Page 16 of Her Second-Hand Mate

“How... how do you know that I like to weave?” I asked, confused.

He laughed with his entire body, and I immediately liked him, although I was slightly self-conscious since I’d said the wrong thing again.

“Penelope is also the name of a character from the Odyssey. She was the queen of Ithaca and a faithful wife who waited twenty years for Odysseus’ return. Not to go into too much detail, butshe spent a lot of that time weaving,” he grinned and I found myself grinning back.

“I’ll have to read that story sometimes.”

So I met with Professor Bell and decided to enroll in the class. I even went to the campus and filled out all the paperwork! I’ll enclose a copy of my syllabus so you can see what we’ll be reading and where we’ll be traveling. Hank was trying so hard not to laugh at how nervous I was!

Hank Miller is the driver Dominic assigned to take me places. Seeing how Dominic's first mate died in a car accident, he doesn’t want me behind the wheel. I don’t care either way, so I figured: why not be accommodating to something that’s important to him? Hank is maybe Beta Aaron’s age and is currently expecting his first grandpup.

I thought about how lovingly Hank talked about his mate while he was showing me photos of his family. With pathetic envy in my heart, I remembered how impatient he was when a traffic jam made it seem like he was going to be late for dinner.

That same night I ate my dinner alone, again. At least Isaac was close by now and would be visiting me on the weekends.

We already had our introductory class, where I met my new classmates. I really liked two she-wolves - Lynn Howard and Charlotte Fuller. They actually used to be roommates before Lynn found her mate. Lynn is from your old pack in Georgia; her maiden name is Brownson, and she knows the Clarks (such asmall world!), so we bonded over that. She’s a third-year medical student.

Charlotte is from Washington and is in her final year of midwifery school. I think she has only a semester of practical work left. I also met their friend Anthony DeLuca, who is from the New Jersey pack. He is in his final year of nursing school but also works as a photographer in his spare time. I admire all of them so much for dedicating their lives to healing.

I didn’t want to tell Nana that I was hiding the fact that I was a Blessed Hansen from all my classmates. It was difficult enough telling them I was technically their Luna – I’d worried they wouldn’t want to befriend me because of it. Charlotte and Lynn, however, immediately sympathized with my situation.

Lynn thoughtfully said: “Finding out you’re mated to a widower must have been a bitter pill to swallow,” and it was the first time that I heard someone validate how difficult this had been for me in some ways. Others had mentioned our circumstances on different occasions, but it was never with emphasis on how I was feeling about things.

“I heard the last Luna died in a car crash.”

“Anthony!”

“What? I also heard her wolf wasn’t able to heal her because there was wolfsbane in her system.”

“Why would there be wolfsbane in her system?” I asked, confused.

I’d never heard of anyone voluntarily ingesting that vile plant.

“Oh, wolves take it for many different reasons,” Charlotte shrugged, “but the majority of them do it when they want to get drunk. It stops the body from burning through the alcohol too quickly and then they can get a buzz going.”

Our pack didn’t drink, so I couldn’t imagine a single reason for any wolf, let alone a Luna, to be ingesting alcohol laced with wolfsbane, but as I was quickly learning, there was a whole wide world out there that I knew nothing about.

Meeting all these successful wolves has got me thinking a lot about my purpose in life. I know that, as Luna, I can make a difference, so I really want to do a good job with that. Florence reassures me that she will be there to help me every step of the way, and it means a lot. As a former Luna yourself, I’d appreciate any advice you could give me on the matter. As different as the two packs are, there are some things about our kind that transcend pack boundaries.

Speaking of pack differences, they have all kinds of services here that we don’t – for instance, there’s an Omega called Marley that runs her own grocery service. We hired her and it's been wonderful; our pantry and cupboards are stocked with all that we need after we both come home after a long day working at the pack house.

She even gets fancy new teas for me to try. I just wrote “green tea” on the list and the first time, she bought the generic brand, but then the next time, she got me an amazing new blend to try. I’ll have to ask her to buy more so I can send you some. I’m sure they don’t have anything like it at Neeleman’s store.

While I’m on the topic of stores, I have to tell you I went and picked out a wonderful, huge, comfortable new couch for our living room. The previous one was small and not meant for sitting. I know that doesn’t make sense since it was a couch, but believe me, there’s no other way to describe it.

I also bought a big solid wood dining room table for 12. Now, when you all come to visit me, we’ll all be able to sit down at dinner together and then spend time in the living room in the evening.

She’ll notice my mate wasn’t present for any of the things I did outside the house this month.

I kind of wanted to surprise Dominic with the new furniture when he came back from his trip. He liked it a lot.

Not a lie.

He really did like both purchases. He made me ride him on the new couch as soon as it was delivered. He’d talked the whole time. I don’t know why, but that made it a million times more enjoyable.

I drew the line at doing anything on the dining table, that’s where you eat. To be fair, he did propose a form of eating, but still.

I gotta run now, Nana. As you’ll be able to see from the syllabus, the first author we are dealing with is a Mr. Henry David Thoreau, so I have to get started on readingNatureandWalden. I hope I'll enjoy the class and the reading assignments. I haven’t felt such jitters about school since Miss Thompson’s art class, do you remember her? Whatever happened to her?

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