Page 110 of Losing My Siren Luna
If I can't win him over on my own, then that's what I'll do. I'll recruit mom's help. She fixes everything when no one else can. My sisters would love Cedric for the same reasons all these girls seem to like him too. He's beautiful for a man, and very charismatic.
Cedric is now braiding one of the girls' hair, and my jealousy spikes again, seeing his fingers brushing against her exposed shoulders as he gathers all her hair in his hands.
“Relax your expression,” Percy muttered, walking back to stand beside me. He’s a lot more calm now, seeing that his mate is alright and just here visiting with her old friends. “You look like you want to start a fight. That’s not going to get him to want to talk to you.”
“I can’t help it,” I growled, “I hate seeing him flirting with everyone but me.”
“I hate to tell you this, Gamma, but it’s your own fault. I wouldn’t want to talk to you either if you were always looking at me like that. Calm your tits and wipe the grimace off your face.”
“I’m trying!” I snapped. I really am trying. It’s just hard to focus with all these women all over him. If he prefers women, I’m already at a disadvantage. I’m not soft or small. I don’t think there will ever be a time I need to be saved or rescued like he does with the Luna. I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle when I see him like this.
“Try harder. Start by smiling and saying hi,” Percy, the insistent oaf, pushes me in Cedric’s direction unexpectedly, almost making me fall to the ground. I stumbled a few steps, then embarrassment washes over me, knowing I just looked like a fool in front of the last person I wanted to see me as one.
“Oops,” Percy murmurs.
Oh, I’m going to let him have it at training tomorrow.
“Hello, Gamma,” Kelly, the bartender, grins at me. She is the only girl here I know well, since I only come here with the men to drink. I’ve never desired to be with a woman, and if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to be with one in an establishment like this. Being raised by a widowed mother with all sisters makes it difficult not to feel for the women here and the circumstances that may have brought them to such a life. “Do you want your usual?” Kelly asks, wiping clean the inside of a mug.
“No. Thank you, Kelly. I, uh,” I looked at Cedric nervously, who was now watching me from the corner of his eye, a wary expression on his face. “I was hoping to speak to Cedric.”
Kelly smirks, knowing that I’m gay. I even told her last I was here with the men while they were busy in the rooms upstairs that I had found my mate. She probably suspects by my behavior and the timid look on my face as I stare at him that he is my mate.
She also knows that I royally screwed up our first meeting, giving him the worst first impression of me. She listened patiently as I voiced my problems. She keeps her customers' secrets and their conversations confidential, so I always felt comfortable with her.
“I’m a bit busy,” Cedric stated, looking uninterested as he turned his focus back on braiding the woman’s hair. The other girls are looking at me curiously, but both Kelly and Yasmin have these knowing expressions, their eyes expectant of a show, which just makes me more self-conscious.
“When you’re not, would you like to take a walk with me?” I asked calmly, trying to focus on the goal and not my jealousy. My goal is to get him to accept me, whatever it takes now.
The Alpha is right. He has been nothing but brutally honest with everyone since coming here. I’ve heard tales of sirens using their abilities to deceive others. If he was going to do that, I think he would have already. He could have bewitched me into giving him my very soul and I probably would have gone along with it. He hasn’t, though. He’s been so honest with me that it hurts at times, him telling me repeatedly how idiotic and ignorant he thinks I am and to leave him alone.
Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut on our first meeting?
“Because you’re idiotic and ignorant,”my beast growls in my head. “I told you to wait and talk with him before you made any assumptions or demands.”
“You did, and now I have to figure out how to get him to forget about that and start over again.”
Cedric is quiet for a few moments, looking like he is concentrating extra hard on the girl's hair, even though there is barely any hair left to braid. I can braid hair too. I had to help do my sister’s hair plenty of times growing up. I may even be better than my mother. I would love to run my fingers through Cedric's hair, feeling his silky locks between my fingers.
“I should probably find Ela soon. She will need me if that Alpha of yours returns to work.”
“He’s not!” I rushed to say, probably looking rather crazed. I cough nervously as Cedric turns to look at me like I’ve gone mad. “I mean, he’s not going back to work. He and the Luna are going to be on a date for the rest of the day.”
He purses his lips together as he thinks. “You just want to take a walk?” he asks.
“Yes!” I hurried to say, my excitement getting the better of me again. “I mean, yes, or whatever else you would want to do. What I really want is to have a conversation, no matter the setting.” I’ll accept anything at this point, as long as we can talk and I can beg for a redo of our first meeting. I want to start over from scratch.
“Hmm,” he rubs his chin, fighting a smile. He really is an attractive man. No wonder I’m always getting jealous of others seeking his attention. “I could go for an ale right now,” he says.
“If it’s ale, we have-omph,” one of the girls starts to say, but Yasmin quickly covers her mouth with her hand.
“There is a great little restaurant down the way that serves the best ale in town,” Kelly grinned at me, helping my case. “You both should head down there. It won’t be busy this time of day, so you may have the whole place to yourselves.”
Heaven bless Kelly.
“Alright,” Cedric pushes himself off the bar stool, making my heart sing as I realize he’s just agreed to come with me. “Let’s-”
His words are cut short as his eyes begin to glow, and his whole face contorts in worry.
