Page 24

After a long moment of me remaining quiet, Mason cleared his throat.

“All right then, we can for sure help you get this date off on the right foot.”

“Of course,” Luis said. “Sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean any offense.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I really could use all of your help. I haven’t gone on a date in years, and most certainly not one that has so much riding on it.” My whole future as a person. My happiness. No big deal.

Mason grinned even bigger now. “This is where having a pack is the most amazing thing. Name an idea, any idea, and we can make it happen. You want to set up your own personal drive-in movie theater, great. We have a screen. We have movies. We even have an old car that’s a convertible that’ll take you back to your youth.”

I wrinkled my nose at that. “I’d rather be able to talk with him. Movies are great, but that doesn’t give us a lot of time to get to know one another.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Mason said.

I sucked in a breath. I had a few bouncing around, but I hadn’t known how to make them happen. But if what he said was true, I had an entire group of people who were hoping for my success and chomping at the bit to help me. Connor had told me that he’d read some of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s work called Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, and since then, he’d gone down a rabbit hole of anything related to astronomy.

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

“Then let’s get started,” Mason said.

“Hell yeah, alpha! We’ll have you mated by the end of the night!” Tucker said.

I pulled into Connor’s drive and turned off the car. I grabbed the flowers in the front seat and carefully lifted them up. They had survived the drive over thanks to the careful wrapping Celena’s mom had done. They were wildflowers growing on the pack land, and this bouquet had been carefully selected by at least five different pack members who had come out when they’d heard I was taking Connor on a date. More than one person told me they were happy to help the alpha and future alpha consort. Eventually I would have to talk with Mason about what all of that meant, but I was trying to survive one issue at a time.

The bouquet had a variety of flowers in it, specifically picked out for a purpose. Daffodils represented new beginnings, ranunculus flowers represented attraction and was meant to communicate my desire for Connor, and the green asparagus ferns were for good fortune.

I wore a pair of khakis and a polo shirt. Probably the nicest clothes I owned these days, besides the suits that hung in my closet. I didn’t have much reason to dress up anymore, except for today. I lifted my hand to knock on the door, but it opened and Connor stepped outside before I could connect.

“Hi,” he said. “Are you ready?”

I lifted the flowers and held them out to him. “Hello, Connor. I brought these for you,” I said. “They were grown by the pack.” Damn. I was proud of myself for keeping my voice even and calm, though if I kept speaking all formal, I’d likely scare him away.

Connor smiled, and my knees weakened. Fuck, if I kept looking at him, we weren’t going to get very far on this date. He was magnetic.

“Wow, they’re gorgeous. So the pack has a big flower garden?” he asked.

I nodded, my head moving too quickly, as if I was eager. I was, but I was supposed to be playing it cool.

“Yeah, and a vegetable garden. Apparently, the roadside stand over on McGraw road belongs to the pack.”

“No kidding? I pass by there quite a bit. I’ve even stopped a few times to get fresh peppers for salad. They have asparagus also. They grow good stuff.”

I nodded. No words came to me. Fuck, I was so screwed if I only managed to get one sentence out and nothing else. Connor looked so good in his cream-colored, slim-fit chinos and linen button-down shirt, with the top two buttons undone.

“I’ll go put these in water. Come on in.”

I followed Connor into his house. It was tidy and quiet. Not unlike my own place where everything had a spot and nothing was out of place. Like the home was staged, barely lived in. The kitchen counter was marble, and he had a Bluetooth speaker next to a bookstand where a cookbook lay open.

“This is a nice place,” I said.

“Thanks, I haven’t really done much with it. It’s smaller than what I wanted, but it works for me. I don’t quite have as much open space as you do.”

Not yet, I thought to myself. If things went well, he’d have all the space he needed for whatever he wanted, between my house and the pack property that we would regularly visit. Or we could live here. Really, I was open to anything as long as I was with him and also not stuck in my wolf form.

Connor pulled out a vase from the cupboard next to the fridge and set the flowers inside.

I pulled the little packet out of my pocket. “I forgot they gave me this.” I handed it to him.

“Oh, perfect! One of those flower food things.”