A Luna's True Mate

Chapter 4: Their First Meeting

-Lauren-

After getting something to eat with my daughter, she led me back to my room and allowed me to just sleep, but I was not able to sleep at all. My thoughts were constantly on Logan, and my wolf kept urging me to go find him, insisting that we needed him.

However, I didn’t move. No, this just... it felt like the past was being repeated in some way. Another male my parents would never approve of—not that my parents could decide for me anymore. I was a grown woman now, but still, it just came flooding back to me. All of it.

“Why here?” my friend Rosetta inquires.

"Because, why not?” I retort.

“It’s so... common and... dirty.”

I roll my eyes, not liking the way she phrases it. I know this is not the usual place we go to eat, but I have walked by this restaurant so many times. I really just want to have a look inside. It is so different from where we usually go.

This place has no shiny golden or white walls. It has no chandeliers or well-dressed servers ready to show you to your table and constantly check on you to make sure everything is as it should be.

No, this place is rather dark, has a funny smell of fried food, and you just walk right over to where you want to sit. It makes me feel strangely excited as I find us a table, but all my friends look at the little booth rather skeptically, like they are not sure if they can sit down on such a filthy seat.

Rosetta even takes out a small bottle of perfume and sprays the whole table, and I start to cough.

“Okay, can you sit now?” I inquire when I am done coughing.

She looks uncertain, and so do Mini and Nina. They are twins, and I can just see the displeased look on both of their faces. Neither tries to hide it, and I sigh, shaking my head.

“Just five minutes,” I state.

“Why? I’m hungry,” Mini says.

“Yeah, and I want to sit.”

I cross my arms and lean back in my seat. I can be quite the stubborn luna, so I know I will get my way. My friends might have strong opinions about what dress is right to wear and who is a slut for sleeping with whom, but they simply can’t say no when I have decided something will happen. So, eventually, they sit down, and I smile as I look around the badly lit place.

I love it! It is all I can think. It is so different from everything I have grown up with. So uncontrolled and… wild. I know others who grew up differently from me would find this normal, but I have never been in places like this.

I am my parents’ only daughter, and they have always treated me like the most precious little thing. If they knew I was here, then they would freak! Therefore, I only love it more.

I have never been the careful luna, the snobby luna or the I’m-too-good-for-this-place luna. I don’t know why I am not like that, considering my parents have always given me everything I have pointed at, but I have always been fascinated by the world I am not a part of.

“So, can we go now?” Nina inquires and looks around.

“Five minutes!” I insist.

“It has been five minutes,” she counters.

I sigh.

“How about I get us some drinks?” I suggest.

Everyone looks uncertain, but the thought of alcohol clearly makes them hesitate. We might only be sixteen and seventeen, with Rosetta being the oldest one, but getting alcohol has always been easy for us.

We are pretty girls, but we also have the money to make incredible fake IDs, and no one can really say no to us when we start smiling and batting our eyelashes.

It just makes it so easy to break the rules. These girls might think they are better than this place, but that doesn’t stop them from breaking rules with me in different ways.

“Okay, fine,” Rosetta concedes.

“Great!” I get up from my seat and look around for a waiter. The place isn’t even that busy, but they have to be understaffed because I simply can’t find one.

I end up finding a bar instead, further inside the restaurant, and I don’t know what it is, but my eyes land on this handsome and tall male behind the counter, who is wiping off some glasses and looking around.

I feel my heart starting to beat faster, and I simply can’t move away. I am not sure what is happening to me, but when his eyes land on me, it is like the world stands still.

He even stops wiping off the glass and tilts his head a little to the side. I smile and then snap myself out of my trance, ready to get those drinks. I walk closer, and the way he watches me… Oh Goddess, it makes me shake with need.

I have never experienced anything like it. I have tried kissing a few, but this feeling, this attraction, is just so strong. I try not to let it affect me so I can focus on getting those drinks and quickly take a seat on one of the bar stools.

“Hey,” I say, leaning my arms on the bar and leaning a little forward, so some of my long blond hair slides over my shoulder, knowing it does so in such a slow way that it draws his attention to it.

“You don’t really belong here,” he says with a smile, turning his eyes to mine again.

“Don’t I?” I challenge.

He shakes his head. Oh wow, his voice, that crooked smile… I am sold, I think.

“I think this is exactly where I should be, but of course, it would be better if I had something to drink as well,” I mention and wink at him.

“Would it?” he merely questions.

“Please?”

He suddenly seems very unaffected by me. How can that be? It just takes me lowering my voice a little, looking at the men pleadingly, and they will give me anything. But not this one… He just smiles and shakes his head.

“You know I won’t insult you by asking for your ID and then having to cut it in two,” he remarks.

I look at him, shocked.

“I fear if I do, you will call Daddy, and he will come and beat the crap out of me.”

I recoil. His reaction to me is not at all what I thought it would be. He seems so… different.

“So, why don’t you just go back to your little friends and don’t try that again?” he suggests as he leans away from me.

“You saw us enter?” I ask.

He nods. “Kind of hard. You all light up in this place.”

“And what is this place?” I inquire and look around.

“My family’s.”

“This is yours?” I ask.

“My family’s,” he repeats.

“It’s… nice.”

He just chuckles and shakes his head as he continues to clean some glasses.

“No reason to lie, princess. I know your kind," he states.

“My kind?” I inquire.

“The whole upper-class kind. We lone wolves often end up working for you,” he tells me.

“I am not like the rest,” I remark.

“You don’t say.”

He suddenly leans close, placing his arm on the bar, and now our faces are only inches away from each other. It makes me breathe faster, and my heart is pounding in my chest.

“I saw you had to convince the others to stay,” he whispers. “Maybe you aren’t like the rest.”

He reaches out, almost like he wants to touch me, but then lowers his hand.

“Or maybe you just suggested this place because you thought it would be easier to get drunk in a location where no one knows you.”

“Is that what you think? That I’m just a wild party girl who will do anything for a little bit of attention?”

He shrugs and leans away. “You tell me.”

“Well, you’re wrong!” I assert.

“Am I?”

“You know what? Cut my ID, because you have already insulted me,” I declare and find the card, holding it up and waving it a little in the air, but the handsome bartender just shakes his head.

“Just go eat with your friends,” he suggests.

I huff and look away, annoyed by his cold behavior.

“You know what? You should probably be nicer to paying customers,” I remark.

“And you should probably wait until you’re older before trying to buy alcohol with a fake ID. You don’t look twenty-one.”

“Some places you only have to be eighteen," I countered.

“And you’re not eighteen either,” he points out.

“How do you know?”

“You’re just too… young.”

For some reason, his words are somehow more insulting than when he called me 'princess' or 'wild party girl'. I feel disappointed and just turn in my chair, ready to leave. But as I have taken a few steps away, I end up turning back towards the bartender, who seems shocked I am on my way to him.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Going to contact the manager?” he teases me.

I shake my head. “No.”

He seems surprised. “Tobias.”

“All right, Tobias, I will come back when I am older,” I inform him. Then I walk away, back to where my friends are, before we quickly exit the place.