Page 13 of My Blind Date is a Werewolf

“I wasn’t exaggerating when I told you guys that I’m dead on my feet. I gotta get in some Z’s if I plan on firing on all cylinders tomorrow.” Laughing at her crestfallen expression, I rounded the table and kissed Angie on the cheek, and then did the same with my mom. “Please make sure she doesn’t get too drunk. She has a bunch of sixteen-year-olds to deal with tomorrow and I doubt they’ll cut her any slack.”

“Meh, she’s old enough to face the consequences of her actions head-on,” Mom replied and surprised me by standing up and pulling me into a hug. My body immediately relaxed into her embrace, soaking in her scent.

I don’t know what magic she used, but every time I caught a whiff of her favorite lavender fabric softener and her Yardley Poise eau de parfum, I instantly reverted back to my four-year-old self. A time when there was nothing a hug from Mommy couldn’t fix.

“I don’t know what’s going on between you and Adrian, but I approve,” she whispered in my ear, giving me one last squeeze before backing off, a proud smile on her face. “Get home safe, you two,” she told Adrian and me as she dragged my sister off to mingle before I unglued my tongue and responded to her crazy claims.

“Shall we?” Adrian held out his hand for me. Did he hear what my mother had whispered to me? He didn’t look like he had, but maybe he just had a great poker face. I almost didn’t want to take his hand just to prove to my mother that she was imagining things, but that would be unnecessarily childish of me. And, really, who was I trying to fool? I was attracted to Adrian Cooper. The sooner I accepted that fact, the sooner I’d get over it and move on with my life.

Dating ban, Liv. Remember that, I told myself mentally.

CHAPTER 8

Adrian’s truck smelled just like him. The interior was saturated with his scent. I could feel it sink into my skin and permeate my taste buds. There was also a hint of leather and mint mixed in with the pine and cinnamon, but every breath I took in reminded me just how close and intimate being stuck in a car with someone could be.

“Sorry about the mess,” he apologized sheepishly as he tossed a bunch of files and papers into the backseat and stuffed a tape measure into the glove compartment.

“You think this is messy, wait till you see my car,” I joked, hiding a yawn behind my palm. “God, I can’t wait to sink into my bed. The way my bones and muscles are aching, I just know that this is going to be one of those nights I sleep like the dead.”

“I feel you. All I want is to tuck myself in the back of a cave and sleep for the next month. You know, get away from everything for a little bit.” He sighed, his voice, his entire demeanor, heavy with a resigned sort of exhaustion, like he no longer had the strength or the wherewithal to deal with whatever was eating him up inside.

“Is everything okay? I don’t know if I’ll be able to help with whatever’s bothering you, but sometimes it helps just to have someone to unload on.”

He glanced my way, his eyes flashing bright in the darkness of the car and as we cruised under a streetlight, looking as if they were afire from the inside. “How much time do you have? Because I have a list longer than the length of my arm,” he told me with a wry twist of the lips.

“Why don't we see how much of that list we can tackle between here and my home.” I flicked my earlobe to show that I was listening.

Adrian ran a hand over his beard, looking me over briefly before focusing on the road again. “I guess the issue pressing most on my mind is the fact that I don’t know how to find the balance between being the Alpha wolf, the CEO of a rapidly growing construction firm, and just being plain old Adrian—if he still exists. It feels like I’m being pulled in two separate directions in a twisted game of tug-of-war. If it’s not the company demanding my attention, it’s something to do with the pack. I barely have any time to breathe and collect my thoughts before a new problem arises. No respite whatsoever.”

“Hmm,” I played with the strands of my necklace.

“That’s a very non-communicative ‘hmm.’ Care to elaborate?” he teased.

“I’m thinking here, give me a sec. I want to give you something more solid than if you want some me-time between your CEO and Alpha duties, then carve it out for yourself. That just sounds callous and uncaring on my part.”

“But you do have a point. There’s nothing stopping me from switching my phone off on the weekends and taking my boat out for a little fishing,” he agreed.

“The only problem is that you’re too much of a worrywart. You take your responsibilities seriously, which means that you won’t just take off to the middle of the ocean without any line of communication just in case someone needs you. Am I right or am I right?”

His silence was telling. I tugged on my seatbelt so that I could turn my upper body and face him.

“Here’s a thought, instead of shouldering everything like you’re friggin’ Atlas, delegate. You have dozens of capable people around you, both in the pack and at work, who can help take the load off. If you insist on going all lone wolf on everyone, you’ll burn yourself out, Adrian.”

“I have been told that I have issues with letting go of the reins on more than one occasion. But the thing is, the one time I trusted someone to hold my company’s best interests at heart, we nearly went bankrupt.” He flipped on the turn signal as we went off the main road and down the street that would lead to my neighborhood.

I was vaguely aware of the situation he was referring to. Cooper Construction’s chief financial officer embezzled a ton of money from the company and swindled a couple of clients and made away with a fortune before being apprehended in Vegas. It was a miracle that Adrian and his siblings had managed to recover the company’s reputation to the point that they were now competing with bigger firms based in the city.

“And believe me when I say I could use a sounding board with pack issues. By all rights, my Beta and my mate should be the two people taking up those roles,” he continued, flicking me a fleeting glance when he said mate. The look was too quick to make out the emotion in his eyes, but the mention of a mate caused butterflies to dance in my stomach and my heart rate to pick up.

They said a wolf mated only once. That once they found their other half, there would never be anyone else. In some cases, when half of a mated pair passed away, the other followed soon after because mated pairs literally could not live without the other.

What was it like to love someone so deeply that your life literally became tethered to theirs? That you could feel their presence within you no matter the distance between, to know that for as long as you both lived, your partner would never betray you.

“Unfortunately—” The low purr of Adrian’s voice cut into my semi-fantastical thoughts. “—I’m not sure if I can wholeheartedly trust the man who is supposed to be my Beta.”

“Because you have trust issues in general or…” I left the question to hang and waited for his answer. Adrian’s jaw ticked and he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. The leather of the steering wheel creaked as he squeezed his hands tight around it.

“There are some in the pack, a very small minority, mind you, who think that someone else should have taken over for Rod as Alpha even though it’s not like the pack members have a choice in the matter. Alphas are born, not chosen. And so are Betas,” he explained.

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