Page 10 of Alistair

Maggie let out aneepand nearly dropped the mug a second time. Setting it gently in the box with her still-trembling hand,she looked at Jenny, who had leaned into the classroom and was currently smiling at her like the Cheshire Cat.

“What?” Maggie pushed in her chair and lifted the box of her things. As she walked to the door, she glanced around the room at the small desks and chairs, the bookshelves that lined the wall under the windows that she’d never been able to figure out how to open to let in fresh air.

“I asked when you’re meeting up with your sexy fellow, what was his name, Alexander?”

“Alistair.”

She put the box on her hip to hold it with one hand, flipped the lights off, then grasped the door and closed it behind her as they both stepped out into the hall.

“He said he’d call at four.”

“That’s so neat! Nothing exciting like that has ever happened to me.”

“I’m so glad I was still subbing here so I could go on the field trip,” she said. They walked down the hall and hung a left, then stopped at the office so she could turn in the room key.

“Me too,” Jenny said. She walked with Maggie out to the parking lot, and when the box was on the passenger seat, they hugged. “I hope to see you again.”

“I hope so too,” Maggie said. “Who knows, maybe one of these times I’ll get a permanent sub assignment here.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Do you know where you’re going to be assigned next?”

“There’s nothing posted yet,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll get a call this weekend. I hate sitting around and waiting.”

“I would too. So, you have my number, give me a call and we’ll hang out.”

“I will, take care.”

After saying goodbye, Maggie got into the car and drove off as quickly as she could, anxious to get home.

She hadn’t been this nervous about…anything in as long as she could remember. Of course, she hadn’t been on a first date in close to two years, not since she’d gone out for the first time with her ex, Seth, and then spent a year dealing with his emotionally abusive behavior, only to find out at the end that he’d spent the entire time cheating on her.

The last year that she’d spent not dating anyone and focusing on healing her heart had left her still feeling kind of hollow and not worthy of affection. She hated that Seth’s parting words after their breakup still stung.

You’re not worth being faithful to.

She pushed the vile thoughts of Seth away. It always made her stomach feel queasy. Hell, maybe she hadn’t fully healed yet, but Alistair was the first guy in the last year that had sparked her interest.

And her interest wasverysparked.

He was the first guy who made her think about romance and love and happily ever afters, even with the dark clouds that poked at her subconscious and made her wonder if he would also end up being unfaithful and breaking her heart.

She pulled into the space in front of her townhouse and parked, resting her forehead on the steering wheel.

She wasn’t going to ruin things with Alistair before they even started.

She wasn’t going to assume anything about him, or compare him to Seth, because Seth was a jackass and she never had to see him again, thank freaking goodness.

By the time she got her box and purse into the house and had toed off her favorite pair of loafers, her phone rang, and the name on the screen sent her heart into overdrive: Alistair.

Alistair had spent the last couple hours moving into one of the apartments at the back of the park. The alphas had decided to build a set of eight apartments for their people to use. Since they’d been built, several shifters had taken temporary residence in one of the units in the two-story complex. It allowed the shifters to have a place to call home that they could take their soulmate to before they shared the truth of their shifting nature with them.

Cael had stayed in an apartment while waiting for his truemate, Novi, to fall for him so he could share the truth. And just recently, Mercer had stayed at the apartment while he romanced his soulmate, Rhomi.

The apartments were furnished but were all currently unoccupied, as Alistair was the only one with a soulmate who didn’t know that he could turn into an elephant.

And he had no idea how to even begin to share that truth with Maggie.

His elephant trumpeted impatiently in his head.

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