“Paul! Paul!” The scream caused my ears to twitch, over the sound of my tile saw, and I paused what I was doing to power down the dangerous machine. Straightening to twist, I yanked up my protective visor and caught sight of a very beautiful, very pissed off McKayla. Her pretty, sleeveless, pale-orange dress draped to her knees, giving me a clear view of her impatiently tapping foot. The clack of her heel against the concrete floor hit my ear drums like a judge’s gavel, and my expression screwed with guilt, as she crossed her arms over her impressive bust.
“I swear - would it be easier for you, if I just showed up whenever I wanted to go out? Would that be easier, so I don’t have to worry about you forgetting?” I swiped my palms roughly down the front of my jeans and shook my head wildly before pulling off my visor. Half a dozen pairs of eyes, around the workshop, were glued on me, but the only ones I cared about contained white-hot flames.
Not the good kind, either.
“I didn’t forget … I just lost track of time, McKayla.” My excuse was weak even to my ears, and McKayla rolled her eyes in disbelief. After our little heart-to-heart about our parents, the attitude has come rolling back, when she’d requested a ‘proper’ date - as if a bowling alley wasn’t a great place for a date. Glancing at my watch, I frowned at the time the arms displayed before opening my mouth. “You’re a half an hour early.”
“So?” McKayla arched her brows, daring me to argue, but I kept my mouth shut. There was something different about her - something dark; something in her eyes that told me she wanted a fight. I just shook my head and shuffled my way past her towards the office, contemplating what possibly could’ve happened in the past twenty-four hours.
Off the floor and behind the safety of a solid, oak door, I leaned against my desk to stare at McKayla. As I could with Jon, I saw her beast in her eyes, and I pursed my lips into a thin line, as the tense silence grew between us.
“What happened?” Mine was a simple question, but McKayla froze as if I’d slapped her. The blood drained from her cheeks, and my cheek twitched at the sudden reaction. “You can tell me, McKayla. I don’t think this is a particularly good way to start a relationship.”
I was speaking truthfully. I crossed my own arms over my chest and crossed my ankles. So often, as I’d seen with Jon’s family, McKayla’s face flashed with hurt, but I couldn’t feel bad for what I’d said. Like many shifters, she thought that just because we were mates, I would take whatever she dished out.
She was wrong, and I wanted to get this out of the way as quickly as possible.
“My dad …” McKayla spoke the words with venom, and then tossed her hair over her shoulder in what I recognized as an uncomfortable gesture, before continuing. “He wants to meet you … to make sure - and I quote - ‘He’s got his shit together’.”
My brows shot up at that, and an involuntary bark of laughter escaped my throat, to bounce around the room. McKayla stiffened across from me and I clenched my jaw tightly, shaking my head at her glare. I covered my mouth; I coughed to smother my fading laughter and she started to turn red, only a few feet away.
“I’m sorry - I just … don’t care.” I wanted to laugh. I wanted to take McKayla in my arms and sully her shapely dress with dust and soot and maybe some other questionable substances. Gripping the edge of the desk, I let my head fall back for a moment and closed my eyes before continuing. “McKayla - I could not give a lesser shit about what your dad thinks of me. He walked out on you - that tells me all I need to know about him. I get it - you’re offended that he thinks he can go there. I would be offended, too. But, Babe - I don’t care about him or his opinion, or what kind of power he thinks he has in this. The only person I want to like me is your mom, and I’m pretty sure she does.”
“How can you be like that? Doesn’t it piss you off?” All of that anger and affront had faded away into confusion, and I shrugged absently.
“What good does that do? I mean - think about it, McKayla. You showed up to our date half an hour early, which only made you more pissed off. You made a bad impression on my employees, by throwing a tantrum on the floor - which is a very dangerous place to be in those shoes, by the way. Not to mention, you worked yourself up, into a bad mood on our first date because of your father, and that makes me really not want to go out tonight.” Carefully explaining what was going on was tough; McKayla wasn’t immature, she’d just never encountered a situation remotely akin to this, before. Slowly the confusion on her face turned to embarrassment, and even a little bitterness. I sighed heavily to relieve some of the pressure in my chest. “It’s okay. I mean it, babe - it really is okay not to like your father. But you have to learn not to let that stand in the way of your other relationships.”
