Chereads / The Mutt / Chapter 14 - Chapter 14: Attendance

Chapter 14 - Chapter 14: Attendance

We began our journey to the Bluerose village. Dylan and Granite came with us as well. Cole kinda piddled in the back of the group. I guess he was just cherishing every second he had left, before we got there. I walked a little bit slower to match his speed.

"Why are you so upset about going? It's just dinner." I started conversation with him.

"Collin has lots of sisters and they are just so annoying and clingy. They don't understand personal space. It's the worst." He groaned.

"Oh you mean like this." I walked right by him, making our arms rub together. A playful laugh escaped my lips.

"Yes." He rolled his eyes.

"Oh someone is salty." I pushed harder against his arm, making him walk diagonally.

"Stop." He blurted out with a slight chuckle.

"Sorry, didn't see your space bubble. My bad." I pushed with more pressure, almost making him run off the path.

We recentered ourselves on the path and laughed with each other. Cole's laughter seized when his dad turned his head around towards us, giving a deadly glare. I continued to giggle until I noticed his eyes still burning into me and quickly silenced myself. Not much long after that we arrived at the patch of endless blue roses and walked through the path that spliced it in half. We reached the gate, receiving a warm welcome from Collin.

"Welcome, I'm glad you guys could make it!" A smile spread across his face, "Come with me."

He led us through the gate, into a sidewalked, cleancut, green grass area. Many buildings were contained within the village; all made of white bricks and topped with nice blue roofs. Many had well trimmed gardens along the front. Everything was very neat and in place. It made me feel like I needed to straighten out myself.

"Nervous?" Cole leaned towards and whispered in my ear.

"Yeah, it's just such a nice place."

"So our village isn't nice?" He jokingly said.

"Your's is. It's just this place is too much. I feel out of place." I tried to correct myself.

"It's okay. Just stay by me." I felt his hand grasp mine tightly. I got really nervous. I was sure my face was burning red.

We walked into a large building. Once we were inside, I saw a long table with abundances of food. Many chairs lined the seam of the table neatly.

"My sisters should be out soon to greet you guys. While you wait, you may make yourselves comfortable near the end of the table, where the high ranks sit." Collin informed us, sounding like a waitress. He then left.

Cole clenched my hand firmly at the word of Collin's sisters. I guess they must be pretty bad. He kept the same grip on my hand as we took our seats and didn't let go; my hand was starting to hurt from the intense pressure. A group of three girls came into the room giggling into their hands. I felt Cole's hand abruptly tense around mine as soon as he laid his eyes on them. I hissed and his eyes widened as he looked at me. 'Sorry' he lipped as he softened his grip but still didn't let go. My hand throbbed as blood rushed back into it. The girls swarmed around Cole and me.

"Hi, Cole." One of them said in a flirtatious tone.

"It's soo nice to see you after our packs' stupid fight. I missed you soo much." Another chimed in, leaning daintily on the back of the chair besides Cole's. The other looked at our hands locked together and walked her eyes up to my face in disgust.

"Who is this?" She took the tone of a toddler with broccoli on her plate. The other girls laughed as they judged every inch of me.

"Oh uh," he paused and looked at our hands, "She's my girlfriend."

Their laughing stopped as the word slipped from his mouth.

"Really?" They said in unison, looking disgusted as ever.

"Yep." He smiled confidently.

I saw Allison across the table, eyeing him with suspicion.

I was confused. He never asked me or at least I don't remember. I looked at him, sharing my confusion. He just smiled at me. I looked down at his lips and gulped, remembering the scene from earlier. My attention was taken away when a large man walked in; I remember him from earlier as Collin's dad and the packs alpha. Collin walked in behind him a]ong with another boy, who was kinda cute I'll admit. He winked at me and I blushed. Collin sat by Allison. I made eye contact with her and let a playful grin dance on my lips. Collin's dad stood at the end of the table.

"Shall we ea- where is Jennifer?" He shouted.

"Father, she'll be here soon. You know how she is." Collin tried to calm him down.

"Yeah head in the clouds." One of the sisters snorted, swirling her finger around her hair and crossing her eyes. The others laughed with her.

"Silence!" Their dad got annoyed.

The girls practically choked on their spit as they straightened themselves out. Everyone left standing, sat down.

"Let's begin. Shall we?" The alpha finally announced.

(Cole's P.O.V.)

The table took silence and only the sound of silverware hitting dishes could be heard. I didn't actually mean that Penny was my girlfriend. I don't really see her like that anyway; well I didn't really know how I see her. I only said that so Collin's sisters might leave me alone, which it didn't. They still gave me weird flirtatious looks. I still held Penny's hand while we were eating because I'm a lefty and I felt more comfortable while being in contact with her. Not expecting it, my wolf sent me a flashback.

In the flashback, I was sleeping and I heard a voice; Penny's voice.

"Sleep tight and stay safe, Little Mittens." She said in a light voice. I felt a kiss on my forehead. I looked at Penny in the present, sitting next to me. My flashback suddenly sped up.

"You missed." I said, in my flashback after grabbing her face and kissing her.

I choked on my food and widened my eyes. Did that actually happen? I did that? Oh god, I hope it was a dream. But if it's a dream, why would I dream that. My thoughts were interrupted by my father's voice.

