Chapter Nine

This time, Wade was going to take her somewhere better than the food court. It would do them both good to get out of the mall for a while.

He debated restaurant choices as he slowly and carefully remove his beard. If this was going to be his first date with his fated mate, he wasn’t going to spend all night with his face still sticky with glue. He washed his cheeks and chin off, freshened up his cologne, and tried to stop his heart from racing.

Are you going to tell her tonight? his polar bear said, nudging at him.

I’m thinking about it.

Think less, talk more , his bear said, blithely unaware that that was terrible advice to give to anyone.

Wade did want to tell Mira everything. Of course he did. Shifter mate recognition meant that he already knew Mira Allenby was the love of his life, so he was eager to jump into the deep end of the pool. But that didn’t mean she was ready. As far as he knew, she was human.

And in human terms, they had only known each other for two days. That was enough time to like someone and want to go on a date with them, but it didn’t mean she was ready to hear anything about destiny.

Plus, the whole “some people can turn into animals, and I’m one of those people” thing would probably be a lot to deal with too.

When he was done sprucing himself up, he went out to meet Mira.

The sight of her sank into him, and he decided he understood the idea of Cupid’s arrows a little better now. Looking at her rising up from the bench to meet him, her forest green sweater-dress tumbling down over her thighs, he felt pierced through.

He knew he’d seen her in ordinary, non- Lord of the Rings -themed clothes before, on their lunch, but that had felt casual. This was a date, and it was the first real, undeniable sign he’d had that she was starting to feel about him what he already felt about her. The mate bond was more than a heads-up about how much they could mean to each other; it was a living thing stretched out between them, thrumming with its own kind of electricity and presence. Maybe she didn’t perceive it the same way a shifter would, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t sense it at all. Suddenly, Wade knew she could. This was real for her too—real and strange and exhilarating. It was written all over her face.

“Hi,” Mira said, with a smile that almost looked giddy. “It’s nice to see you out of the suit.”

“We’re both mixing it up. I like your dress.”

A pink flush crept up her cheeks. “Thanks. So, about my voice—” She gestured at her mouth, and Wade tried not to get sidetracked by the full, glossy shape of her lips. “I’m not as hoarse as I was, but it’s probably still best if you do most of the talking tonight.”

His polar bear perked up. That gives us the perfect opportunity to tell her everything.

It did. He just wished he felt more ready to do it. But fortune favored the bold, right?

If only he could have practiced this first. He should have called up Petey and made him take a break from nonstop luaus, pi?a coladas, and Anne to act as a temporary sounding board. He should have rehearsed the “shifters are real” conversation with one of the giant teddy bears propped up around the Christmas Village. He should have spent years becoming a smoother, more confident speaker who could reveal a ton of staggering, bizarre information without missing a beat.

But he hadn’t done any of those things, so he was going to have to wing it.

“I can try,” he said honestly. “Anything you’re particularly in the mood for, restaurant-wise?”

“Italian? I can always go for pasta.”

“Me too. Pasta and breakfast for dinner are probably my staples, especially when it comes to what I can cook myself.”

“I’m the same way. Plus bowls of cold cereal for when I’m feeling especially lazy. That’s really my area of culinary expertise.”

“You’ll have to teach me your cereal tricks sometime,” Wade said.

“I pour cereal at an advanced level, but if you’re really prepared to learn—”

“I am.”

Mira shot him a warm look. This close, he could see how her sweater-dress brought out the dark green undertones of her hazel eyes, making them look even more striking.

“Then,” she said, “I’m sure I can have you making bowls of cereal like a pro in, say, six months. If you’re up for that much of a commitment?”

It was ninety percent banter, Wade knew, but ten percent of it was a real question. She was trying, subtly but fairly, to gauge whether he was interested in an actual relationship, or at least the chance of one.

To him, six months was a no-brainer. In fact, six months wasn’t anywhere near enough—but it would be a beautiful start.

“I’m up for it,” Wade said. “I think the results will be worth it.”

*

Since Mira’s voice was already worn out, Wade wanted to avoid any crowded, noisy restaurants where they would have to shout to hear each other. He asked Mira if she was okay with an old-fashioned, hole-in-the-wall Italian place with a limited but excellent menu.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I’m a comfort food person anyway. I don’t mind a little squid ink cavatelli when I’m in the right mood, but I’ll take ordinary lasagna nine times out of ten.”

“How do you feel about enormous plates of garlic bread?”

Her eyes widened, and to save her voice, she gave him an enthusiastic double thumbs-up.

Wade felt the same way, which meant that Nonna’s was definitely the right choice for them. It was a small, cozy, homey place, and between the heat of the pizza ovens in back and the low, mellow light from the flickering candles, it almost felt sleepy—until the food arrived. Then the delicious, garlicky aroma woke you up even before you started moaning over how delicious it was.

Best of all, for tonight’s purposes, Nonna’s was a great place for private conversations. Tonight probably wouldn’t even be the first time someone had used it to confess to being a polar bear.

They ordered—fettucine alfredo for Mira, spaghetti carbonara for Wade—and settled in with a bottle of the house white.

“I was promised garlic bread,” Mira said, after they toasted the non-Marsh parts of the holidays. “I don’t want to be picky, but ....”

“It will come. You have my word.”

“I trust you.”

Hopefully that would still be true at the end of the night. He didn’t know what he would do if she decided he was out of his mind.

