Page 55 of The Denver Alpha
Real fuckin’ smooth.
She nods stiffly and we both look down at our menus again, perusing them silently. I’m not sure what’s thicker between us- the silence or the growing tension. I rack my brain for some way to diffuse it.
“You can turn it off now, you know,” Juliet mumbles, flicking me a glance over the top of her menu.
I furrow my brow. “Turn what off?”
She drops her gaze back to her menu. “The stuffy business persona. You said before that the point of this was to get to know each other better, right?”
I lower my menu. “Right…”
Her eyes return to mine as she lowers hers too, revealing the coy smile she’s hiding behind it. “So show me the real you, Cole Bauer. What makes you tick? What are you afraid of? Who are you when no one’s looking?”
She doesn’t even realize how difficult those questions are, because they’re things I’ve never really allowed myself to consider. My priority has always been my pack. Who and what I’m supposed to be for them is all that matters.
I keep my eyes trained on hers as I raise my glass of scotch, taking a slow sip and swallowing it down. “What makes you so sure thatthisisn’t me?”
“Because I’ve been with you behind closed doors,” she replies, not missing a beat. “I’ve seen glimpses of the real you.” She squints her eyes, pointing a finger in my direction. “I want more of that guy.”
I still don’t know how to give her what she’s after, so instead, I just watch as Juliet raises her wine glass and takes a sip, setting it down in front of her again.
“Let’s try this,” she says, leaning in as she slowly strokes the stem of her wine glass with a fingertip. “If you weren’t born to fill the role you’re in, what would you have wanted to do?”
Another impossible question. “I’ve never thought about it,” I murmur, taking another gulp of scotch. I consider as I swish it around in my mouth, then swallow. “I’d probably have wanted to become a pack warrior. I like discipline, structure.”
“Shocker,” she laughs. “But then the question becomes whether you’ve always liked those things, or whether you like them because they’re necessary in your current position.”
I narrow my eyes, swiping a hand over my chin. “No, I think they’ve always been engrained in me. I thrive in a controlled environment.”
“Is that why you’re obsessed with control?”
“It’s why you drive me crazy,” I admit, pinning her with a stare. “You’re the one thing I can’t control.”
Her lips quirk into a smirk. “I think you like it.”
“And I think that as much as you enjoy pushing my buttons, you like handing over control to me even more.”
Juliet’s cheeks flush pink and she reaches for her wine glass, taking another sip.
Nailed it.
I lean back in my chair, turning the conversation on her, instead. “What made you want to get into medicine?”
“Wanting to help people, I guess,” she shrugs, then shakes her head, chuckling. “I know that’s like, the typical response, but it’s true. I was always interested in medicine, so I signed up for some EMT training right after high school. It came in handy during the shadow pack war, I was able to help out in the infirmary. After that, I trained a little bit with the doc at the squad complex, but there’s so much more I can learn by going to school.” She takes another sip of her wine before continuing. “And I’ve always liked school. Maybe I’m into structure, too.”
“You?” I snort.
A smirk creeps across her lips. “I’m an enigma, Sarge. Don’t you know that by now?”
“I know you confuse the hell out of me.”
“Ooh, so it’s working,” she teases.
Too well.
“You’re so overly-confident that you’re hard to read,” I mumble, watching the way she traces a fingertip along the stem of her wine glass absently.
Juliet shrugs. “Like I said, if you do anything with enough confidence, people will believe you.”