I have never felt this anxious, except for when I first met Callum and proceeded to vomit all over him. At the dinner with my family, things were really uneventful. They weren’t nice, per say, since Dad was in his interrogative mode, asking Callum a bunch of questions about himself. 

Callum was graceful and answered them all smoothly, and I think Dad approves of him. All of my siblings seem to approve, even Raina. She was only there for a few minutes before getting a text message and excusing herself, but she surprisingly engaged in a short conversation with Callum and was welcoming, which I appreciated a lot. 

Joseph was as kind as ever and Ramsay kept teasing Callum, but he did tone it down for my sake. My brothers both seem to get along with him and Callum seemed to be pretty comfortable around them. Since I have werewolf instincts and see my family as my pack, their approval of my mate does matter to me. 

All of that was two weeks ago, and now I’m getting ready for my first official date with Callum. We have gone and gotten coffee, he’s spent the night at my house a few times, and we’ve spent time getting to know each other in different settings, but tonight is different. 

We’re going to a nice place and going on our first official planned date. 

I told Callum I was happy with the smaller things we’ve been doing, but he insisted that he wanted to take me out somewhere nice so he can show me how much he cares. I know he cares, but I do appreciate how meaningful it is. He told me to dress nice, but not a suit and tie kind of nice. 

I have about twenty minutes before he comes to get me, and I’m still looking between three different shirts and panicking over which one would be the nicest for dinner but not over the top. Neither Joseph nor Ramsay is at home so I can’t confide in them, so I swallow my anxiety and knock on Raina’s door. 

She’s actually here tonight, but I don’t know if she’ll answer her door for me. After a short pause, I knock again and Raina answers her door, her phone at her ear. 

“I didn’t realize you were on the phone,” I say, turning away, but Raina puts her hand on my forearm. 

She doesn’t address me right away, instead talking into her phone. “I’ll call you back in a few minutes, okay? My brother needs something.” She hangs up her phone and looks me up and down. “Where’s your shirt?”

“I need help,” I say, sounding a bit frantic. “Callum is taking me on a date to somewhere nice and he said to dress nicely but not formal and I don’t want to overdo or underdo it and I’m stuck between three shirts right now… please help me.”

Raina doesn’t look too pleased with me interrupting whatever phone call she was on, but she follows me to my room and looks at the three shirts. She then goes to my closet and pulls out a different pair of pants that are black and a beige short sleeve button down shirt.

“Try it on and then I’ll decide if it’s the right choice or not,” she says, sitting down at my desk and looking at her phone while I quickly change. “That looks nice. Are you going to do something with your hair?”

I frown and look in the mirror. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“It looks like you just got out of bed, Lennox.”

“It always looks like I just got out of bed.” I brush my hand through it, still looking at the mirror. “Is it that bad?”

“The messy look is nice a lot of the time, but on a date… maybe not. I mean, it’s different for Ramsay and Joseph since their hair is curly so you can’t tell if it’s not been styled, but yours is straighter so… yeah, come with me.”

Raina sits me at her desk in her room and takes out a weird shaped bottle that she flips into her hand and sprays out some hair mousse. The smell makes me crinkle my nose since it’s strong and all chemicals filling my nose, but I stick it out so I don’t irritate Raina. 

When she finishes, I can’t deny that my hair looks much nicer. It’s got more volume and I look put together and not so much like I just woke up and rolled out of bed. Of course, when I thank her, Raina just nods and gives me a monotone “have fun” before I leave her room. 

I go back to mine and shuffle through my books, impatiently waiting for Callum to get here. I’ve been neurotically going through my stacks of books for the past couple of weeks because one of the books that Callum gave me has seemed to disappear. It’s the one written by a wolf of the local pack, the same pack that I might get to visit. 

I’m usually so organized, but I still can’t find it. I looked in Joseph’s room because sometimes he borrows my books but he always asks and I couldn’t find it in his room. I must have misplaced it, but it still irritates me because I was excited to read something that was only about werewolves since most supernatural books mix werewolves and shifters together. 

There’s a knock at the front door and I rush downstairs, but Dad opens the front door before I get there. 

“Good evening, Mr. Gates,” Callum says to my dad, sounding so formal which is pretty funny since he’s so informal and dorky with me.

I grab my jacket. “Bye, Dad!” I say, but Dad catches my shoulder. 

“I want you back here by eleven.”

“I know, I will be,” I insist, a bit annoyed. 

He hums. “Have fun, boys.”

Callum takes my hand and opens my car door for me. He winks when I laugh at him, shutting my door behind me and getting into the driver’s seat. He starts the car and pulls out of our driveway and I take in his appearance. He’s wearing a pair of white pants and a black, button up shirt and he looks really attractive. 

It has nothing to do with the mate bond; he looks attractive and he’s my mate. I grab his hand and can’t help but smile when he squeezes my hand and rubs his thumb across the back of my hand. 

“You look nice,” I say, my voice cracking. I clear my throat, my cheeks heating up when Callum snickers. 

“Thanks. You look nice, too. What did you do with your hair?”

I scowl. “I knew I should’ve left it alone!” I exclaim, taking my hand away from his and putting down the sun visor and looking in the mirror. 

“No, it looks nice!” Callum insists, pulling my hand away from where I started to pick at my hair and holds my hand in his once again. “I was just wondering because I’ve never seen it styled!”

