Reading Between the Lines

Chapter 13: Application

Compared to the long sleeves he always wears, he's wearing a loose orange sleeveless shirt with black sweats and his giant black glasses. But because he loves long sleeves so much, his favorite crewneck is on the bed next to me.

I don't know what to look at right now. On one side, he has some nice tattoos, with swords and fire designs decorating every inch of his arms. But, he also has some amazing handwriting.

"Yeah. But everything I've read about them has been the same thing repeated over and over again," I explain before he turns around and raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, no. You mean the books where the human girl is always paired with the alpha?"

He sighs as he starts whining out of nowhere.

Even he's aware of the clownery?

Well, he's an actual werewolf. They have to be aware of the defamation, I guess.

"Yeah... don't judge me, that was a long phase," I defend myself as he facepalms.

"Vani, let me tell you. Mates are NOTHING like that in real life. At all," he starts before he starts laughing to himself.

"Dude, why?" he asks rhetorically as he snickers.

"I really don't know. Thought it was hot, I guess," I confess while he laughs even more. "I don't know what your taste is, but that's nowhere close to hot. Yeah, wolves can be possessive, but sometimes, alpha mates in books are just abusive and annoying. Trust me, we're a lot more realistic," he starts out, immediately making me intrigued.

"Okay, you know what? Before we even get into the mates stuff, let's recap last week. It was a pretty long session," he diverts before he erases the word "Mates" and replaces it with "Last Week".

He rubs his chin with his finger as he tries to think of last week. He clicks his tongue to signify that he remembers something. "Right! Also, all creatures here have hidden abilities."

"Hidden abilities?"

"Yup. They're abilities that come after we shift. For example," he pauses. "Let's play two truths and a lie."

Huh?

"Why?"

"Just trust me." I feel like that's Naishal's signature phrase at this point.

"Okay..." I think to myself for a second, trying to find the most believable lies possible.

"I once got a compound fracture in my leg from landing in a swimming pool awkwardly, I speak Kannada, and I've never been to a college party before." God, my prompts are SO BLAND. I'm boring, and I get bored easily. What a combo.

Literally, as soon as I finish my sentence, he says, "the first one is a lie." A victorious smile takes over his defined face. I gasp to myself.

That wasn't even a second! How did he say that so confidently?

"Yeah, that's right. I got it from a trampoline! How did you figure that out so quickly?" I ask in awe.

"That's my hidden ability: I have intuitive polygraphy. You know how in Avatar, Toph can detect lying when people's heart rate and breathing increase?" I nod my head.

"I have the exact same thing. I felt a little increase in your breathing when you said the first thing, and you hesitated a little when you were saying it. That's how I knew."

Oh. You know what this means? That means when I thought I was being slick, I wasn't.

"Does that mean-"

"I knew Delphine was lying? Yup. I knew. But it's okay. Don't feel bad, you were just trying to figure us out," he calms me down, his original smirk now a tiny smile to tell me he's being serious.