Page 56 of The Beta's Blind Date

Wesley growls, his eyes darkening, his hands gripping the arms of his chair, and Haven says, “That dickhead!”

“I know!” I exclaim, lifting my arm. “Total dickhead.”

Through the phone I hear her pointe shoe tapping against the hardwood floor of the dance studio, and I can picture her biting her lip with her arm crossed, trying not to smile, waffling like she does when she’s trying to be mad at Wesley but can’t stay angry for long.

“Well, it sounds like he needed someone to knock some sense into him,” she mutters. “But next time, say something to Alpha Ben or Wesley, okay? You know neither of them stands for that sort of attitude.”

“Yes, Luna. I will… try to do that next time.”

“Good,” she says, and I know she’s smiling now. “Okay, I’ve got to go back to rehearsal. Peter is pretending to glare at me.”

“You can tell the difference between the real glares and the pretend ones?” Wesley asks, brow furrowing. “Wait, are they all pretend?”

“Bye, Wesley!” she yells, and I pull the phone from my ear, wincing. Even three years later, she forgets he can hear her fine without having to raise her voice. “Love you!”

“Love you too, Twinkle Toes,” he replies.

“Love you too, Luna!” I chime in, winking at Wes.

He rolls his eyes as I hang up. “You know that doesn’t bother me like it used to,” he says, taking the phone back and standing. “She has my mark.”

“Are you saying you don’t believe I’m sincere when I express my love for my luna?” I ask, placing a hand over my heart as he walks around the desk. “I am deeply offended.”

He smacks me on the back of the head. “Fuck off.”

I laugh, and his lips twitch, but he crosses his arms and raises his brows at me, back to being the stern, disciplinary alpha instead of my best friend.

“I’m sorry, Alpha,” I say, sighing. “I know I didn’t handle that appropriately, especially since I am the beta. I just… I snapped when I heard him say that. About females.”

“And Taryn,” Wesley adds, and I nod. “How is what he said different from the way you treat females?”

“I don’t—I haven’t—I’m not like that!” My jaw clenches and I cross my arms. “Okay, yes, I have slept around. A lot. But I never used an app where females are trying to find a mate to find myself a one-night stand! And I was always up front about what females were getting from me if they spent an evening with me. And I would never go bragging to other males saying ‘Hey, check this chick out; she was an easy lay!’”

I pace back and forth in front of him, my voice raising and my rant punctuated by dramatic arm gestures. He covers his mouth with his fist, his lips twitching again behind it, his shoulders shaking, and his eyes glinting.

I stop in my tracks, narrow my eyes, and point my finger at him. “And don’t act like you don’t have a string of brokenhearted females you left in the dust when you realized they didn’t measure up to your impossible standards.”

“It wasn’t an impossible standard,” he says, lowering his hand and leaning back against his desk.

“Unachievable, then. Because the standard was Haven. Even when you didn’t know she was your mate, you knew she was the only one you wanted.”

He shrugs, his head tilting to the side, a genuine smile on his lips now. “True.”

His hands rest on the edge of the desk, and he crosses one leg over the other, dropping his alpha aura. My gaze moves to the neckline of his shirt, to the tail end of his “Dear Pen Pal” tattoo in Haven’s handwriting on his marking spot. Then I look back at his face.

“How do you handle it?” I ask, the words out before I can reconsider.

“Handle what?”

I swallow, biting my tongue for a second, wishing I could reel my initial question back in, before I continue. “Knowing you might lose her. Knowing if you did, it would be excruciating. It would be the worst pain imaginable.”

He takes a deep, slow breath through his nose, his lips pressing together. “I already lost her once,” he says. “When I was twelve.”

“I know,” I say, nodding. “And that was before you knew you were mates. Before you’d marked her. It would be even worse now.”

“I’ll be honest,” he says, knuckles turning white as his grip tightens on the desk. “I think I’d die if I lost her again.” His voice cracks and drops to a whisper, his eyes glistening as he bares his soul to me.

“And you’re just… okay with that? With having her, even knowing it would kill you if you lost her?”

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