"Are you alright, Son?"

I nodded my head and wiped my mouth, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Was it something with the food? We can get you a new plate." The Bluerose alpha asked.

"No, I just had something on my mind."

I looked at Penny, who looked concerned for me. The table fell into a thick awkward silence. The door squeaked open and Jennifer walked in holding a book. I guess nothing's changed. When we were little she was always reading. She walked up to the table without looking up and picked up a plate. She then turned around to leave but her father stopped.

"Jennifer, where are you going? We have guests."

"Oh sorry, I didn't see." She bowed and sat down.

"Maybe if you would look up from that book of yours, you would be more observant." Her father scolded.

"Yes, Dad. I'm sorry." She hung her head.

Her sisters giggled and whispered among themselves. They were probably talking about her. I don't know how she lives with those girls. Time went by mostly in silence but there were occasionally small conversations. Honestly, I couldn't feel the time. It was all a blur. I felt Penelope shake my hand and pull away from me. I looked at her confused.

"We're leaving." She said.

I saw everyone standing up. Penelope did the same, disconnecting our hands. That kind of made me feel like my insides were sinking. I'm not sure what that's about. I stood up and followed the others outside the building. Once I was outside, I saw Penny standing next to Aiden, Collin's brother. They were talking and laughing. I growled under my breath. I don't like him being that close to her. I pull myself together and walk over to them. I wrapped my arms around Penelope from behind, giving Aiden an intimidating stare.

"Well, it was nice meeting you, Penelope." He laughed nervously and walked away. Penny pushed my arms away and started walking towards the exit with the others, who had finished their goodbyes. I slowly walked behind them.

"Oh ouch." Dylan commented, walking beside me.

"What?" I said, slightly irritated.

"I saw you just get rejected." He snorted.

"It was nothing." I walked past him.

I'm not sure why I'm mad right now. It's not a big deal. We just walked home in decent silence except Allison and Penny whispering to each other. I wonder what they were talking about. Me? Maybe Penelope's mad at me and she's talking to Allison about it? Why would she be mad at me? She suddenly turned her head and made eye contact with me but quickly turned back to Allison. We continued our journey for a little while before Penelope slowed her pace and walked beside me.

"Hey, why were you acting weird earlier?" She asked me.

"What do you mean?" I asked her a question in return.

"Well I mean to start with, you called me your girlfriend and while we were eating, you looked at me and choked on your food. Also when we were leaving, you scared that guy I was talk-"

"I was protecting you from him!" I interrupted her, yelling on accident. She flinched. "I'm sorry." I apologized for raising my voice.

"Well, you don't need to. He wasn't even hurting me and what about the other stuff and holding my hand for so long?"

"The girlfriend thing was because I didn't want those girls bothering me and I was holding your hand because I wanted to comfort you." I answered her.

"Oh ok," her voice sounded sad, "Why did you choke when you looked at me?"

"Oh well-"

"Because I'm ugly, right? You're just like everyone else! I thought you were different!" She didn't let me answer and walked back up to Allison.

I gained lots of dirty looks from everyone after her outburst. I just sighed. I couldn't have told her why I actually choked. What if it was just a dream? If it was just a dream, she might think I'm obsessed or crazy or something. Should I tell her? Would that fix this? I don't want her to think I'm crazy. Is it better if she thinks that I'm crazy rather than be mad at me for thinking that I think she's ugly? She's not ugly. Oh boy, she's is definitely not ugly. I smiled to myself, imagining her smile across her face. Oh god, I'm definitely crazy and I'm most definitely obsessed with this girl. I'll tell her when we get back, privately of course. Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe she'll accept me? I mean everytime I'm around her my senses heightened at the smell of her scent. That scent: is that what you feel at your mate's scent?

We arrived at the village: not too long after that. Everyone filed into headquarters but before I could, Allison slammed the door and turned to me with a true disgust and fury written across her face.

"Who do you think you are?" She blurted in an intense tone. I stuttered some random sounds before she began to talk again. "Penny is the most valuable being in existence to me! I am not going to let you mess around with her feelings like they're nothing! She likes you! And you are flirting with her then just straight up showing your disgust towards her by choking when you looked at her!" My blood boiled when she raised her voice at me.

"I like her too!" I yelled, not even knowing what was coming out of my mouth, "I'm scared and I don't know how to act! You wanna know why I choked when I looked at her? Huh?!" With every word I took a step closer, towering over her to show her who really had dominance here.

She nodded her head timidly. I suddenly lost confidence. I can't tell her about it. She smirked at my loss of power.

"Come on. Tell me, Bud." She popped her lips. I turned my face away, embarrassed.

"I-I had a flashback or no, a dream," I sighed, "I don't know but I kissed Penny in it."

"And you thought it was disgusting?" She sounded mad.

"No, I was surprised. I've never acted on my feelings before, including my thoughts. It was expected of me to hide my feelings when I was growing up. I choked because I was surprised by myself. I shouldn't have told you that. I need to leave." I ran off, back into the woods. I saw Allison's dropped jaw out of the corner of my eye.

I just made a fool of myself. I just spilled my guts out for no reason. What is happening to me? I'm acting so strange and weak.