Chapter 2

The weekend arrived in a blink of an eye, and I was too broke for an outfit, so Raina had offered my current choice of costume: a skin-tight black, cat, leather, jumpsuit. . It had a pair of black earrings and a black cat ears headband attached to it. Plus, it revealed more of my cleavage than I'd have liked, but since it was all I had, I stuck with it. 

I had an email from my Economics professor in my online class. “Hey, Class. 

Do not forget your homework deadline is today. It is the hard due date, so I won't accept any request for extensions. Also, please remember that our exams are coming up on the 1st of November, Monday, so please ensure you are studying for it, as it is worth 30% of your total grades. Goodluck and Happy Halloweens.  Dr. Bri–'' I stopped reading.Great, another huge thing I had to remember. My grade was close to a D in that class, so I couldn’t dare to miss this exam, or I could lose all my scholarships. This professor was such a strict, annoying dude. Thank goodness I wasn’t taking him in-person, else life would have been even harder for me. 

I headed for work taking the earliest bus, so I avoided any issues with Mr. Tucker. 

…….. 

“Mom, I’m at work okay?” I spat to her over the phone. 

“I know. However, I need the money, so send it to me tomorrow.” She said, That meant my pay from today was going  to the debt settlement. Great.Another thing to stress about. 

“Lyric!” Josh yelled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’ll call you later.” I hung up on her. 

“Are you really that uninterested in your job? What the hell are you doing back here?” He hollered. 

“I’m sorry. I’ll head back now.” I pivoted to him, shoving the phone into my purse.

He glared down at my chest. “Can’t you pull the zipper down even more to expose those things. Make the men gawk at you and order more.” He said, his tone lacking no hint of a joke. 

I had to stop myself from frowning and just said through gritted teeth, “That’s the best it can go.”

Glaring at me, he shot another look at my chest. “Whatever. Just make sure you accommodate those lust-filled morons and act all sultry, as long as they keep buying more drinks. Who knows, they could tip your broke ass more.” he said dismissively and walked away to yell at more of the women to literally sell their bodies. 

Returning to my stand, I couldn’t help the frown that was plastered against my face. “Stupid, old fool.” I muttered under my breath. 

“But why? I just got here.” a male voice thundered from the other side of the counter. 

I flinched hard, lifting my gaze to catch the sight of a towering man in a tiger-print tuxedo. His head was covered with a tiger-head costume, exposing only his necessary oral, nasal and visual openings; his eyes were a unique pair of gray orbs that glistened in the poorly lit room. 

“I’m sorry.” I sighed. “It’s just… my boss.. He keeps pressuring  us to make the workers seem like some slut players or something, like I’m not….” I trailed off, realizing I was pouring my heart out to a random stranger. “I’m sorry… uh… What would you like to order?”

He sat on the stool, resting his elbow on the counter. “It’s okay. You seem like you need a man to rant yo” his voice possessed a low growl that was both intimidating yet calming. It made no sense, but something about the calmness he spoke with made me want to do nothing but listen to him over and over. Plus, I did need someone to rant to. “It’s not common to be privileged to hear such a beautiful woman speak.” He said and it made my cheeks flush red. 

“Stop teasing me. I won’t give you a free drink.” I joked for the first time since God knows when.

“Oh, I would rather buy endless drinks if it’ll get me your time.” he chuckled (a literal sound from heaven’s album). My eyes trailed to his arm on the counter, and despite his disguise, his muscles were daring to rip out of the tiger prints.  “To start with, I'll get a glass of beer, and you can rant to me in the process.”

“Well, since you insist on listening, get ready, because it ain’t gonna be sweet talks.”

“You seem like you could murder a lion, so I'm definitely not expecting sweet talks.” His half-hidden lips curved to a lopsided smile.

My jaw fell, yet a smirk still twitched in my muscles. Why were my cheeks red? It wasn’t a compliment! “I’m a sweetheart, thank you.” I playfully rolled my eyes and started making his drinks. “But sometimes, I just wish I could grab my boss by his throat and shove him in one of the trash cans. He literally bullies me everyday, and that’s because he knows my life depends on this job.” I rolled my eyes, passing his cup to him. “He even made me wear this stupid costume.”

