11
ELLIS
I rang the doorbell and waited on the doorstep until Mckenna came out. I held out the roses to her. “These are for you.”
She sniffed them. The red matched her cheeks. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I wanted this to be our first official date. No sneaking around. No guilt.”
She flashed her exquisite smile. “Thank you. It’s very nice of you to think of me.”
“I’ve done nothing but think of you these last few weeks,” I told her. “I know we agreed to keep it casual, but I can’t stop thinking about you. This seemed like the next logical step.”
She set the roses inside her house.
I walked her to the Porsche and sat her in the passenger seat. I drove her to the restaurant and got a table in the back where we could talk. I ordered a bottle of wine and scoped out the menu. “The filet mignon is really good here. That’s what I usually get, but since this is a special occasion, I might get something different. What do you think you’d like?” She kept looking around. “Is everything all right?”
She waved her hand. “This place...It’s kind of.... you know, expensive for my taste.”
“Do you want to go somewhere else? I know a really good hamburger stand down on the corner. We could get a couple of paper bags and eat in the park.”
She laughed. “No, I don’t want that. This place is really nice. I’m just not used to it. I’ve never been to a restaurant this nice. Then again, I’ve never been on a date with a guy as rich as you.”
I shrugged. “Don’t think about that. Just think about going on a date with the guy you used to sneak around with in college. I’m still that same guy. I had money then too, I just hid it better.”
She winced. What did I say to set her off? “Look, Ellis, I don’t want to go on a date with the guy I used to sneak around with in college. That guy really hurt my feelings. I wouldn’t be sitting here now if I thought you were the same as that guy.”
My eyes snapped open. “Really? What did I do to hurt you so badly? I always thought we were going pretty good back then. You said before I dumped you, but I never did anything of the kind.”
She fought hard to keep her voice calm. “You did so. You say we were going pretty good, so what happened? You just disappeared out of my life one day. I texted you to find out what happened, and you never even replied. What happened? Did you find a better girl?”
My stomach ached from this conversation. “You know I could never find a better girl than you.”
Her voice cracked with pent-up emotion. “You say that, but you’ve got one hell of a way of showing it. Do you know what you did to me? I actually cared about you. I actually started in my deluded state to think we might have a future together.”
“That’s what I thought, too. That’s what I always wanted.”
She bent across the table and snarled under her breath. “Don’t you dare say that. Don’t even think about saying that after the way you treated me.”
I clenched my teeth. So, this is what it came down to? She thought I dumped her and refused to return her texts? I never wanted to tell her the truth, but now I could see I had to. I bent forward, too. Our noses almost touched in the middle of the table. “You want to know what happened? Do you want to know what made me stop seeing you? Celeste fell apart and refused to Shift. That’s what happened.”
She stared at me with her mouth open. I always knew she’d react like that if she found out. I couldn’t stand to see that stunned look on her face. It reminded me too much of how I felt back then. “Oh, my God.”
I sat back in my chair and tossed my wadded-up napkin on the table. “There. Now you know. Okay? It threw a massive wrench in our whole family. She had to go to rehab and everything. And then she had Harper…”
“Wait. Your sister has a kid?”
“Yeah and now Benjamin has custody of her. It’s a real mess. And we try to keep it out of the papers. I mean no one needs to know what type of rehab she’s in.”
“One made for people like us you mean. If she doesn’t ever Shift…”
I still struggled to wrap my mind around it. I had gotten strong enough to only run as a bear a couple times a month. But never? That could kill you. Mckenna understood that.
“She could die. Yeah we know. But everything kind of fell apart back then. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. It took everything I had just to stay in school. I almost dropped out, but I coped by cutting myself off from everyone. I couldn’t talk to anybody, especially not to you, Mckenna. You would have actually understood, I realize that now. I’m really sorry, but I did what I had to do to survive it.”
She swallowed hard. She closed her eyes and bowed her head. “I am so sorry. I never knew, but I wish now I had known. I wish I could have helped you somehow instead of hating you all these years.”
I stared down at my plate. I had to keep myself together right now. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I really wish I could have reached out to you back then. Losing you hurt a lot worse than all the shit with Celeste, but I couldn’t do anything else. I was young and stupid. I should never have let you go, but I didn’t know then what I know now. I did it, and it cost me seven years I could have spent with you. That’s the worst part of the whole thing. That was my punishment for handling it the wrong way.”
She peered up at me. She opened her mouth to say something, but she closed it again. “I understand now why you stopped talking to me. It might not have been the best way to handle it, but it helps to know you didn’t turn your back on me. That’s what upset me most.”
My head shot up. “I would never turn my back on you, again Mckenna. Never!”
Her hand inched across the table. “Do you mean that?”
I grasped that hand for dear life. I clutched it for all I was worth. I could never let her go, now that I had her. I had to find a way to keep her for good. “Absolutely. You’re the one thing I always knew I could count on. Even when I couldn’t face you, just knowing you were there, helped me. It gave me an anchor to hang onto. You were always the one true and solid thing in my life, even when I couldn’t see any hope anywhere else.”
Her face lit up, and her eyes misted over with tears. “I never stopped thinking about you. That’s what really hurt. I always thought you found somebody else.”
I shook my head. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”
She tried to smile, but her lips twisted the wrong way. “I’m just relieved. I’m just happy that now I finally understand.”
God, I wanted to hold her right then. Clinging to her hand would never be enough. I should have told her in a quiet cafe instead of this noisy restaurant, somewhere I could put my arms around her and kiss her like she needed.
She blinked the tears away and raised her shining face to me. Now she really did smile, a glorious smile like the one I remembered from her early days. All the icy frost that separated her from me melted away, and the sun shone out of her eyes.
I could see she wanted to hold me, too. Her lips twitched, and her eyes danced around my face. She didn’t know where to look or what to do. She smiled at me so long I got embarrassed. Me! I never was embarrassed around women before, but just then, we should have been alone together in a private room. Anybody looking at us could see our most private, intimate moment spread out in public.
I let go of her hand and sat back. This wasn’t right, and I didn’t want to step on her toes by making it any more intense than it already was. She understood and withdrew her hand into her lap. We both turned to our menus and said no more about it.
She said almost nothing for the rest of the meal. When the waiter came, she waved her hand. “You know this place better than I do. You order for both of us.”
I ordered her the filet. I’d had it enough times before, and I wanted her to have the best. She beamed at me from across the table. Every time I looked at her, I caught her giving me the same shining look. I didn’t have to hold her hand. I didn’t have to put my arms around her. She was right there, with me. She always would be. My mate.