“I - I didn’t think about it like that … I just - he called, and my mom told him, and – like … it just made me so mad that I didn’t consider …” McKayla’s explanation trailed off without any real point being made and I ducked my head in a nod before she caught my gaze. “Do you really not want to go out now?”
I considered the question for a long moment and McKayla grew more visibly worried as the seconds ticked by. Would I have reacted the same way she had in this kind of situation? Fuck yes, I would. Sucking in a sharp breath, at that acknowledgement, I blew it out in a gust, before nodding.
“Yes, I do want to. Just give me a couple minutes to shower and change. I’ve basically been living here since that bullcrap with my apartment.” Pushing myself off the edge of the desk, I couldn’t help but smile at the relief that played on McKayla’s face. The tension eased in the air, and the crisis seemed to have been averted, as I gestured her to follow me into the back room. “I’ve decided to drop the place once I finish repairing it. It’ll take a long time - well beyond when my lease is up. I have to call in people to fix the pipes and wiring and shit. It’s not worth the trouble.”
“Where are you going to live, then? It’s gotta suck living in your shop …” I grunted in acknowledgment and pushed open a door, crossing into my makeshift bedroom. There was nothing but a cot and a suitcase to witness my terrible state of living, but knowing it was temporary eased the sting. The back room was mostly taken up by showers - there were only two stalls, and the law required them.
Even considering all of that space, the room wasn’t half the size of my apartment’s living room.
I crouched to rifle through my meager possessions and frowned slightly before opening my mouth. The only clothes I had left were the ones I’d taken with me to Alaska and they weren’t the best for a date.
“I’m going to buy a foreclosure. I’ve got friends that owe me favors, so I won’t have to spend too much, and I can do whatever I want with it, without having to worry about my neighbors.” I grabbed my least shabby-looking, graphic t-shirt and jeans, and straightened to head towards the showers. The only thing separating them from my borrowed space was a sheet, and I tried not to think about how low I’d sunk before opening my mouth again. “Speaking of which, you never mentioned where you worked - or if you worked … Do you work?”
“Sort of. I bartended and DJ-ed. That’s how I got arrested last week … I was working and the guy was a regular patron that was there with his cop buddy. Both of them were assholes. If it was anyone else, I would’ve just told them to go home and sober up.” Water gushed loudly from the overhead faucet, drowning out McKayla’s voice for a quick second, and I ran over what she’d told me from the holding cell. So, that’s what she was lying about.
Having a cop on her ass, about something that was someone else’s fault, was something she didn’t want to divulge given the circumstances.
Stripping out of my clothes, I let the cold water spear my skin without bothering to let it warm up first. In and out in less than a minute, I glanced over to find McKayla studiously looking anywhere else but my way, and a grin stretched my lips. She was trying so hard to be considerate, knowing what the mate bond would do once we fed it the tiniest crumb.
It was adorable the way we both sort of just wordlessly decided to go on at least one date before giving in.
“Where are we going, anyway? You never told me.” The storm seemed to have officially passed, and I dried myself quickly before shoving my feet down into my jean’s legs. Once again, I was beyond glad I didn’t have to worry about hair, but the feeling was fleeting as McKayla posed her question.
“This place I worked last year. The owner was so pleased she gave me free meals for life, and it’s normally crazy expensive. Their reservation list is booked a month in advance, and their walk-in section always has a line out the door - sometimes for hours.” I deliberately didn’t mention how incredibly lucky I’d gotten; that the place had got a cancellation that they hadn’t filled when I’d called. Bringing McKayla to this particular restaurant was a two-faced coin; I wanted to bring her somewhere nice, of course, but I also wanted to show her what kind of work I did. Her happy surprise was written all over her face, as I sauntered out of the showers, and I grinned as I pulled my shirt over my head. Taking her long, slender fingers in mine, I headed back through my office to grab my wallet and keys with a lightness in my chest.