You know what I mean!”
“I know what Aegis is planning,” Jade said exasperatedly grabbing me by the arm and leading me out of the bedroom. “I did not dress you so that you would look like an idiot, trust me.”
I whined, which was a whole separate thing, because I did that a lot now- whining, I mean. Like a dog. A werewolf, I guess. It was entirely involuntary.
Being a werewolf was weird.
We reached the bottom floor, and all at once, there was a collective gasp of appreciation.
“OOOOOO!” Lucy squealed, leaping up onto her feet on the couch and slapping her hands onto her cheeks so hard, I cringed. “MOMMY IS A PRINCESS!”
“Wow,” Collin and Dylan said together, blinking in total disbelief.
“I didn’t think you owned a dress like that,” Collin added.
“I don’t,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
“You should,” Lucy shrieked. “Aegis is gonna love it!”
Leanne shuffled over and smiled such a soft smile at me, I almost relaxed. Her eyes twinkled as she looked me over. “You look beautiful, sweetheart,” she said softly, smoothing back my hair. “Truly. You look lovely.”
“You look all right, I suppose,” came a gruff grunt, and I looked past her toward Rudy, sitting at the table and looking at me with a wrinkled nose. He had a newspaper spread out in front of him like some sort of disapproving dad from the 1950’s.
“Such a vote of confidence,” I joked.
“Is someone going to get the door, or is Aegis going to be on the front porch for the next five years?” Jade complained, dancing around me to jog over, grabbing the doorknob like she was about to yank the door straight off its hinges.
Which, as a werewolf, was a distinct possibility.
“Wait!” I gasped, the butterflies all dipping themselves into kerosene and getting lit on fire like gleeful little anxiety bombs in my gut. “I’m not ready!”
“Open it!” Dylan shouted triumphantly.
Jade did, and in walked Aegis, and just like it did nearly every single time I laid my eyes on him, the world suddenly slid into perfect clarity.
He was very well dressed, which was a relief, because it made me feel less ridiculous, but it was still him. He was wearing a collared shirt open at the neck, tucked into beige dress-pants, the sleeves rolled up past his beefy forearms. His black hair was combed, but still hung loose and free, and I was glad, because it made him look gorgeous.
I stopped gawking for a moment to realize that he was staring at me as if no one else in the room. Hell, if anyone had said anything, I wouldn’t have heard it. His amber eyes were roaming first all over my face, and then downward to take everything in. He sucked in a sharp breath, and I felt every ion in my body immediately ache to get closer to him.
Good Lord, I really was like a teenager.
“You look good,” I said shakily, hugging my arms and trying not to feel self-conscious.
His voice rumbled in his chest as he watched me approach, eyes never leaving mine. “You look… unbelievable.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rudy’s voice called from the table, and I snickered, turning to look at him. He gave us a mock reproving glare and tapped an invisible watch on his wrist. “When are you going to have her home tonight, son?”
Leanne reached over, plucked his newspaper off the counter, and whacked him over the head with it. “Stop that,” she said, though I could see her eyes sparkling with playfulness. “They’ll be gone as long as they need to be.”
“You have your phone?” Rudy said, ignoring her and pointing at me. “Any time you need a ride-“
“He’s her fated mate, Mr. Rudy,” Lucy said exasperatedly. Ever since she’d learned the phrase and how it pertained to me, she was dropping it absolutely everywhere, in every single sentence possible. “She doesn’t need her phone. She’s super-de-duper-de safe.”
Rudy, unable to keep up the charade, broke into a smile and winked at me. “Have fun, kiddo.”
“Thanks, Rudy,” I said, and turned shyly back to Aegis. “So… what’s the plan?”
“I’ll tell you in the… the car.” He cleared his throat, staring at me. “You know, it’s cold outside.”
“Oh!” Jade leaped halfway across the room and snatched up a pretty, stylish leather jacket. She offered it to me. “Almost forgot the last piece.”
I was about to say that it couldn’t be warm enough, but I glimpsed the fleece inside the jacket and immediately changed my mind. “Thank you,” I said, meaning it, and Jade just beamed at me.
Aegis held open the door, eyes still completely trained on mine, and I felt a deep, heavy blush spreading from my neck to my ears and across my face. The air was brisk, indeed, but as a werewolf, it seemed… less than what I remembered it being. My warm breath burst into the air in thick, heavy clouds, and my beating heart was pounding out a rhythm so loud, I was sure Aegis could hear it.
He opened the side door for me, and even though I had officially been riding passenger in his car for quite some time now, the action suddenly felt different, and the tension between us grew thicker. I slid into the seat, and he closed the door, moving around as quickly as he could to the driver’s side. I could hear almost nothing over my own heartbeat and breathing.
I glanced over as he slid in, and again, my own breath was taken away. He was stupid gorgeous, like unfair levels of hot. I felt like he looked better every time I saw him. His skin, his eyes, his hair, his body- everything was beyond perfect. I wanted him to be exactly the way he was at all times. If anything changed about him, that was the new bar of perfection.
His amber eyes drifted to mine. I knew that mine, now, also glowed like his, a tell-tale sign of our werewolf blood.
Then he was pulling himself across the center console, his hand sliding up around the back of my neck, and I felt him struggling to control the strength in his arms. The aura off of him intensified, and I felt my eyes flutter shut, my breathing pitch up. Our lips met, and my blood rushed up into my head.
I could feel him needing to kiss me, and he deepened it, leaning closer, eager. I was more than happy to provide, and I fell into the kiss readily, the world in perfect balance in a way it would only be when he was kissing me.
Too soon, though, he pulled back, shaking his head and clearing his throat repeatedly.
“Already?” I breathed, not quite ready for him to go.
“Everyone’s staring at us from the window.” His voice was stilted. “We’d better get out of here before Paul shows up with the pizzas, or we’ll never get to where we’re going.”
“And… where’s that?”
Aegis suddenly snorted with laughter, the car’s engine rumbling to life. “I stupidly thought I’d take us to a movie, but I’m worried now that I won’t be able to pay attention to any of it.”
I laughed. “A movie? How old-school!”
“You know me.”
“What movie did you choose?”
He paused for a second, tilting his head as he pulled away from my home expertly. “You know,” he said suddenly, blinking. “I don’t… remember.”
I burst into laughter, and a second later, he did too. It was the most freeing sound I’d ever heard.
“Do you at least have the tickets?”
“Yeah. Printed them out- they’re in my wallet, though. Folded them up.”
“What are you so distracted by?” I teased.
“Only the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in my life,” he scoffed. “Screw the movie. I just want to-“
He stopped suddenly, coughed, and then sat up straighter. “I mean… movie. Yes. Good movie.”
“What’s after the movie?” I asked, delighted and blushing and thrilled beyond reason.
“Dinner.” He smiled apologetically. “Not the most original, but-“
“No. It’s perfect. The right amount of normal,” I added. “Exactly what I hoped for.”
“I have one more thing after that… but that’s a surprise.”
I settled into my seat and found that I was more excited than before for what lay ahead of us.
Our first, official date.