The Unfortunate Truth

Happy Birthday Danielle - 41

I was woken by the savoring smell of bacon and eggs. Oh, my sweet boyfriend made breakfast for me. How thoughtful of him.

I yawned a little bit and got my bearings before I got out of the comfy warmth that was our bed. I threw one of Brody's sweatshirts over my head before I made my way out to the kitchen, where I saw my lovely mate cooking breakfast.

He looked adorable in his black apron that I got him for christmas, kiss the cook, written on the front of it. He still had some slight bed head, so I'm sure he just smoothed it over for a second once he got up.

He was dressed already, so that told me enough that he had to leave soon after he was done. Instead of his usual boxers and an old t-shirt, he had on a nicer shirt, a jacket and black jeans.

"Morning, darling," Brody hums as he hears me come up behind him. He flips a pancake from the pan in front of him before he leans towards me, a small grin on his face. "Sleep well?"

"I did," I hum out. I lean over and plant a soft kiss on his lips and then wrap my arms around his back. "Whatcha making?"

"Pancakes at the moment. Eggs are done and so is the bacon, eat up."

I gently nod and lean up to plant a quick kiss on his cheek before letting go and going to get food. "So, you're dressed already. You get called in early or something?"

"Something," Brody grumbles. "I'm supposed to have an early meeting with a few neighboring Alphas. I planned it this early myself and now I'm starting to regret it."

I furrow my eyes as I put some food on my plate. "Why would you make it this early if you didn't have to? Why not just have it later in the day like you normally do?"

Brody scoffs, his caramel eyes meeting mine with a playful glow to them. "I'm gonna pretend that you didn't just ask me that, my love."

My heart flutters a little bit at the endearing nickname but I try to calm it down as I focus on what he said. Was there something important that they had later in the day? Was there anything-

Oh, it's my birthday today.

Brody smiles warmly as he puts the last pancake he had on the plate, then turning the stove off. He lightly takes his apron off and puts it on the island before he takes the few steps over to me.

"It's January 24th, my favorite day of the year."

My cheeks blush a soft red as he wraps his arms around me, presenting in me to do the same to him. I normally didn't like my birthday, aside from when my brothers would spend time with me. But it was usually spent as any normal day.

My brothers always got these nice parties and celebrations whenever it was their birthday. But I couldn't, because I couldn't be around people. So I got to spend my birthdays alone for the most part, aside from my brothers.

It felt a little weird to be acknowledged is all.

"Brody," I huff out softly. "Stop."

"What?" Brody's deep voice chuckles a little bit, which sends soft chills down my spine. "It's true, it's my favorite because it's the day my favorite person was born."

I let out a soft groan and lean my forehead on his chest in an attempt to hide my blush. Brody just sports a laugh and gently rubs the top of my head. As much as I love hearing cute stuff like this from him, I can't take it all the time.

My heart will explode.

"Stop it," I whisper softly.

"Ha, sorry, Danielle, I can't do that." He plants a soft kiss on the top of my head and gently moves one of his hands under my chin, lightly bringing it up so that I can see his face. He gives me a warm grin as his thumb caresses my cheek.

"Happy birthday, my love."

Okay, cue my stomach filling with butterflies and my heart feeling like it was going to burst. Curse him for having this effect on me.

"Thank you," I smile warmly up at him.

He lowers his head down and tilts my chin up so that our lips could meet in a soft kiss. I smile throughout it and actually lean up so that I could deepen it. Brody and I don't get too many mornings like this. So I was gonna take advantage of it.

Usually I have the morning practice rounds when he doesn't have to be in early for a meeting or something or it's vice versa. It's just nice to get in a little time together, even if it's for a few short minutes.

"You should probably get your cute butt moving," I hum and lightly smack it. I give him a cheeky grin as I then grab my plate and go sit at the island. "I don't want you to be late for your meeting."

Brody groans a little bit and leans on the island across from me. Which was completely unfair. He knows how much I like to look at his muscles. And they just bulged more when he leaned on the counter.

"Darling, I don't want to leave you. I'd rather stay here and spend the day with you."

I ignore the sort of pouty look he was giving me and just start eating my food. I didn't want to be rude, but if I didn't push hard he would just keep whining. "Brody, you need to go to your meeting. We can hang out together later. When are you gonna be free?"

"Danielle," Brody chuckles lightly. "We won't see each other much until the party. I've got my meeting and then I have to catch up on paperwork and look at schedules before tonight."

I tried to listen to what he said he had to do still, but I couldn't. Not after what I knew I heard. He said party. He didn't.

