The Reluctant Mate
30 Directions

Porter

A busy month passed with the pack. Randy ditched us to go off to Lightwood to try to convince his stubborn mate to accept him. I would have sympathized, but helping cover the delta’s work on top of my own cut into my already limited time to spend with my own mate. I still saw Amanda as much as I could. We went out on dates like any regular couple and it was nice. We were taking things slow and we seemed to be getting closer.

My wolf was going mental.

I ignored that side of me as much as possible. Tonight she was coming out to visit for the first time since Carrie had released her, and I was nervous. It felt like a lot more was riding on my cooking performance than just this night. Maybe it was in my imagination. I read through the recipe for the fifth time to make sure I hadn’t missed any critical step. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

Kain was watching over my shoulder being a general pain in the ass. “Sure you should do that?” he asked.

“Yes. And go clean up your mess. Amanda will be here soon.”

“Why? If I do, she won’t have anything to throw at you, Porter,” the cocky little punk responded innocently. He was like the younger brother I had never asked for.

“You’re doing extra laps tomorrow if you don’t knock it off, kid.”

Kain leaned against the fridge. “Go ahead. I’ll tell Jason you’re abusing your power to pick on me.”

“I’ll tell him that you’re being—”

I was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Ooh, is she early?” Kain asked, replaceing humour in my suffering. He sauntered over into the living room.

I wasn’t ready, and I rushed to the door and pulled it open. I knew it was her even before I opened it because I could smell her intriguing scent. “Amanda.”

“Hey, Porter, smells good in here.”

I could say the same. “Hi Amanda!” Kain said from where he was stuffing all his stuff into his backpack, being way too friendly to my mate, probably to annoy me again.

“Hey Kain,” she said, smiling at him.

I frowned. It almost seemed she liked him better than me. “I’m just finishing up here, if you want to get comfortable.”

She nodded and leaned against the back of the couch and watched me.

“Want something to drink? I’ll grab you something before I go,” Kain offered. He was never so friendly to anyone. It was suspicious.

“Are you getting kicked out again because I’m here?” she asked. “You could eat with us, too.”

I paused for a moment in dumbfounded horror. Kain smiled at me evilly, before turning and looking back in her direction. “No thanks, Amanda. Jason owes me some junk food and game time and I’m collecting tonight.” Then he looked back at me with a smirk. “Now you owe me. Or maybe it’s your turn to run extra laps.”

“Kain...”

“See you later, Amanda,” he said as he pushed outside.

“He’s such a cute kid,” Amanda commented after the door shut.

“Maybe if evil incarnate is cute.”

She rolled her eyes at me playfully. “Don’t be so mean to him.”

“I’m not mean. I can’t believe you’re taking the kid’s side over mine.”

“Of course I am. He’s a kid, you can take care of yourself.”

I stirred the sauce I was hoping was turning out alright. “He did have one point. Want something to drink?”

“Please.”

“What do you want?”

“Something harder than water and softer than fairy juice.”

“Good, because I’m never letting you at the FJ again.”

She made a dismissive sound. “I’m not letting me at that again, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Fair enough. There’s wine, or beer if you’d prefer?”

“That’s fine. I’ll help myself.” She leaned down into the fridge and I watched her ass from the corner of my eye. “Which one do you want? Maybe wine would go better with what you’re making.”

I didn’t hear the question. “What?” Shit Porter, stop getting sidetracked by her body.

She looked over her shoulder at me. “Beer? Or wine?”

“You pick.”

“Fine, wine it is.” She closed the fridge and went and grabbed some glasses. She clearly remembered where everything was from searching for artillery and she opened the bottle and poured a glass for each of us. She put mine next to me on the counter and leaned back, swirling the liquid in her glass. “You know, you look pretty good cooking like this.”

“Oh yeah?” I wasn’t going to argue if that’s what she thought.

“Yeah. In my objective opinion. Maybe I came early to see what you’d be doing before I got here.”

“Ah, so it was on purpose.”

“Are you complaining? I was ready early and decided to surprise you. Surprise.”

“No complaints here. You look pretty good watching me cook like this.”

“Good answer.”

“Well, it’s true.” She just smiled and met my eyes while she sipped her wine. “Should I set the table?”

“If you want.” The plan was to have all that ready ahead before she got there, but she’d changed that up with her early arrival.

Amanda dug through the drawers and made short work of putting out place settings. “Sorry I smashed so much. Well, I mean, at the time it was one hundred percent justified, but still.”

I chuckled. “It seemed a fair trade for confining you.”

“I hope I didn’t break any of Kain’s stuff.”

“You didn’t. You got Max’s favourite mug though.”

“Well, I feel bad about Max now.”

“He’ll live.”

“Did I break anything you care about?”

I served the food onto the plates and we went to the table. “Nothing that isn’t yours to break.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I shrugged. “Everything that I have is yours if you want it.”

“Nice line.”

“It’s not a line. I’m serious. And you know that.”

She exhaled slowly. “Yeah.”

We ate in silence for a minute, while I wondered if I’d been too intense before she broke it. “This is really good.”

“Thanks. I just followed the directions.” Would have been nice if my mate had come with directions.