My Pack Called Me Empty, So the Coldest Alpha Claimed Me Out Loud novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Town

"Tell me what you want," Eskil said that night.

We were on the floor of my ruined cabin with a bucket of hot soapy water and a mattress that would never be a mattress again.

Leena had brought rags, a shovel and strong opinions.

Two of Eskil's wolves were posted by the pines on the point road, and I had stopped pretending to mind.

"I want the stuffing out of my mother's quilt," I said.

"I'll find new stuffing," he said.

"I want the floorboards put back."

"Done," he said.

"I want to go on a date."

He stopped with a rag in his hand.

"A date," he said.

"A real one. Somewhere with people who don't know what you are. I've never been on one in my life."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Where?"

"The diner in town."

The next afternoon he drove me forty minutes inland to the only diner on the highway, a low brown building with a flickering sign and a pie case by the door.

No wolves.

Not one.

Just truckers, a table of teachers, and a waitress with a pencil behind her ear.

Eskil sat in the red booth with his shoulders too wide for it and his hands flat on the table, looking at the menu.

"You're allowed to relax," I said.

"I am relaxed."

"You look like you're guarding the cash register."

"I've never been in a place like this," Eskil said.

"You've never been in a diner?"

"I've never sat in a restaurant across from someone I wanted to be sitting across from."

I put my menu up in front of my face so he wouldn't see it.

The waitress came with a pot and looked at him a second too long.

"Coffee, hon?"

"Please," Eskil said.

She poured it, and smiled at him, and said, "You new in town? I'd remember you."

"I'm taken," Eskil said.

He didn't even look at her.

He was looking at me.

The waitress blinked, laughed, and wandered off with a pleased shrug.

I took my menu down, and my whole face was hot.

He took a sip of the diner coffee, and I watched him try not to grimace.

"It's terrible," I said, delighted.

"It's very bad."

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