"Brody!" I gasp and send him a glare. "You didn't! I don't need a party!"

Brody scoffs in turn and crosses his arms over his chest. "You didn't actually think I wasn't going to have a party for you, did you? This is the first birthday I get to spend with you, and I'm going to make you feel special."

I huff a little bit and just go back to eating, ignoring the small blush that made its way to my cheeks. I didn't need him to treat me like a princess, I get enough of hearing it from my pack since I technically am one.

Brody smiles again at me before he rounds the island and goes to put his shoes and jacket on. "It's not a big party with the pack, I knew you wouldn't be comfortable with that. It's just a small get together with the gang, and Maddie and Titus if that's okay with you."

My heart swells a little bit from hearing him say that. He knows me all too well. Big things aren't my thing, obviously considering I was never a part of them growing up. I never grew accustomed to them like my brothers did. And I didn't attend enough to get sick of them.

Hence me being stuck in the middle of being uncomfortable as I never went to any in the first place.

"That's fine," I whisper.

"Great," Brody nods. "You've got a class to work with at ten and another at one, right?"

"Yeah," I grumble. "I'm working with Beckett and Derrek today. They better not do anything for my birthday or I'll kill them."

Brody's laugh rings out again, filling my chest with little flutters. "I have no doubt that you could, but how about you not kill them? Maybe punch them a few times or something. I still need them to help train. I can't let it all fall on your shoulders."

"We have more trainers than just us three," I point out. "There's like eleven or twelve on rotation."

Brody glanced over at me from where he was getting ready by the entrance. I could see a gentle smile pass over his face for a moment and I just thought that he was smiling at me because he wanted to. Since he did that a lot.

But once he came over to me, I soon realized that wasn't the case. He shrugged his larger jacket on and then made his way over, all the while the stupid cheeky grin was still present. I was about to ask why, when he beat me to it.

"I like hearing that from you," he whispers a bit huskily.

"Um," I blink a little bit at him since he caught me off guard. "What do you mean? Hear what?"

"You said we," Brody's grin spreads even wider. "When you talked about the pack and the trainers or whatever. You said we have more trainers. It just uh," he chuckles gently, "it makes me smile thinking of how much you're fitting in."

"And," he hums and gently plants a kiss on my forehead. "I cannot wait until you are officially Luna. Then what's mine will be yours."

"Quit!" I groan out jokingly. "I can't take all this sweetness. Get your butt out of here and go to your meeting."

"Fine, fine," Brody chuckles. He leans back down to give me a quick kiss and snags his phone from the counter. "I'll see you after your shift, come to my office after. I might be late, but I promise that I'll meet you there."

"Yes sir," I smile at him. "I love you, good luck!"

"Love you too," Brody responds. "Show those sons a bitches whose boss, yeah?"

"Promise!" I giggle.

"That's my girl," Brody sends me a wink before he shuts the door behind him.

Thank god he left there, because my cheeks blushed a shade of red that I didn't want him to see.

~

I walk into the training building, as peppy as ever to get to work. I love helping out with training and it actually makes my day better. Even if I do get punched or kicked from time to time. It's still fun.

Not only that, but I'm helping to better someone else for their future jobs. Or just in case they need some basic defense in the future. Either or I like doing what I do. It helps that I'm decent at it from fighting with my brothers growing up.

I shrug my coat off as I watch some of the instructors sparing against each other before the students arrive. Some of them were there and getting ready, and a few were watching them go against each other.

Dominic has been saying that he was going to beat Beckett for weeks now. Only because Beckett is the only warrior that he's lost to. That and Calvin, but they're hardly working at the same time so it's hard for them to get a fight in.

What made it even better was how hard working Dominic was. He was always here training extra with Ethan or Collin to get better. And I love that he tries to better himself in that way. While having a bit of a competition at the same time.

"Fuck you!" Dominic spits out as he quickly pushes Beckett off of him. His face glowers for a second and then charges straight at him, his hands looking like he was going for a sidestep punch.

Beckett instantly doges out of his way and swipes his leg out from under him, with Beckett getting down and pressing his face down into the mat. Dominic snarled and tried to move, but Beckett had the advantage.

"We done, Nickie boy?"

Dominic snarls and roughly pushes Beckett's leg off of him, seeing as Beckett lightened the pressure after he had Dominic on the ground. Dominic quickly stands up, his black hair slightly flopping over his eyes.

"I swear I'll get you one day, Beck," Dominic grumbles. "I'll get you good."

Beckett grins excitedly at him, "I look forward to it."