And of course, the disadvantage of telling her in Nonna’s was that he couldn’t shift in here to prove he was telling the truth. You could have a hushed conversation in a booth, but you couldn’t turn into a polar bear in one. Not only would everyone turn around and stare, you wouldn’t even fit.

He would just have to improvise.

“I hope Petey brings you back one hell of a souvenir from Hawaii,” Mira said.

“Oh, he will,” Wade said, with the amused certainty that came from a lifetime’s worth of experience with his little brother. “Then he’ll get sort of sheepish and admit that he wanted to buy one of those—whatever it is—for himself but forgot, and would I mind if he kept it?”

“Doesn’t that drive you crazy?”

Wade shook his head. “That’s just Petey. Besides, he’s my kid brother. It’s his job to drive me crazy, just like it’s my job to be a killjoy to him. We always have each other’s backs when it comes to what matters.”

“I’m still feeling like I got off easy by being an only child,” Mira said, but then a shadow fell across her face. Wade didn’t think it was just a trick of the candlelight, either.

“Is something—”

—wrong? That was what he was going to ask before the arrival of the garlic bread made it so that, for a split second, nothing was wrong in the world at all.

Mira leaned towards the platter and inhaled, her lips parting in something like ecstasy.

Wade tried very hard not to think about what it would be like to see that expression in another context. For the time being, he was going to sublimate his lust into the desire for garlic bread—and to be fair, Nonna’s garlic bread really was almost as good as sex.

“Oh my God,” Mira said, as she bit into a slice. “This is life-changing. I may have to give up everything else in my life to devote all my time to eating this bread. This is my new vocation.”

“You could start a new podcast reviewing a different loaf of garlic bread every episode.”

“Would you subscribe to my garlic podcast Patreon?”

He looked at the sheen of butter on Mira’s lips and swallowed. “In a heartbeat.”

It took them both about two slices before they could get back to an actual conversation that didn’t instantly devolve into crunch —rapture— crunch .

“So,” Wade said tentatively, “I know I’m supposed to be doing most of the talking, but when you said you were glad you were an only child, you looked ....”

“Like maybe I was rethinking that?”

He nodded.

Mira took a deep breath. “It’s kind of heavy stuff for a first date. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

He didn’t even have to think about it. “If you don’t mind telling me.”

“No,” she said softly. “I don’t mind. Like I said, I trust you. You’re a heroic last-minute Santa who does carol-oke to save hapless elves in white nightgowns. I feel like I could tell you anything. I’m just rusty when it comes to confiding in people.”

Wade could understand that. Mira’s podcast showed that she had put a lot of effort over the years into developing a polished, professional persona. Silver Screen Romance’s Mira was friendly, even bubbly, but she shared her opinions and insights, not her soul. In the episodes he had listened to, she had never given away anything deeply personal. And running a successful podcast meant doing a lot of networking and self-marketing. She had to spend a lot of time as Silver Screen Romance Mira, and he could see how that would instill habits that would be hard to break.

But she was breaking them now, for him. The mate-bond might help with that, but it still had to take a lot of courage on Mira’s part.

“My parents need to move into a retirement community,” Mira said. “Especially my stepdad, since he’s the one having health problems—he needs professional care—but I can’t imagine him getting separated from my mom. It would break their hearts. She has to go with him. And nice places with good medical care for the residents cost money.”

Money that one podcaster working on her own didn’t necessarily have.

“So it would be nice to have a sibling to pitch in,” Wade said. “That’s what you were thinking.”

And that was why she needed that bonus she had told him about, the one for staying through the end of the holiday season. That was why she couldn’t fight back when Marsh stuck her in carol-oke hell.

His polar bear had already wanted to gnaw on Marsh’s head for taking advantage of her, and now that he knew just how bad a fix Mira was in—how much she needed the money and why —it wanted to even more. And Wade agreed with it.

“A sibling would be a big help right now,” Mira said. “Especially a billionaire sibling. But I can make it if I can just squeak through the next couple of days. I need to get enough for the entrance fee. That’s the tricky part, since it’s a big lump sum that’s due all at once. But the bonus should put me over.”

Wade itched to tell her that he would be happy to cover her parents’ entrance fee for her. He wasn’t a billionaire—not even close—but he made a good living, and he saved a lot. He had no problem breaking into his rainy day fund to help out his mate’s parents.

But he knew that wasn’t the kind of offer Mira would accept, not on a first date. He would have to settle for helping her succeed with the plan she already had ... even if it meant putting up with Marsh.

“That’s a lot to deal with,” Wade said. “I’m guessing it take some of the fun out of Christmas.”

Mira’s laugh quickly turned into a cough. “Does it ever.” She took a gulp of water to wet her throat and chased it with some wine. “But enough about me, honestly. My voice is going out anyway. I’d love a distraction from all this.”

I’m a distraction! Wade’s polar bear said, bursting into his mind like the Kool-Aid Man.

You certainly are , Wade said.

No one could argue with that.

If this wasn’t the perfect time, it was good a time as any.

Besides, no matter how weird his confession made him seem, she wasn’t going to storm out of Nonna’s before she got her pasta. Not after she’d seen how good the garlic bread was.

Here goes nothing .

“Okay,” Wade said, double-checking that no one else was close enough to listen in. “Have you ever heard of shifters?”