The Alpha's Human Mate

Chapter 21 'Untold Lies'

     "Ok, I think that's enough." Xavier declared after his sister tried to put on another slideshow.

     Yes, that's right, another slideshow. As if the first two ones of over one hundred pictures each weren't enough. Not to mention all the home videos in there also.

     "Hey," Cecelia whined. "I was just starting to get to the good stuff."

     Xavier didn't even bother to respond to her, he simply jumped off of the couch and unplugged her laptop from the TV.

     "But we were just about to get to the 8th-grade talent show," Brad complained through a mouth full of popcorn.

     "Why do you think that he unplugged it?" Ivy snorted at him.

     True to her word, Cecelia made sure to show me a slideshow of all Xavier's embarrassing moments. She even had his baby photo album laid out on the table in front of us, because why would she not?

     "Does everyone get a slideshow of Xavier's most embarrassing moments? Or am I just lucky?" I half-joked.

     As much as I knew that this was weird, I just couldn't bring myself to care. Because honestly, this was fun, it reminded me of my only friends back in the city.

      After my dad got sick I became super distant and closed off from everyone around me. I just couldn't find it in me to have fun, it felt wrong. Like I was doing bad by going out with my friends and laughing all while my mom was crying every day.

     "Only his mate," Cecelia said half paying attention to me as she laughed herself at her older brother to grab her phone that he was currently deleting photos of himself off of.

     "Mate?" I repeated. "What's that?"

     Cecelia froze.

     Xavier froze.

     Everyone frozen.

     "She means friend," Hunter explained for his girlfriend. "Cece's been watching a lot of Australian tv lately and keeps using the words that she hears in them. It's getting annoying," he rushed out in one breath.

     "Wait," I backtracked, suddenly remembering something. "Didn't you call me that on my first day? In the cafeteria when we first met? I'm pretty sure that you called me your 'mate'," I pointed at Xavier as I spoke.

     "Did I?" Xavier asked me with a slightly high-pitched voice. "I really don't think that I did."

     "Yeah," Grayson cut in. "That doesn't sound like something that Xavier would say at all, Addie."

     I was sure that he said it. I was positive.

     "You did," I said stubbornly, standing up off the couch and taking a step forward toward Xavier. "I remember."

     "You probably just miss heard him," Brad defended his friend. "The cafe is always super loud and sometimes it's hard to hear what people are saying even when they're right next to you."

     "Yeah, I mishear Brad all the time," Audrey nodded along with her boyfriend. "Just today I thought that he said something about 'bars' but he was really just talking about 'cars' and stuff."

     "The cafeteria was dead silent," I reminded everyone. "I remember this clearly because I thought that it was so weird, I mean, the doors opened and then everyone's conversations just stopped! That doesn't happen unless it's like, the principle, but it wasn't, it was you." I jabbed my finger at Xavier to emphasize my point.