Prince of Wolves (The Grey Wolves #1)(14)

“Ya know, testing out the product, making sure it’s safe. Would hate to unknowingly poison our Romanian guest, although it would make for a great headline,” Jen answered.
“Jen, do you always have to say what you are thinking? Have you ever thought to yourself, ‘Hey self, maybe I should keep my trap shut. Yeah, good idea self’?” Jacquelyn glared at her best friend.
“You’re just cranky because you’ve been thinking about Trent,” Jen stated, snotty-like.
Fane couldn’t help the low rumble in his chest that escaped at the name of Jacquelyn’s all too recent old flame.
Lilly’s head snapped around to look at him. Fane cocked his head to the side as his wolf perked up at her perceptive gaze. Interesting, Fane thought to himself, she knows something.
Jacquelyn caught that last thought.“She knows something about what?”
Fane looked away from Lilly and turned to look at his Luna’s confused face. He was going to have to tell her. If not tonight, then soon, and he was going to have to talk to Lilly. Something told him that she was not unaware of who and what he was.
“Fane, what are you thinking about?” Jacque asked again.
“We will need to talk later, Jacquelyn, and your mom needs to be present as well,” Fane told her.
“There are paper plates there on the counter,” Lilly pointed out. “And cups with ice in them. The drink choices are lined up for you. Dig in!”
Everyone formed a line and began to fill their plates. No one talked for a few minutes as they gathered their food and drinks. Finally they were all seated at the dining room table.
Fane noticed that Jen and Sally had managed to maneuver it so that Jacquelyn and he had to sit next to each other. He found this amusing.
“So, are you kids looking forward to starting your senior year? Do you know what classes you will take?” Brian asked. 
Mouths full of pizza they all nodded simultaneously. Jen was the first to be able to talk and naturally had something interesting to add. She didn’t disappoint. “Naturally, I’m taking Anatomy and Physiology.”
“Really, is that because you like…” Brian started to ask.
But Sally and Jacque managed to interrupt quickly. “Don’t go there,” they both spit out.
“Because I like science?” Jen finished for him. “Nope, ‘cause I like boys, silly.”
Lilly rolled her eyes and Fane coughed on his pizza. He was surprised by her candidness. Jacque looked over at Fane and he noticed her face was red as the fire he named her.
He winked at her, and that only caused her face to redden more.
“Just what is your favorite subject, savuroase mea fata (my spicy girl)?” he asked her.
She was just taking a drink when he asked her this and she nearly spewed it out of her mouth.
“Are you okay, Jacquelyn?” Fane asked her innocently.
She glared at him as she answered, “Fine, thank you.”
“I will have you know that I prefer contact sports to classes. I find that a little physical violence is good for the soul,” Jacque thought with a smirk.
“Like I said you’re savuroase mea fata,” Fane told her.
She looked at him questioningly but said no more.
“So Lilly, how is the bookstore doing?” Sara asked her.
“Great! Since I’ve hired more staff I've been able to catch up on my inventory and start putting together some other ideas that I have been brain-storming, like maybe putting in a coffee shop and a gift section. You know, just more things to help bring in a variety of customers,” Lilly told her.
“Mom, I didn’t realize you were planning all this,” Jacque said.
“Well, you’ve kind of been preoccupied this summer and I’ve been at the store a lot. I was going to tell you about it, but time just seems to get away from me.”
Fane caught the implication that when Lilly said she had been preoccupied, she was referring to the whole break-up thing. So apparently this whole Trent thing was been a bigger deal than Jacque let on, he thought to himself.
“Does it really matter to you that much?” Jacque asked him.
Man, he really needed to work on blocking his thoughts, or he was going to get himself into trouble.
“Be patient with me, Jacquelyn. I will explain things soon and then you might be able to understand why I react the way I do to some things pertaining to you,” Fane told her.
After everyone finished eating they cleared the table and picked out a game Fane had never heard of called, What’s yours like?
Jen pulled out the directions and began to read them,
“In this game, all players except the one in the hot seat look at a guess word and then creatively describe what theirs is like. They might be telling about their swimsuit, neighbor, closet, hair, or any of the other 300-plus words in the game. The player in the hot seat then tries to link all the clues together to figure out what is being described. The best part about this game is that the hilarious clues come from the people who play the game. The player who guesses his or her word with the fewest number of clues wins.
