Seven mates for seven brothers

23 - Do you have an appointment?

The following morning just after breakfast Cassy and Alex left to do some shopping.  Grocery shopping.  Alex made sure that he would not be accompanying her on another ‘we need so much stuff for the house’ outing again.  Grocery shopping, he thought, he had a better chance of surviving.

On the way in, he told her about the reactions his brothers had when he had told them about the mating marks.

“You know. I had always wondered why the men would go around shirtless in the houses when we visited the different packs to help prepare for possible rogue attacks.  I only hope that I had not inadvertently offended anybody in my ignorance.”  He said, scowling at the windshield.

“If somebody had felt offended at something you did or said, believe me, you would have known about it immediately.”  Cassy reassured him.

Glancing at her he flashed a smile her way.  “Thanks Cassy.”  He ran a hand through his hair.  “I feel so ignorant about our customs at times, and even though you have been trying to teach us, I am still going to need your guidance a lot during the next year or two.  So you will have to keep an eye on me all the time.”

“Oh, that is exactly what I intend to do in any case.”  She murmured, her voice husky; leaving no doubt to her intention at all.

“Thanks a lot,” he replied rolling his eyes at her.

“Oh, it is a huge pleasure, believe me.”

“Where to first?”  He asked as they reached the outskirts of town.

“I think you had better take me to the bank first.  I had my account transferred here before I left, but I just want to make sure everything is in order.”

“That’s good; I have to see the manager there.  He was one of the more senior pack members.  I need to see him and about five or six more so that we can arrange to have that meeting.  The sooner we get things sorted out the better.  Either way.”

Cassy noticed that he was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel nervously.

“Worried about it?”  She asked, putting her hand on his thigh.

Immediately he placed his one hand on hers and gave it an appreciative squeeze.  “I haven’t done anything like this before.  I do not know them very well; so I do not know how to approach them individually.”

She flipped her hand around, twining their fingers together.  “You have been doing a lot of new things these past few days and you have been doing quite all right the whole time.  Besides, you are only going to confirm the council’s decisions that meetings be held; and they should all know about it by now.  And most likely, they are just as anxious as you are to get this over with as you are.  I suggest you go in, confirm that they know about the meeting and the deadlines; and then give them a choice of two or three dates to get everybody together at the pack grounds for the meeting.  For now that is all you need to worry about.”

Alex looked at her with a slight frown.  “Do you always manage this easily?”

Cassy laughed up at him, the tinkling sound of it vibrating through him, making him very aware of how close she was sitting.

“Were you even paying attention to everything back at my dad’s?  Did you see how difficult it is to ‘manage’ things all the time?”

“Oh, I paid attention all right!  And everybody else to for that matter.”  He growled the last part out between clenched teeth.  “You seemed to have everything under control.”

“Yeah, and the keyword over there would be ‘seemed’.  Events do not always follow the plans that were made.”

“You coped very well.”  He nodded towards her, keeping his eyes on the traffic around him.