He Wants Me, He Wants Me Not

Chapter 8

When Luna got downstairs, she looked around for a trace of anyone, then smelled them all in the living room. Most of the pack was there, some standing, some sitting on one of the various couches, others sitting in their mates’ laps. The little ones were playing a Just Dance game on the Kinect and laughing along with everyone else when they missed a move or did some ridiculous action. She smiled—they were so cute.

 Someone next to her cleared their throat and Luna turned to see Austen. Her breath caught in her throat. His jeans outlined his magnificent behind and the buttons on his Henley t-shirt had been undone, his sleeves were pushed up. There was some stubble growing in on his face and his hair was still messy. Absolutely mouth-watering.

 A slow grin stretched across his face and he murmured, “Stop perving on me, missy.”

 Luna couldn’t help the laugh that made its way out of her throat. There was no way to deny it—he’d heard her thoughts, so why not just go with the flow? They were being civil so she’d implement her plan soon.

 “Good morning to you, too. How long has everyone been here?” She’d been thinking in bed so intensely that she didn’t realize there were probably people downstairs.

 “Eh, an hour, maybe two. They ate breakfast and then came here when the kids asked to play that new Just Dance 3 game. They’ve been having a blast.” Austen smiled warmly, his eyes settling on the kids dancing and toddlers attempting to dance, flailing their arms and legs around.

 Luna caught the “they” when he mentioned breakfast and asked, “Did you eat?”

 Turning his gaze back to Luna, he replied, “No. I thought I’d wait for you. From what I’ve heard around the house, you can’t cook very well,” he chuckled at the blush rising to Luna’s cheeks, “and I happen to make a mean omelet, so I figured we could eat together.”

 “Aw, how sweet.”

 Austen laughed. He could hear the acidity in her voice, but knew she was just joking when he saw the tilt of her lips, indicating a barely-there smile. He tried his best to keep the atmosphere light and put out his arm. “Care to accompany me to the kitchen?”

 Luna smiled and looped her arm through his, “Sure thing.”

 ***

Luna flopped back onto her bed, rubbing her hand over her slightly swollen stomach. Austen wasn’t lying when he said he made great omelets. He did—he just conveniently forgot to mention they were huge. Like the size of Luna’s head huge. Once she was finished, he laughed at her expression. Luna’s stomach had been stretched to epic proportions and she figured she had a weird look on her face.

 She reached under her pillow and pulled out her journal. She didn’t write or anything, just wrote down random quotes, thoughts, questions, that kind of thing. she flipped to a new page, more towards the back. Time to get a new journal. Grabbing her favorite purple pen from her nightstand, Luna scribbled across the top of the sheet, ‘Mission: Austen’.

 She stared at it for a second and then laughed, scribbling it out. How corny! She decided not to write a title and skipped a line before starting. She hadn’t written anything down when Logan and her spoke of their plan, so she was going to now.

 1)    Be his friend

2)   Give him space

3)   Make no assumptions

4)  Respect myself

 There. Number one—become his friend. Surely, most intimate relationships started out as a friendship, so she’d start there. They’d do normal friend stuff, like hanging out, going on friendly outings, she’d listen to him, offer him advice, anything friends did.