He glances at me, then at the shadowed underpass.
“I am fine,” he says, but his tone is off. Concerned. Panicked. His scent is off too. His stomach rumbles again, and I don’t think twice about offering him my basket.
“Fry? I meanchip?”
He looks at the basket before him, then at me, then back to my fries. Like he’s afraid, for some reason.
But why would an alpha like Luke be afraid of some fucking potatoes?
“Go on, I won’t bite,” I say, immediately regretting how cringe I sound. I meant to sayit won’t bite.
Before I can retract and find a way out of this embarrassing bumble, Luke offers me a faint smile and grabs one small fry from the basket.
“Pity. Your bite is by far your best feature.” He taunts me.
“And here I thought it was myEmily Blueeyes.” I recount his words with familiar sarcasm, but the air between us is not as intense or offputting as it was. I watch as he plops the fry in his mouth, as he licks his fingers of the vinegar.
I grab a fry myself and shove it in my mouth if only to stifle the groan that wants to escape me. What the hell is wrong with me?
Luke chuckles as he reaches for another without question.
“Thank you,” he says, settling beside me as he leads us through the shadows.
“I mean, it’s the least I can do, considering your family’s putting me up for the month,” I say.
He lets out a heavy sigh.
“You don’t owe me anything, Emily. You know that, right?” he says carefully.
I look up at him. His green eyes stand out against his pale skin and dark hair, but it’s not his physical features that make my heart beat faster. It’s the sincerity in his voice. The sweetness in his scent.
The truth he wears on his sleeve.
He means what he says, and somehow that makes all the difference.
He’s not just some grumpy, dominant alpha. I mean, yes, he is those things, but…
He’s also the kind of man who would give you the literal shirt off his back.
That has to count for something, right?
Apparently my father’s dying wish was that Luke and I meet. I’m still not not sure how I feel about that. We’ve never discussed our predicament. Why I’m here. I know he knows as well as I do, but still.
“You mean I don’t have to pay for my room and board the old-fashioned way?” I taunt him, raising an eyebrow. I don’t miss the way his eyebrows shoot to his hairline or the faint blush in his cheeks, and I can’t help but laugh.
“You’re too easy to rile up, you know that?” I tease as I grab a fry and shove it in my mouth.
“I’m serious,” he says as he stops us just outside the other side of the underpass. Where we stand, we are half in shadow, half in sunlight.
One foot in the darkness, one foot out the door. I sigh, looking up at him. “You don’t have to… we don’t have to talk about this.”
“Perhaps we should,” he says, going for another fry. I don’t stop him.
“What is there to say?” I groan. “My mother sent me here because it was my father’s dying wish, and you’re my last resort.” I scoff. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Luke takes a step closer to me and grabs the basket of fries from my arms where I’ve been balancing them.
“You think I don’t know that?” he says bitterly as I reach for my fries.
