Page 219 of His Hungry Wolf

“Yeah,” Cage said with the innocence of a ten-year-old.

Getting up, I reached for my wallet to pay.

“I got it,” Nero said.

“That’s fine. I have it,” I said not wanting to put him in that situation.

“No, I got it,” Nero insisted.

I was about to object when Cage cut me off.

“Nero, says he has it!” he said abruptly.

It startled me. I had clearly upset him. But, at the same time, I couldn’t let him pay for me. It would be unfair. Nero might not have known it. And, Cage might not have realized how unfair it would be. But I knew, so I couldn’t let it happen.

“Can I at least leave the tip?”

“The tip?” Nero asked confused.

Cage growled. He was not happy.

“For the cook,” I clarified.

“If he wants to tip the cook, let him tip the cook,” the cook yelled from the kitchen.

I didn’t realize that he could hear us.

Nero laughed. “Alright, you can leave the tip.”

I pulled out enough to pay for the meal and left it on the table. I tried to do it so Nero didn’t know how much I was leaving, but he did. His eyes flicked up at me amused by what I had done. Thankfully he let it go.

“Do you want to leave your truck here and ride with me, or follow?” Nero asked.

Cage looked at me.

“Whatever you want to do,” I told him not wanting to upset him any more.

“We’ll follow you,” Cage said getting into his truck.

The drive to Nero’s place turned out to be long. They lived 25 minutes out of town. It was outside of Dr. Tom’s protective spell and it was a relief to not have to deal with its limitations. I looked over at Cage wondering if he noticed a difference.

“How are you feeling?”

“Nervous. Scared. What if she doesn’t like me?”

Either the other things on his mind made him not notice, or he wasn’t yet connected to his wolf enough for the change to register.

“Cage, she’ll love you,” I reassured him. “Everyone does. I just hope she likes me.”

Cage didn’t reply. Did that mean that he was worried about the same thing? I was sure that I wasn’t the type of wolf shifter a person who grew up around shifters would want their kid to bring home. Who wanted their son to be with a boy who couldn’t fit into either world?

I shouldn’t have come. I could see that now. But it was too late for him to drop me off at the bed and breakfast without making things worse between us. So I instead chose to keep my mouth closed and be as invisible as possible.

Cage was meeting his mother for the first time. I just wanted him to be comfortable. He seemed to be having a hard enough time as is. He didn’t need all of the complications that I brought along with what he was already going through.

When Nero’s truck pulled over, it was into a sparsely populated trailer park. I didn’t know what I was expecting but I wasn’t expecting this. I looked over at Cage to judge his reaction. He didn’t have one. I could tell that he was on edge, but it probably didn’t have to do with where we were.

Following Nero to an aging mobile home that reminded me of the office on a construction site, we parked next to Nero’s truck and joined Nero in front of it. Nero looked at Cage with sympathy in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to tell Cage something before he invited him in. He didn’t.