Twenty-eight

"You're joking, right?" I ask him skeptically.

He gently shook his head. "I'm not. The way you described the woman, that's exactly how we imagine her."

I took a deep breath in and roamed my eyes across the diner. This conversation had taken an unexpected turn and I didn't know how to deal with it. How does anyone deal if they come to know that the person repeatedly appearing in their dreams is in fact, some sort of goddess?!

"That's why you wanted to work on our relationship?" The word relationship left a weird taste in my mouth. I couldn't believe the boy sitting in front of me was my boyfriend. 

Harper nodded. "My wolf didn't want to let go of his mate and I was barely able to control him, for the reasons I explained before. But when you told me that the moon goddess was appearing in your dreams and when I heard the message, she delivered through you, my wolf convinced me that it was a sign, that the goddess wanted me to be with my mate."

"So, you made a 180-degree turn, the very next day," I said, while remembering the day Harper and I met on the benches in school.

He nodded.

"You're so confusing, you know." I sighed. "You told me, on the night of your birthday party, you were going to introduce me to your parents. Then why were you making out with some other girl?" My tone was accusatory and I didn't care if I had hurt him. If I was going to give this relationship another chance, I had the right to know everything.

Harper looked down at the table, where our hands were still intertwined. His eyebrows were furrowed and he was having a hard time finding the right words.

"I was damn nervous that night. I was way too happy that I found my mate and I knew that I had to introduce you to my parents at any cost. I was so fidgety that I hadn't even joined my party. I knew that you were a human and you didn't know about werewolves. I was afraid of my parents' reactions; they would have been able to smell that you were a human and wouldn't accept you."

"Aiden is my beta and my best friend. He knows me better than anyone else and at once knew that something was wrong with me. I told him everything and he assured me that he would find a way to get you and me alone for a while so that I could explain everything to you. Not the whole truth, just a distorted version of it. I waited on the balcony while he went downstairs to look for you."

Aiden was the beta? I wasn't surprised at all. Those two have always been thick as thieves. Like Harper, Aiden always carried a powerful aura around him, I guess him being the beta to a white wolf explained that.

"When Aiden left, I clutched the railing of the balcony and looked at the forests or anything that could calm my nerves. After a few minutes, a girl came on the balcony, I didn't know who she was, but I knew I had hooked up with her before." I pulled my hands back from his and put them on my lap, repulsed by where he was going with this. I immediately missed the warmth his hands radiated and stopped myself from grabbing his hands again.

Harper clenched his together on the table and then laced his fingers on the table. "She thought I was looking stressed and that she could help me relieve some of it." Harper chuckled darkly and I shifted nervously in my seat, unable to meet his eyes. "Without warning, she kissed me and I kissed her back. I had no idea that Aiden had found you and told you I was up there. That's when you must have seen her kissing me."

I weakly nodded, unable to get any words out of my mouth. 

Harper sighed. "In the middle of our, um, kiss", Harper uneasily shifted in his seat, as if he couldn't get those words out of his mouth, "Aiden mind linked me and told me that he found you."

"What's a mind link?" I asked, interrupting Harper.

"A wolf can communicate with other members of the pack it belongs to, even if they aren't in the vicinity. I can send messages to Aiden while I'm sitting here with you. It's used to communicate between pack members when we are in our wolf forms, as we can't talk in that form. It's as if someone is speaking in your head or talking through a mobile in our heads."

Honestly, he could tell me that the Earth wasn't round and I wouldn't find it bizarre. I was just beyond that point. This sounded so crazy to me while he talked about everything as if they held no consequence, and maybe they didn't for him. He was born into it, while my mind was boggling and was ready to explode.

Instead of saying everything, I just nodded, showing him that I understood. 

"That's when I pushed the girl away from me and went downstairs to find you. You know the rest of the story." 

I meekly nodded at him.

Silence ensued between us, where neither of us knew what to say and I was glad when the waitress came back to take our orders again. I didn't have the heart to ask her to come back later, so I just ordered whatever I could come up with. Harper must have had the same idea because he asked her to bring him whatever I was eating.

Neither of us spoke a word and ate our food in silence. It was becoming uncomfortable and I couldn't meet his eyes.

I could feel his eyes on me several times and I knew he wanted to say something to break the awkward tension between us, but couldn't come up with anything suitable.

I put down my fork after eating the last bit of pasta on my plate and looked up at him. "I want to see your wolf."

Words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them and I instantly closed my eyes at how stupid I sounded. Who even says that?!

A laugh broke out of Harper and my eyes flew open to check the wonderful sight in front of me. His eyes crinkled and his chest rumbled in laughter. I couldn't help but join him, thankful that the tension between us had lifted. It felt like a dark aura had lifted from us and I could breathe again.

"I guess we are ok, then?" Harper asked me with an uncertain expression.

I nodded and smiled at him.

He took out his wallet put down a twenty-dollar bill and got out of the booth. He came around the table and held out his hand for me to take. I placed my hand in his and he pulled me on my feet.

I felt giddy at the small skin contact between us. I couldn't help but smile at his hand's callousness and the warmth it radiated.

We walked outside the diner, hand in hand with ear-splitting grins on both of our faces. 

"You want to see my wolf?" Harper asked me from the corner of his eyes, as he steered out of the parking lot of the diner.

I couldn't help but think again about my decision. I was terrified when I saw the giant white wolf standing exactly where Harper had been standing moments before. But this time, I was ready. If I was going to accept him and work on our relationship, I had to accept both of his halves and this time, I was mentally ready because I knew what was going to happen.

That doesn't mean I wasn't nervous, though.

I nodded at him and smiled at him, hoping to ease the frown on his forehead.

I fiddled with the seatbelt across my chest and looked at him. His side profile looked gorgeous, not that the rest of him wasn't gorgeous. No wonder every girl fawned over him.

"How did you find out I was your mate?" 

"By your smell." Harper glanced at me.

"By what?" I gaped at him. Was this a subtle way of telling me that I had a bad body odor? I cringed at the thought and resisted the urge to smell my armpits at the moment.

"Not that kind of smell." Harper chuckled. "We werewolves have a keen sense of smell and we can differentiate between different people solely based on their body odors." 

"What do I smell like?" I asked him, already wary of the answer. I believe this was one of the tricky questions that a girlfriend asks their boyfriend. I smiled at the thought.

Harper looked straight into my eyes. "Chocolates and pine. It's my favorite smell in the world."

I blushed at the sincerity in his words and quickly averted my gaze.

I cleared my throat. "Are there any other superpowers werewolves have?"

Harper chuckled. "We don't have superpowers, per se. We just have heightened senses. We have a strong sight; I can even look clearly in the dark. I have powerful hearing; I can hear your heart's steady breathing right now and I could hear it when it thudded against your chest when you're excited. I have a keen sense of smell too; I could smell your arousal in the air when I started kissing you in the classroom."

I blushed a deep crimson as he said those words. I could see his lips morph into his infamous smirk, which I had begun to like now. I couldn't help but admit that it had its certain charms.

Harper laughed at my reaction and parked the car when he reached the woods.

He turned his body and gave me a mischievous smile.

Harper got out of his seat, walked around the car, and opened my door. "Are you sure about this?" He asked me while looking straight into my eyes.

I nodded and put my hand in his outstretched one, after taking a deep breath.