Not My Mate

Cassidy

The blaring alarm woke up the 22-year-old brunette that was sprawled across her bed. Her hand reaching out blindly for her phone to turn the thing off. She sat up and her hair fell past her shoulder as she pulled herself out of bed and stumbled to her connected bathroom to start her morning routine. A shower in the morning was always her best start. After her shower she dried her hair with a blow drier until it was mostly dry, pulled it back into a ponytail, then went and got dressed. Jeans and the first clean t-shirt she could find were perfect for the day. Cassidy not only worked in the small book shop in town, but she owned it. Script was a small book shop in the center of town that had once been owned by her grandmother, Granny Irene. It hadn’t been doing too well until the coffee shop opened across the street. That was the reason why Cassidy liked to grab coffee every morning on her way in to open the shop.

Checking her watch, Cassidy silently cursed to herself. If she wanted her coffee this morning, then she would have to get a move on. Slipping on her socks and sneakers and picking up her gold locket that sat on her dresser every night, she was ready to go. In the oval locket was one picture of a lady now not too much older than Cassidy. This lady was Cassidy’s Mother. Her name was Ayla. She died in a house fire when Cassidy was about six years old. There were only a few features they shared. One of which were their eyes. They both have eyes the color of sapphires.

“Well mom, time to start a new day.” Cassidy said as she fastens the locket around her neck. After one last check in the mirror Cassidy left her room and found her dad sitting at the table waiting for her.

“Good morning, Princess. Ready to go to work?” Jack Jones asks from his seat looking up from his paper.

“Yeah dad. Let me grab my bag.” She grabs her backpack from by the front door and brings it back to the kitchen. “Do you want to bring your paper?” she asks opening her bag.

Jack nods as he folds the paper up and hands it to her. She takes it and packs it into her bag along with a few snacks. Afterwards she turns to the medicine cabinet and takes her daily vitamin. With that done Jack picks up her bag and shoulders it so they can leave. Once the door is locked behind them, they take off walking down the street towards the shops. The first few blocks are always walked in silence, both enjoying the crisp early fall air.

“So, any plans for today or are you hanging around the shop all day?” Cassidy was the one to break the silence today.

“I have a few errands to run this morning, but I’ll be back by lunch.”

Even though they live near the edge of town it didn’t take them very long to reach the town center were all the shops are. Their first stop was Jitters the coffee shop across from Script. Cassidy got her Caramel iced coffee while Jack got a black coffee and they both got a breakfast sandwich. As they walked out of the shop the most amazing sent caught her attention. As she looked around, she locked eyes with a dark-haired man with golden eyes who looked to be about her age across the street in front of her store. A shiver of excitement ran down her spine and a faint voice said, “Mate” in her mind. A van sped between them breaking their eye contact, but when the van passed, he was already gone. Jack eyed her with concern, “Are you okay, Princess?”

“Yeah dad.” Cassidy replied shaking her head. She tried to look for him as she and Jack crossed the street, but there was no sign he was ever there. Cassidy opened the front door of her shop and locked it behind them. Jack carried her bag to her office as she started turning on lights and getting the place ready to open. Her back was to the front door, and she jumped a little when there was a loud knock on the glass. She turned and smiled when she saw it was Zina, her best friend, standing there waiting to be let in. As she let Zina in Jack came out and said his good-byes to both girls giving each a hug and kiss on the top of their heads. Jack had practically raised Zina along with Cassidy. After locking the door behind Jack, Cassidy turned to Zina and saw her sour face. Not that this was new. Zina was totally not a morning person.

“What has you particularly foul this morning?” Cassidy asked moving back to where she was behind the counter restocking bags and making sure there was enough register paper.

“Nothing Cass. You know I hate being up with the sun.” Zina brushed it off, but Cassidy could tell she was lying but let it drop for now. At 8am sharp she turned on the light at the door, unlocked it and flipped the sign to open. The first few hours Cassidy spent in her office doing all the paperwork and ordering. By 10 she was out on the floor arranging new displays and cleaning up old ones that just needed to be filled in again. It took her a while to realize she was staying near the big display windows when Zina made a comment about that being the third display change on the same spot in the last hour. If felt like something kept pulling her to leave the shop so she moved to the back of the store away from any windows. Around noon Jack came back with lunch in hand so as Zina finished checking out the last couple of customers Cassidy moved to the door so she could lock it behind them and put out the “we will return at” sign out set to 1pm.

The girls walked back to the break room together and found Jack setting out lunch. Cassidy had a pretty chef salad while both Jack and Zina had burgers. All three came from the little diner down the road. They all sat and a couple of bites in Jack noticed Cassidy just picking at her salad while staring at his burger.

“Princess, would you rather have my burger?” Jack asked with his eyebrows raised.

Cassidy shook her head and turned her attention to her salad.

“No dad. I’m fine. I’m not sure what’s going on. Usually, I would rather have my salad. This is just strange.”

“Are you sure? You can have it.” Jack offers again

Cassidy shakes her head and takes a big bite of her salad. After chewing what was in her mouth, she notices that Jack hasn’t taken another bite of his burger. “I mean it dad. I’m fine. Why don’t we go out for steaks tonight?” Cassidy offers

“Alright Princess. If that’s what you want.” Jack finally goes back to eating. While Cassidy was absorbed in her salad, Zina and Jack share a look over her head. After lunch, Jack took his unfinished newspaper and sat at the table behind the display window and Cassidy opened the store again. Having finished all her tasks for the day, she grabs a book from the shelf. One of the perks of owning the shop is being able to grab any book you wanted to read off the shelf. This one was a steamy romance novel about werewolves called Midnight Moon by Luna Morgan. Cassidy is a big fan of supernatural books with anything to do with werewolves, vampires, and magic, were right up her ally and overflowed her shelf at home.

Before she knew it, it was closing time. The two main characters were finally about to meet for the first time, but she had to put the book down and close the shop. First, she locked the door, flipped the sign to close, and then killed the light at the front door. While she was doing that, Zina was counting the cash register down and placing all the extra money in a zippered pouch to go to the bank they passed on their way home. Jack went and got her bag from the office and brought it out. Cassidy kept looking at the book in her hands. Normally she would have just left it at the store to read on her down time but just had a feeling she needed to finish this book, so she put it in her bag. She would either pay for it tomorrow or mark it down as slightly used. After filling out the deposit slip, they all left the shop with Cassidy and Jack leaving to the left while Zina went right. Jack and Cassidy stopped at the bank and dropped the bag in the night deposit box then headed home to get the car to go to the restaurant a couple towns over that had the best steaks in the area.