Coffee or Brown Amber

CHAPTER 7

Hunters were searching for The Divine?

Of all the possible things I thought I would hear from Jax, that outcome surely wasn't on the list. 

It was already the next day and Aaliyah and I were preparing the clinic's conference room in silence. Not a single one of the three of us—Aaliyah, Officer Thatcher, and I—had gotten a wink of sleep. None of us felt that it was in Jax's best interest to be away from the hospital for too long. 

Though, I had a feeling the real reason none of us wanted to leave or try to sleep was because of the bomb Jax had unknowingly thrown our way. 

We hadn't even gone home to change, all of us still wearing the same clothes from the day before. The only difference was that Aaliyah had taken off her bonnet, my own hair was back in its clip as I worked on cleaning the meeting room, and I had no clue where Officer Thatcher had wondered off to. 

The problem was, most people today believed The Divine to be some sort of myth. A rumor the werewolves spread around to make hunters less likely to attack many years ago. 

However, that wasn't entirely true. Nowadays, The Divine were only mentioned in Lycan history books. Even though werewolves and humans had been co-existing for many decades since then, schools still hardly taught our history. 

It unfortunately made sense that the topic of The Divine was practically nonexistent when considering a large chunk of humanity didn't even believe they were real. 

I hadn't thought about The Divine myself since I was a small child, praying the Moon Goddess would send a few of them my way all that time ago. A chill went through me at the thought so I shoved the memory back down and focused on pulling the chairs off the table and putting them in their proper places. 

The conference room was a boring off-white color with dark grey carpeting. It wasn't very large, meant for no more than a meeting of 15 or so people. Fortunately, the meeting we were preparing to hold definitely would not exceed that number. 

The table in the center of it was large, taking up almost the whole room and leaving hardly any space to walk around it and pull out a chair, but we made do. 

"Hey. Either of you up for a coffee?" My attention was immediately stolen by Easton Thatcher as he suddenly appeared in the doorway holding a drink carrier. Three large hot coffees sat in the holders as he approached Aaliyah first after her enthusiastic nod. 

"Oh thank the Goddess, this is exactly what I needed." Aaliyah praised, snatching the coffee Officer Thatcher offered her. Her long, cherry red colored dreads swayed behind her as she took a seat at one of the recently placed chairs.

Afterwards, the man walked toward me while pulling the second cup of coffee out of the carrier. He then offered it to me shyly, a small smile on his face that made a surprising dimple appear on his left cheek. I quirked a brow. 

"You don't know what I like." I stated, eager to turn down his second attempt to win me over. I couldn't believe this man was trying to bribe me with coffee after I so clearly rejected him—

"It's a cinnamon latte with almond milk and no whipped cream."

I snatched the coffee out of his hand and tried to fight the red creeping up my neck. There was no way I would let myself blush in front of the officer. 

Easton Thatcher smirked, all self satisfied as if he had won brownie points or something. I scoffed. 

"How did you know?" I asked suspiciously, secretly relieved to have something to think about other than The Divine, even if it was only for a short moment. 

"I asked Dr. Davis. Hope you don't mind. I figured we could all use one after the day we had yesterday." I could see Aaliyah peek over her shoulder at us with a sly grin on her face from my peripheral view and couldn't believe she had told this strange man—one she hardly even knew, I might add—my drink order! 

But, the officer's eyes were shining enough to change their shade from a coffee brown to more of an amber. He seemed so proud of himself to have gotten this one thing about me right. It made me feel—I shook my head. It didn't matter. 

I could at least say thanks for the coffee and then continue avoiding him like nothing happened. 

Getting ready to do just that, I jumped at the sound of voices entering the conference room. Oh right, the meeting. 

Clearing my throat, I glanced back toward Easton Thatcher—or more accurately, his now un-styled hair so I could avoid his incredibly brown eyes—and forced my facial features to settle. One of the only good things about wearing sunglasses inside was that no one could ever tell if I was giving them eye contact or not. 

I noticed the officer had clocked my initial unease, but I ignored his look of concern in favor of preparing myself for the dreaded discussion ahead. There was no way around it, I could only hope the people we deemed necessary for this meeting would be willing to see how dire the situation had now become. If nothing else, I at least just wanted them to believe us and not automatically write it off as a child having wild fantasies to help himself cope with the trauma he endured. 

I would stop at nothing to make sure Jax's voice was heard.

A/N~ Go check out Easton's chapter and chapter 8 now on Patreon and Ream! Linked in the description and my bio<3

QoTD: If you weren't doing what you do now, what job would you have or dream of having?:)