Chapter 14 - Who's Coming to Dinner?

When Cassidy walked through the front door, she was welcomed by a delicious smell that she could only assume was coming from the kitchen. She closed the door behind her and walked toward the kitchen. She always enjoyed it when Nat was in a cooking mood. He had a gift when it came to cooking; if Cassidy didn’t know her friend so well, she would have thought she was magical. Cassidy kept telling her gifted friend that she could have been a chef. “Smells amazing; what are we having tonight?” she asked when she stepped into the kitchen. “Hey! Where’d you go? Never mind, can you help me set the table, please?” Natalie asked as she continued to work to get dinner ready. “We could eat at the island tonight; it doesn’t have to be anything fancy.” Nat turned around at her friend and had a guilty look on her face. “Nat?” Cassidy called out to get Natalie to turn around and talk to you. Natalie waited a minute before she swooshed around and squeaked out, “I met a guy at the food market when I went to get groceries. Cassidy, he is tall—like tall, tall, and has shaggy hair but not too long and chocolate eyes; he’s so dreamy, and I invited him to dinner.” Natalie lifted her apron as she covered half her face to protect the glare she typically got from Cassidy when she invited strange men over. Cassidy remained silent as she waited for her friend to finish cowering behind her apron. Once Natalie lowered the apron and looked at Cassidy again, she responded, “I think that’s great. Maybe it should just be the two of you tonight. I don’t want to be your third wheel. I can take the car and see if there is a movie playing and stay away for a while.” Cassidy was already backing out of the kitchen. She was not in the mood to see her friend flirting with some guy she barely knew. It never ended well, and she didn’t want to be a witness when Natalie was no longer interested. “Please, Cassidy, you can’t leave. I need you to stay. I really like this one, and I don’t want to make my usual mistakes and move too quickly. Please, please, please.” Natalie pleaded with her friend, giving her a pouted lip and sad puppy eyes. Damn it. Natalie always knew how to manipulate her. “Fine,” she grumbled. Natalie jumped with excitement and ran back into the kitchen to finish dinner. Cassidy walked over to the cabinet and started looking through the drawers for the linen placemats and also found some nice silverware. She pulled the plates from behind the glass door and placed them on the table. Cassidy then found some silver candleholders and some white candles to help with the ambiance for her friend. Natalie walked out to check on how everything was looking. “Wow, Cassidy, where did you find all that?” Cassidy pointed at the cabinet in the corner and shrugged with a crooked smile, “I guess my grandmother had good taste.” Her chest swelled as soon as she said them. It was the first time she felt something that wasn’t pain when talking about her family. Natalie smiled warmly as she nodded, “She sure did.” Cassidy shook her head and took a deep breath, “Tonight can’t be about tears. We need to make a good impression.” “I think it looks amazing; there’s just one problem.” Cassidy looked around the room and again at the table to see if there was something she missed. “What did I miss?” Natalie turned away quickly and hightailed it back into the kitchen when she yelled out. “You’re missing a place setting; four people are eating tonight.” *** Gavin sped through the pack land as he went to the pack house in his truck. Occasionally, he would look over at his friend to see if anything had changed in his positioning. Jacob sat there with his head in his hands and doubled over in his seat. “Hey, it’s going to be fine. I don’t know why you are stressing so much about this.” Jacob stayed quiet as he continued to process the situation that was about to happen. Why? Why was fate being so cruel to him? Alden: You should be happy; this gives us another chance to be close to our mate. Maybe she will tell us what Adrien was doing there. Jacob wasn’t paying any attention to what his wolf was telling him. This was a bad idea, and he didn’t have any clue how to get out of it without coming clean to Gavin why he couldn’t go. “This isn’t a good idea,” Jacob grunted. “Hey, you’re keeping your promise to your friend. You are going to make sure that his granddaughter is safe, and we are having dinner with them. What’s the big deal?” Gavin asked. Jacob lifted his head and looked at his friend, “How do you think the pack will react when they find out their Alpha and Beta went to dinner with some humans? Not just any humans, female humans. They’re not going to like this.” Gavin didn’t think about it like that. Their laws on interaction with humans were ancient, but they helped keep their secret safe from the humans finding out about shifter wolves in the world. “I still stand firm with the reason of keeping the girl safe, nothing more,” Gavin said confidently. Gavin pulled up to the pack house, put his truck into park, and turned off the engine. Jacob looked hesitantly at the pack house. He should have headed back to the city, and then he wouldn’t be in this mess. “Jacob, is there something you’re not telling me?” Gavin asked. He had never seen his friend act like this before. Something was telling him there was more than he was letting on.” Jacob let out a sigh. It was either now or never. “I have to tell you something,” Jacob started. Gavin looked at his friend with worry. “What is it?” “Kevin’s granddaughter is part of the reason why I left the pack sixteen years ago and is also my mate.”