Page 60 of The Alpha and the Baker
Trust my littlesayangto have no human meet her standards. Good for you,hati.Just be careful!
I let that hang in my mind, not wanting to dismiss the image of her—the corner of her eyes only just beginning to wrinkle, the hair at her temples only slightly tinged with gray. She never even had time to get old.
God, I missed her.
But if she were present, she would tell me to be brave, to pursue everything I wanted, and not let fear dictate my actions.
So it looked like I was going on a drive.
I went up to my room first, and after about ten minutes of hunting, I found his keys tangled up in my lacy underwear. How those two had ended up remotely near each other was beyond me, but I was glad they were there. Otherwise, I would have had to stake out his car and wait for him to return. And who knew when that would be? Despite the complicated recipes I occasionally pulled off, patience wasn’t really my strong suit.
Ignoring the somewhat gray area of driving another person’s car without permission, I went out the front door and hopped into it. Naturally, I had to move the seat pretty far up and adjust the rearview mirror, but I figured it was a small price to pay for a custom car delivery service.
Granted, I was kind of forcing Cas into driving me back, otherwise I’d have averylong walk or a really awkward wait for what could be the most expensive Uber of my life in store for me.
Yeah, I was definitely gambling on a good outcome, but I figured it was worth it. There was something about Cas that I just wasn’t willing to give up on, moonlight proclivities or not.
However, I wasn’t atotalmoron, so I took the two silver necklaces and one bracelet I owned and put them in my pocket. I didn’t think I’d need them, but better safe than sorry.
After punching his address into my phone’s map app, I drove off.
Normally, I liked to jam out to music while I drove, but I chose silence now. My mind was far too loud for music. Everytwo minutes or so, another way everything could unfold popped into my mind. Some of them quite positive, some of them terrible, and some downright catastrophic.
With so much going on in my brain, the drive passed quickly, and before I knew it, I was turning onto the same dirt road my journey had started on. And then I was driving past the party area. Andthendown a long drive toward several houses that I’d only spotted vaguely at the reunion.
Oh boy.
I’d forgotten that I had no idea which house was Cas’s. Hell, I had no idea where he would even be on the massive property. I supposed I could call him, but I had a feeling that he wouldn’t answer.
So, what to do?
My answer came when I spotted Cas and another man standing a bit down the road, openly staring in my direction. Well, it looked like I had definitely been spotted, but honestly, I was relieved. Especially since I was pretty sure that the other man was Arietty’s owner, the large dog, who?—
Wait.
Wait a minute.
That dog was probably a werewolf.Wild.I would have to recontextualize pretty much everything since I’d met the McCallisters.
Oh well. That could wait. Right now, I had a certain handsome man—or werewolf—to talk to.
Nerves bubbled in my stomach. I parked the car and got out, trying to keep my body language casual. Really difficult considering the entire situation.
At least Cas didn’t run off. After he’d torn out of my house before I could do so much as blink, I knew I’d never be able to keep up. Instead, he started walking toward me.
Hopefully, that was a good thing.
“What are you doing here?” Cas asked, his tone neutral as he stopped about fifteen feet from me. My mood sank when I saw how rough he looked. His hair was a mess, and faint dark circles ringed his eyes.
“I’m returning your car,” I said, because hey, it was the truth, and it also was easy to say. I wasn’t quite sure how to broach, well, everything else.
“Uh, thanks?”
Oh boy, this was awkward. It wassoawkward. But I wasn’t about to let a little anxiety defeat me, so I cleared my throat and decided to just go for it. Being confident and ambitious had gotten me this far in life. All I could do was hope it would see me through now.
“Could we take a walk?”
“A walk?” He said it like I was speaking a foreign language, but there wasn’t any hate in his tone. Not even any unfriendliness. If anything, he sounded scared.
