The Mate Deal

Chapter 3

We spent the next few days getting ready for a few reasons.

A:  he can’t act to save his life, so I had to give him a crash course.  It helped a little, I think, but I think once there’s some pressure on him to perform, he’ll do better.

B:  we have to get to know each other.  If there’s some sort of slip up, there could be problems.

C: If he showed up so quickly, his parents would be a little suspicious.

So we waited a week.  And on Saturday, Matt called home and told them he was coming back.

Matt had been staying in a hotel a block away from campus, and so the day we left, I packed up and walked over and he was there waiting for me in his car.

The drive wasn’t all that long, really, only twenty minutes or so, since it’s on the edge of town, which was good because I was going to have to drive it a lot.  I wasn’t dropping out of college.

We pulled up to an average sized house, and immediately an older woman with tanned skin like Matt’s came rushing out as I was getting out of the car.  I smiled and waved, but that wasn’t enough, apparently, because she tackled me with a hug.

“Hi!  I’m Luna Rosalind, Matthew’s mother.  You must be Stephanie!  We’re so thrilled to meet you!”

“Mom, get off of her.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” she said as she turned back to Matt and bombarded him with hugs and questions.

A man came out and smiled, and I could only assume he was Alpha Kinish.

“Rose, let them breathe, will you,” he called from the porch and she let go of Matt and smiled at both of us proudly, and I felt a stab of guilt, but buried it as I smiled back at them.

“Hey, Mom, Dad, this is Stephanie,” Matt said confidently.

“Hello, Stephanie,” His dad said as he walked over and shook my hand.  “I’m Alpha John.”

“Hello.”

The days drug on and on for Matt.  He never knew what he was supposed to do next, and he was afraid that he’d ruin everything.

At dinner every night, his parents insisted that they eat together.  They asked Stephanie as many questions as they could think of, and she always answered politely.

“So, Stephanie, how old are you?”

“Um, I just turned nineteen a few months ago.”

“Where are you from?”

“Seattle, originally.”

“Oh?  We spent some time there.  It’s a nice city.”

“Yeah, it is.”

And Matt remained quiet most of the time, which was fairly out of character.

On the Brightside, his parents had a guest room set up for Stephanie, so they wouldn’t be forced to go through that kind of charade, too.

And Stephanie was gone half the day, anyway.

So while she was gone, he hung out with his friends, and played video games, and since his parents bothered him so much, he went looking for a job.  Since he’d dropped out of college when he was eighteen, he hadn’t worked at all, even though he needed to now.

The pack all met Stephanie, or Steph, as he called her around everyone else, and they all loved her.  They thought she was way out of Matt’s league, sure, but they liked her, which was good.

And Matt couldn’t help but think that maybe this would work out.

The Alpha and Luna sat in their room, talking.  “She’s a nice girl,” Rosalind said.

“She is.”

Rosalind changed her tone a minute later when she said, “He thinks we’re idiots, doesn’t he?”

“Of course he does.”

Rosalind looked at her husband, her mate, and frowned.  “Why are they lying to us?”

“I don’t know,” John said.  “Why don’t you go ask him?”

The Luna frowned deeper.  “No.  I don’t want them to know we figured it out so early.  Let them fix this mess themselves.”

“Alright, Rose.”

And the two kissed and turned off the lights.

[A/N: are they busted already?  Do you like it?  Should I keep writing?  What should happen next?  Feel free to check out my other books, too!]