“Is it better than how I usually leave it?”

Callum rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to compare how you wear your hair. I think this is cute, but I also like how it looks when you don’t style it.” 

I can’t really argue with his answer since I kind of assumed he wouldn’t give me a preference, so I relax in my seat and watch ahead of us as he drives toward the downtown district. Unbeknownst to humans, there are three districts that the city is split into and we usually stick to our own areas. 

Downtown is primarily populated with humans and supernaturals, and especially vampires, usually stay out of that district because if a vampire loses control with bloodlust, it definitely draws attention and we have to work to try to cover up the incident. 

The portion on the west side of the river excluding the downtown district is taken over by the vampires and the city on the other side of the river is held by werewolves and shifters. Humans can’t tell that there’s a separation so they can go everywhere, but there must be some kind of aura because they tend to favor downtown. 

“Are you ever scared that you’ll run into someone you knew before you were turned?” I ask, all of the city lights shining and making me smile as I look out of the front window. 

“No, not really. If I do, I’ll just pretend to be someone else. I mean, my obituary was in the paper so anyone I would have known would have to believe me if I pretended to be someone else,” Callum says before lighting up when he finds a spot. 

He’s much better at parallel parking than Ramsay is. Ramsay and I have a notepad in our shared car so he can write a note if he hits another car when trying to parallel park because he’s just that bad. I’d feel bad for him if it wasn’t so stupidly funny. 

Callum makes me wait in the car so he can rush to my side of the car and open the door, kissing the back of my hand like a complete dork. Of course, I blush and he closes my door and guides me to the door of a nice restaurant. It’s got mood lighting inside which makes it dark and it’s definitely a date type of restaurant. 

Honestly, I thought Callum would take me somewhere else that’s not a restaurant because he doesn’t really need to eat real food. It’s kind of a waste of money for him to eat real food. 

“My aunt says all of the carnivorous shifters and werewolves that she knows rave about this place. It’s a great steakhouse and apparently they have great wine so we both can enjoy something.”

“You like wine?” I ask. 

Callum shrugs. “I mean, being a vampire kind of damages your taste buds so wine tastes much better now. It also looks much fancier than drinking a shirley temple.”

“I like shirley temples,” I mumble. “And I don’t care if it doesn’t look fancy.”

“You also can’t drink wine.”

“It tastes like shit,” I say, kissing his cheek and leaving him flustered. 

Callum walks up to the hostess stand and gives his last name, his cheeks still pink. He scowls at me when I keep a cocky smirk on my face, since usually I’m the one who gets flustered and not him. We’re quickly led to a private booth and handed menus. The booth is curved so Callum and I can sit right by each other, and he takes advantage, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me against him. 

When our server comes by to take our drink orders, I interrupt Callum and order us both shirley temples, which makes him roll his eyes but he doesn’t correct me. After the server delivers our drinks, I open the menu. After a few minutes of silence, I’m still having trouble with the menu because everything is so expensive. 

Callum takes my menu. “I’ll order for you. I’m assuming you like your steak rare?”

“Yeah,” I say, sipping my drink and eating the cherry from my glass. “Thanks for taking me here. I’m sorry that going out to restaurants isn’t as fun for you.”

“I can still eat real food, I just don’t need to. Besides, I was human once, I still like human food,” Callum says as the server returns for our order. 

She turns to me to order first, but Callum orders for both of us exactly as I did with the drinks. She seems to find us funny, taking our menus with an amused expression before leaving. 

“So, Helen and I are going to the birthday party of the pack Alpha’s daughter next month. She said that she was offered the chance to bring an additional guest and spoke to the Alpha who said he was willing to let you come to the party.”

I look up at him and I know I look shocked. “Really?”

“Yeah, he trusts us and you should get to interact with other werewolves at some point.” Callum grabs the cherry from his glass and hands it to me.

I pop it into my mouth. “I’m going to be an anxious mess. I don’t want to be killed by an assortment of werewolves for accidentally not following their traditions and pissing them off.”

“They know that you didn’t grow up in a pack,” Callum says. “Oh, have you read the book I gave you? The wolf that wrote it is going to be at the party. She’s actually the Alpha’s mate and she did, like, a deep dive into the relations between werewolves and vampires.”

I shake my head. “I swear, I’m super organized, but that book is missing from my collection. I know you gave it to me because it caught my eye and I wanted to read it but it’s gone. I’ve been searching for it and I thought Joseph might have borrowed it, but it wasn’t in his room.”

“It’ll turn up,” Callum insists, pressing his cheek against the side of my head. “And if it doesn’t, I’ll find a way to get you another copy.”

I smile and turn to kiss his cheek, which leaves him flustered once again. “It’s kind of funny how red you get. You’re so cute.”

“Gods, we all know I’m the top here,” he mutters, and I laugh once more. “I’m taller than you and I am funding this dinner.”

“All for your boyfriend who will someday top you, right?” I ask. 

Callum looks over at me in surprise. “Boyfriend? We haven’t used that word.”

“Do you not like it?”

He shakes his head and grins. “No, I like it.” He cups my cheek in his hand and leans in, which makes my eyes flutter close. 

Before he can kiss me, though, my eyes fly open as a familiar scent wafts through the air. I push away from Callum and sniff the air, looking around the restaurant and leaning toward the edge of my booth. My eyes narrow when I see Ramsay sitting in a booth a few tables away, alone.