“I get it,” Caleb said, sliding the chicken and vegetables off a skewer with his fingers and onto his plate. “I mean, I don’t necessarily see the attraction to Sawyer. He doesn’t do a damn thing for me at all. But I can see why you might like him.”
Harley laughed along with everyone else this time, relaxing in her chair as she realized her friends were okay with her and Sawyer. “So you guys don’t think it’s kind of crazy for me to feel like this about a guy I just met?”
“Werewolves fall fast when they meet The One,” Caleb said. “It only took Jake and Jes a few days to crash and burn. They could fight it all they wanted, but in the end, it was going to happen. I saw the same thing go down with these two werewolves I knew when I was back in Dallas—and they were on opposite sides of the law at the time. But when a werewolf meets their soul mate, it’s kind of a done deal.”
“Wait. What?” Harley looked around the table to see if everyone heard the same thing she had. “Soul mate?”
Caleb opened his mouth to answer, but Jake’s phone rang, interrupting him. Jake pulled it out, grimacing when he saw the screen.
“It’s McKay. Hopefully, he’ll have more info for us on Yegor than he did last night,” he said, pushing back his chair. “Let me know what I miss.”
Caleb speared a piece of chicken, then added a tomato to the fork, shoving both in his mouth. “There’s something incredibly ironic about the fact that out of the three werewolves on our team, I’m the only one who knows anything about soul mates. You guys realize I’m an omega, right? The antisocial one with poor pack instincts. Yet I’m the one who had to tell Jake about The One when he met Jes, and now, I’m gonna have to tell you.”
“The One?” she repeated, a little dazed.
She’d thought when he said those words before that it was in a casual way, but considering the rest of her friends were grinning like idiots, she realized there might be more significance to them.
“Yeah—The One,” Caleb said in exasperation. “As in The One-in-a-billion person you’re meant to be with for the rest of your life. Your soul mate. Our inner werewolves instinctively know who we’re supposed to spend the rest of our lives with the moment we meet them, even if it sometimes takes our human side a lot longer to figure out.”
“How is that possible?” she asked.
“Beats the hell out of me. Who knows how our inner werewolves know half the crap they do?” He shrugged. “Look, I’m not saying for sure that Sawyer is The One for you—only you know the answer to that question—but it definitely explains why you’re falling for him so fast.”
The idea that she might have to rely on her inner werewolf for something so important scared the hell out of her. She hadn’t exactly been on the best of terms with her furry side. Could she truly trust it?
“What if my inner werewolf is wrong and Sawyer isn’t The One for me?” she asked. “Worse, what if Sawyer is The One for me, but not the other way around? Is that even possible?”
The idea suddenly made it hard to breathe and she gasped for air. If she didn’t calm down, she’d be hyperventilating in a minute.
“You need to stop freaking out before you pass out,” Caleb said, devouring another kabob. “You’ve found someone who’s perfect for you. Stop thinking so damn much and enjoy it.”
Jes nodded. “He’s right.”
On Harley’s side of the table, Misty and Forrest nodded, too.
“Okay.” Harley took a deep breath. “So if Sawyer is The One, then making a long-distance relationship work shouldn’t be that difficult, right?”
Then why did the thought of not being in the same zip code as Sawyer make her want to freak out again?
Caleb shrugged and started in on a chicken pita. “Hell if I know. But if he’s The One, you’ll figure it out. You might want to start by telling Sawyer how you feel about him.” He grinned. “Then again, I’m an antisocial omega, so what the hell do I know about talking and feelings?”
Harley would have laughed, but just then, the scent of cinnamon coffee cake hit her nose. A split second later, the front door opened and Sawyer walked in. His blue eyes immediately locked on her and he grinned. Heart doing a somersault, she smiled back. Suddenly, every doubt she had a few minutes ago disappeared and everything felt right in her world again.
“Hey,” he said, giving her friends a nod in greeting as he made his way over to the counter to fill a plate with food.
“How was your call with Weatherford?” Harley asked.
He helped himself to three pitas and four kabobs, skipping the salad but grabbing some baklava. “Better than I expected.”
She exchanged looks with her teammates to see that they looked as surprised as she was. “MI6 is okay with you being a werewolf?”
“They don’t know.” He carried his plate over to the table and sat down beside her. “Erin and Elliott didn’t go back to headquarters. I’m hoping that means they’re having second thoughts about leaving.”
Harley hoped so, too.
As she started on her salad and Sawyer dug into his own lunch, everyone debated why people had started calling “kabobs” by the more recent and now widely accepted “skewers.” It was a silly conversation for sure, but also fun, and Harley was struck by how well Sawyer got along with her pack and vice versa. It was ridiculous how happy that made her. If he liked her friends and they liked him in return, that had to be a good start, right?
They were talking about British versus American English when Jake walked into the kitchen. The scowl on his face made Harley think his conversation with McKay hadn’t gone well. Everyone else must have thought the same thing because they all fell silent.
“What’s up?” Jes asked as Jake sat down beside her.
“McKay still won’t sign off on letting Brielle and her brother go free in exchange for information.” Jake glanced at Sawyer. “He wasn’t too happy with MI6 trying to pressure STAT into giving her a deal. He was even less thrilled when I pushed him to do the same thing. As far as the brass is concerned, having someone like Brielle at their beck and call is more important than anything Yegor has planned.”
Sawyer frowned but didn’t say anything, and Harley wondered what he was thinking.
“According to McKay, a transport team is coming in from DC tonight to escort Brielle and her brother back there,” Jake added, then quickly brought them up to speed on what else their boss said, which wasn’t much since they still had no leads on Yegor. When he was done, he looked at Sawyer. “How’d Weatherford handle finding out you’re a werewolf?”