“Least I could do after you scrambled my eggs last night.”
Eli snorted at that. “You’re a pro hockey player, a passionate photographer,andyou’re a talented poet. Whatcan’tyou do?”
“I can’t fly a plane. But I am considering takingclasses.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think that would be allowed. It would make you way too attractive. Like fucked-up levels of attractive.”
“Then I’m going to sign up right when you leave.”
Eli shrugged as he walked over to the small dining room table, sitting in front of a window that looked out to my yard. The morning sunlight filled the room, soaked in by the large, round pot full of white and blue and purple orchids. Eli took a sip of his coffee and looked around, his eyes settling on the camera I had left out on the credenza. It was one of my classic cameras, a Fujifilm X100F, with its silver and black frame.
“I thought you only liked to shoot with Nikons?” Eli said. He set the coffee down and reached over for the camera behind him, gently picking it up.
He had remembered that fact from the first time we ever really hung out. That warmed my heart. “Nikons are definitely my top choice, but if I had to choose my second, it’d be the Fuji. There’s just something about the way it takes photographs that always impresses me.”
“Is this digital?” He grabbed the camera and examined it.
“It is. I like using that one for more on-the-go kind of photos.”
He turned it on, lifted the viewfinder up to his eye, and aimed the lens at me.
I smiled as the shutter clicked. He checked out the image on the display, nodding. “Colors look perfect. And the way it plays with the light is interesting. Huh, I may have to rent one of these and give it a trial run.”
“Take that one,” I said. “I haven’t used it in a bit. Probably better off with you.”
“Really? Shit, thanks. Yeah, I’d love to borrow it for a bit.”
“Go for it,” I said. Eli chewed his bottom lip. I could tell he’d been hit with some kind of idea. “What is it?”
“Would you mind if maybe I could test it on you?”
I arched a brow, taking a bite of the eggs. “Do you want to do a naked boudoir shoot?”
His eyes lit up. “Yes, but that wasn’t what I was thinking. Do you think I’d be able to photograph you in your wolf form? Out in the woods?”
Now, why did that suddenly feel like more intimate of an idea than a naked photoshoot?
I liked the idea, though. I realized I didn’t have any actual photos of me in my wolf form. I’d seen myself in reflections before and knew how I looked, but I didn’t have any kind of documentation. No physical thing to hold and point to and say, “Yeah, that’s me.”
And who better to capture that side of myself than my fated mate?
…Which was an entirely different kind of discussion that needed to happen. I could choose to wait it out, see if things progressed naturally, but that felt wrong to me. Like I was holding back a vital piece of knowledge from him. He should know that the hands of fate fiddled around our connection. That wasn’t something that could just be set aside. There were other issues I needed to confront—mainly the ironclad closet I had locked myself in for all twenty-nine years of my life—and how being with Eli publicly would shift the spotlight I’d been trying to avoid directly my way.
But he didn’t deserve to be hidden away like a dirty little secret.
No. Elijah Sager was the trophy. The Stanley. He needed to be treated as such.
He also had to know it would be on both of us to accept this decree from destiny. A choice we needed to make together and bind it under a full moon. I’d heard about the ceremony, but only wisps of stories here and there, only having met a few shifters in my life who had found their fated mates and followed through with the ceremony.
I needed to ask the pack if they knew more. And I would, but first, I needed to rip this Band-Aid off.
“Yes, I would love that,” I said, answering the original question before making my pivot. “Eli, have you felt something different about us? It’s difficult to explain exactly, but have you sensed something that maybe you hadn’t felt with any of your other relationships?”
Eli set his fork down on his plate with a clink. He smiled a little sheepishly. “So is that what this is, then?”
Oh shit. I really stepped in it with that one.
“Sorry. Shouldn’t have assumed anything. I mean, you know?—”