Both boys suddenly realize their audience and glance around the room, before Beckett's eyes landed on me. He perks up a little bit and quickly steps out of the ring before making his way over to me.

"Luna," Beckett bows as soon as he stops in front of me. "Happy birthday."

At first I just stared since I didn't know how he knew my birthday. But I have no doubt that Brody told literally everyone so that they could wish me a happy birthday as well. Yeah, that sounds like him.

So instead of getting annoyed at my boyfriend, I try to stay positive. I give him a gentle smile, "Thanks Beckett."

"Happy birthday, Luna!" A course of voices rang out in the training area. I mainly heard Dominic and Maxi's voices since they overbeated the rest of the trainees. But I could still hear them all nonetheless.

I huff out a small breath to contain my annoyance, seeing as they yet again called me Luna. But I held that in since I didn't want to take my anger out on them.

"Thanks you guys," I giggled a little bit.

"So, any plans?" Beckett asks after he instructs most of the trainees to go off to their stations to warm up. "We were going to throw a party for you, but Alpha mentioned that you don't like parties."

"Yeah," I giggle a bit nervously. "It's true, I don't. I think Brody just decided to have a small get together sort of thing with some people. It's not that I don't want to celebrate with all of you..."

"No it's okay," Beckett waves it off. "We get it, you're not comfortable. The last thing we want is for you to be uncomfortable. We don't mind it. It does save us some time though since we don't have to go out and get a party ready."

"Yeah," I smile a little, "I guess that's helpful."

"Very much so. So, what would you like to focus on today? I think toning in their individual skills is what we should focus on. It's good that we got them into some basic training on how to throw punches and dodge, and we saw what it looked like together."

"But now I think we need to further that advice we gave them and really hone in on what they're good at and focus on what they need to work on. What do you think? We can try and have them spar at the end too."

"I think that sounds good," I firmly nod. "Have Dominic take the ones on the end. They're quirky. I think they'd be a good match with him."

Beckett lets out a small laugh as we make our way over to the group. "Yeah, I'd say that you're right on that. Alright, you take the middle six and I'll take the ones on the outside."

I nod and start to go over to them, but Beckett grabs my elbow, stopping me in my tracks. "Luna?" He hums out. "I'm sorry if this is too much, but we're really happy that you're here with us."

I pause and stare up at him, seeing him smile as he glances over at the trainees. "I know we were doing this without you here, me and Dominic, as well as a few others. But let me tell you that it has gotten so much better having you here with us."

"The group is more lively and it's a lot easier getting things done. You're really good at your job and you're really good at instructing these kids on what to do. Not only that but it's nice getting to know our Luna."

"We respect you very much, and we just want you to know that we're just really happy you're here with us... uh, ma'am," he adds on at the end while his cheeks heat up a little bit.

Okay, he is totally trying to make me cry right now. That's what he's doing. He's trying to make me cry.

"Thank you," I whisper as I give him a warm smile. "That means a lot. I don't really know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," he hums out. "Let's just get to work!" He sends me a quick smile and then starts walking over to the kids. "Jamie! Oi! What did I teach you last time? Do not swing sideways like that!"

A small giggle escapes my lips as I hastily follow behind him. It was nice to get along with them like this. It was even better knowing how they thought of me as their future Luna. It made my heart both warm and thump nervously.

Only time will tell how that changes.

~

It was later in the night now and we were back at Brody's place with our friends here. The gang made it, as well as Madeline and Titus, and in my opinion it was perfect. A small get together with the closest people I had that were here.

I got happy birthday calls from all of my brothers back home, even from my mother. I didn't even expect one from father. My grandparents also stopped to see me at the packhouse to say it to me in person.

Everything was just great right now with hanging out with my friends. It's been a little while since we were able to do this and it was pretty fun. We didn't know how Madeline was going to take it considering what happened with her and Brody's parents the last time we were over.

But she ended up showing up with Titus and all of us had a nice dinner at the big dining table Brody had in the dining room. It was really nice and relaxing. And it was fun. I was having a great time.

My birthdays never really got celebrated much back home. It was usually just me and my brothers hanging out a little bit. Maybe receive a few gifts but that was really it. Not compared to my brother's big parties that they always got.

So this was a little bit of a nice change of pace.

I didn't think I was going to get gifts, so imagine my surprise when they announced I had to open up gifts.

Rosie and Andrew got me a few cute shirts, courtesy of Rosie obviously. She also got me a cute little charm bracelet that has white light blue and medium blue colored beads.

It was needless to say I was obsessed with it already.