What do you think players are describing with these clues?
Mine keeps getting bigger.
I compare mine with others.
My wife likes mine.
I never see mine.
I receive mine once a month.
You wouldn't believe what I do for mine.
Mine disappears too fast.
The answer is: Pay check.”
Fane realized right away this was going to be a game that Jen enjoyed. It obviously pleased her to cause Jacquelyn as much embarrassment as possible. He was actually looking forward to seeing her squirm.“Okay, who’s going to be in the hot seat first?” Brian asked.
“I’ll be in the hot seat first,” Lilly answered.
“Jacque, you pull out the answer and say your first clue, then pass your card to the next person,” Brian told her.
Jacquelyn pulled out the card and, sure enough, her face turned red. Oh yes, Fane thought, this was going to be fun.
“Mine is,” Jacquelyn paused, “curly.” She still couldn’t keep from turning red.
Fane saw the answer in her head and winked at her.
Sally was next. “Mine is long.”
Sally handed the card to Sara, who said hers was like chocolate – smooth and dark and Brian said his was the color of sand.
Finally it was Jen’s turn, and Fane could tell everyone was a little nervous about what she would come up with.
“Mine is silky to the touch,” Jen said with a wink at Fane.
Fane felt Jacquelyn’s wave of jealousy like a tidal wave. He cocked his head to the side and studied her. Interesting, he thought, she doesn’t like Jen flirting with me. Her head snapped around to glare at him and he realized she had heard what he was thinking.
“Relax, my Luna. I assure you I am all yours,” Fane told her.
“Oh, this coming from the Romanian who is jealous of a boy I’m no longer dating. Not to mention you and I are not together, so it’s really of no consequence,” Jacquelyn told him in a huff. “It’s your turn by the way,” she added.
Fane looked over at Jen and realized she was holding the card out to him. She looked at him knowingly. Apparently she had picked up on the fact that Jacquelyn and he were conversing.
Fane looked at the answer on the card and debated what to say that wouldn’t embarrass him too badly, but the choices were not good. He could go with straight, short, or black. All those options pretty much could be taken, as Jen would no doubt do, to have very un-innocent connotations.
“Mine is,” Well, Fane thought, if you gotta go down, do it with a bang, “short.” And with that, everyone, including Jacquelyn, lost their composure. It was obvious that Jen knew all his choices were pretty poor and had been waiting for him to choose to run with it.
“Nice,” Jen said, putting her hand up for a fist bump with Sally.
In all the commotion, Fane just couldn’t help himself and looked up at Jacquelyn, who was giggling wildly. He raised on eyebrow at her, “Did I amuse you, savuroase mea fata (my spicy girl)?” Fane asked her.
All Jacquelyn did was wink at him and it about did him in. She was a joy to his heart and she was all his. Now he just had to convince her of that…and quite possibly her mom as well. Fane had thought about whether to talk to Lilly and Jacquelyn tonight, but as the evening carried on he decided to talk to his father again and perhaps he'd found more out that would help him make the safest decision for his mate. 
The evening turned out to be a lot of fun and laughs. Sometimes the girls laughed so hard they had tears streaming down their faces. At one point Sally had fallen out of her chair, laughing so hard because the answer to the question had been “tires on your car,” and naturally, Jen had not disappointed when she said hers were round. When it was Fane’s turn, he realized a little too late that his vehicle only had two wheels, so his response was, “Mine has two.” Which resulted in Jen laying her head on the table and laughing so hard her whole body shook, and Sally laughed so hard she fell out of her chair, which brought the laughing to an all time high. It's wonderful, Fane thought. Even if we're enjoying making our answers sound like they're about certain parts of our anatomy. What can you expect from teenagers with a game called “Mine is like”? The whole evening made Fane feel at home because his family was close like this. They often got together and ate and played games, or just gathered around the fire to talk.
As the evening came to a close, they began to say their goodbyes. All the girls hugged. Fane walked past Jacquelyn to the front door. Then he turned to her and asked, “Could I talk with you a moment? I won’t keep you from your friends long.”