Mandy or Candy or something. If I was honest, I didn’t really keep track. “How are you?”
“I’m all right,” I said. “Table for three?”
“Sure,” she replied. “You boys are always together. It’s kind of nice to see.”
“That’s because we are loners who don’t have anyone else,” Jonathan said as she sat us down near the window. It had a nice view of the lake, and I couldn’t help but think that it would be even nicer if we had a pretty girl to share it with.
We.
That was an interesting thought. I thought of us having mates, but I didn’t think about us having a separate one. I was sure that this was just a weird triplet thing, but I only thought of us having one mate.
It was like I thought we could share.
Could we, though? We shared everything else. So what difference did it make if we shared this?
“Hello, Jacob,” Johnathan said. “Are you with us?”
“Yeah, sorry,” I said as I opened my menu. “Sorry, my brain was a million miles away.”
“I think my brain is with that hot brunette across the way,” Frances said, and I turned my head, out of habit. We did tend to like the same type of women, which had caused fights in the past whenever we were on the prowl and saw a hot girl.
I had to admit, the one that Frances pointed out was hot. She was curvy, and she had smooth skin and beautiful curls down her back. She looked to be about our age, and she was standing in front of the restaurant.
“Do you think she is dining alone?” Frances asked. “We should ask her to eat with us. We should ask her to—”
“I don’t think she’s eating alone,” I said. “Look.”
Behind her, a big burly man came up and smacked her on the ass. My brothers and I liked a good ass on a woman as well as the next straight man, but even we knew enough to not do something like that.
She didn’t look appalled. In fact, she didn’t even look like she was surprised. She turned to him, and she smiled. However, it seemed like a forced smile.
“Hey,” I said to Frances. “Look away, eh?”
“Why?” he asked. “He’s treating her like a total asshole. I can’t believe that.”
“Maybe she likes it,” I said as we looked down at our menus.
“Maybe she doesn’t,” Johnathan said. “Damn, she’s attractive.”
We knew enough to lower our voices as they were led to sit near us. I waited to see if they were going to say anything to each other, to get an idea of who they were, but to my surprise, they were mostly silent.
Did they not know each other? Was this a really awkward first date? Was this a really awkward marriage? Maybe she belonged to him, in the sense that he paid for her?
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to think. All I could think about was how damn hot she was.
“You better order the salad,” he said to her after a silent few minutes. “Do you hear me?”
“The salad is very expensive,” she said. “I could just get the—”
“You are not getting anything else,” he said. “Because everything else is fat-filled and you don’t need any more fat in your diet.”
I was absolutely appalled by that behavior. She wasn’t fat, and even if she was very curvy, no one should talk to anyone that way.
I didn’t know what to say, so I glanced at my brothers.
Luckily, Jonathan knew exactly what to say.
“Hey,” he said. “Why don’t you not be an asshole and let your date get whatever she wants?”
The man turned to me and then to Johnathan.
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” he asked, and his eyes flashed.
It was then I realized that he was a wolf shifter. It didn’t frighten me or bother me. If he was a wolf shifter with a human, that was none of my damn business.
But if he was a wolf shifter with a human who didn’t want to be there, then that was a whole other story. Even though he was a wolf and we were bears, we still had a responsibility not to give the human world a reason to spill our secrets. It seemed like he was giving this woman a reason to run screaming through the restaurant and reveal exactly what he was.
“Because I don’t have to?” Jonathan asked.
“Matthew,” the woman hissed. “Just leave it, please.”
“No, I’m not going to leave it,” he said. “You