He took the cup from me. “I think the costume looks really good on you. It caught my interest from the farthest end of the bar.” Once again, I felt strange chills running up my body just from the vibration of his voice. He was clearly flirting with me, but I just laughed. Not a death glare that I normally shot at other men that flirted with me, no, I freaking laughed!

“It has the interest of every man. Those nasty beings have been trying their best to hook up with me by all means. It seems as though men only think about one thing.” My face scrunched up as I scanned the room of costumed lust-driven monsters that filled up the room. 

“Men.” he shook his head, taking a chug of his beer. 

I scoffed. “Like you're not one of them.” I joked. For some reason, he felt different. While he was making flirty remarks, his motive smelled clean. He wasn’t speaking to me like I was a whore that he wanted to strip off her clothes and shove in his bedroom. He talked to me like I was a woman, an actual person and not an item, and that was something I appreciated. 

I pulled another bottle of beer, just to make it seem like I was actually working. “My manners.I haven’t given you a chance to talk about yourself.”

He shrugged, dropping his cup. “I’m only here because a  friend forced me here. He claims my social life is dying.”

I chuckled. “Is it?”

“Maybe a little.”

I just chuckled, again. Oh, no. Was I chuckling too much? What if he thought it was weird?

“Why don’t you pour yourself a drink and let’s have a proper chat?” he made the last words sound like a purr.

“In other words, lose my job?” 

“No, I’ll buy you a drink and keep buying more, so your boss doesn’t suspect. I want to spend time with you and I don’t like when people don’t give me exclusive attention.” He said, his gray eyes locked with mine. 

I wanted to stare at everything except him, but I found myself caught in his nest. His words made my chest start beating faster. What the  heck was that for? Why did he make everything sound like he was the main hero of a spicy romance movie? 

I poured myself a drink and found myself chatting with this stranger care-free. As people wanted their drinks, he indeed didn’t let me serve anyone else and paid for their possible order. Time was not a concern as I spoke to him. Honestly, I couldn’t recall our conversion,but I was just glad to  be stuck within his attention. 

“From what I've understood, you’re here for a brief moment, so like a vacation?”

“A vacation with a cause. Who knows? What if my aim was to find you?” He sent a lopsided smile at me and that made my cheeks flush red for the umpteenth time.

“So…” He leaned over the counter, gesturing for me to lean in, which I did, hoping he wasn’t going to notice the unusual rising of my chest. “Do you want to get out of here? My hotel room is a few minutes drive from here.” He whispered slowly. “We could go on a wa…” 

I ought to be mad, right? Mad that he was insinuating we slept together, but for some reason, the idea of a one night stand with him lightened a dead bulb inside of me, one that Roger had long killed. His lips were still moving; whereas, I was tracing the outline of his body underneath all that fabric. One, he was good looking. Two, it had been a long time since… Still basking in my thoughts, a strong scent got caught up in my throat and burning chills sprang up in me, a strange heat overwhelming me. 

"I'm your–" 

Just then, my wolf yelled, 'mate' 

My eyes widened and I jerked backwards, my beer glass shattering on the floor. “NO FREAKING WAY!” I screamed my lungs out, drawing attention to myself. My heart began pounding beyond medical accuracy and without thinking twice, I fled out of there, running towards the back door.

“Where the hell are you going?” Josh yelled at me,“”Lyric, I swear if anything goes wrong, I'll fire you.” My boss said, but his hollering went over my head as I ran as fast as my feet could carry me. 

It was about twenty degrees outside, but my brain cells turned off and didn’t make my steps falter until I got back to my dorm room, slammed then locked the door, with shaky hands.

I never asked for a stupid second chance mate. “Lyric, you almost lost focus.” I yelled at myself, panting my lungs out. That was close… I hope to never see him again. I’ll do everything I can to make sure we never cross paths…