The Alpha King Call Boy
Chapter 212

Nina looked completely refreshed when I saw her an hour later, walking into the dining room just a little late for our double date. Kayden paced closely beside her, his hand hovering on the small of her back.

She'd changed her hair again. It was now a really pretty fuchsia color. She was wearing it down and wavy, and had on a cute, simple outfit that looked crazy stylish on her immaculate physique: a long-sleeved black body suit and a pair of high-waisted denim jeans, paired with hot pink heels, layered necklaces and hoop earrings.

Our little party started out great. I adored Alex for having the idea to do this. I needed some real socializing in my life, and this was the most I'd had in a long time.

But, like all good things, our good time met a too-quick end. Alex's phone rang and I just knew it would be something that was about to tear him away.

He took the call in the hallway, then returned and announced that one of his Gamma warriors had requested to meet with him and Kayden right away. "Text me," I told Alex as I moved in for a hug. "Let me know if I can help with anything."

He gave me a sweet little kiss on the lips then a peck on my forehead before promising to keep me posted and heading out. In my periphery, I'd caught sight of. Kayden giving Nina a different kind of goodbye kiss ontheir side of the table.

As soon as the boys were out of earshot, I turned to my friend and said, "Tell me you know that he likes you, Nina. Come on. You have to see that in the way he treats you."

Nina looked out at the hallway into which the guys had just disappeared. "Yeah, he's real sweet to me, but I don't know, Fi. Ever since you told me how he'd been saying he was weirded out by my job, it made sense of some stuff. I didn't know before if I'd been just imagining it, but I think he did avoid me for a little while. He'd been saying he was busy, but in hindsight I think maybe he's just... less interested than he was before. Before he met Elektra."

"If that's true, he must have been extremely interested before. Because he is still very, very interested."

Nina arched a critical eyebrow. "You said 'he is' with an awful lot of confidence. Are you telling me... you read Kayden's mind? These aren't just opinions you're sharing right now?"I bit my lip. Nina and I began a staring contest as I hesitated.

I'd been trying to avoid doing this for a long time. I'd just always felt like it was not my place to interfere in Nina and Kayden's relationship, that I should keep out of their business if I could.

And that was still true. I really should not be sharing Kayden's secrets. He never consented to sharing them with me in the first place and he deserved to have his privacy respected. But my husband, our best friends and I were all so tied up in each other's lives already.

And seeing earlier today how much Nina was hurting to know how Kayden felt about her, I realized it was time.

"You know I can't actually read people's minds. So I can't tell you exactly what Kayden thinks about you."

Nina relaxed, her mouth slipping into a smile. "But you can tell me... something?"

I closed my eyes, nodding yes.

"Fi, I've resisted asking you to do that before, and I think you know why. It..."

"Feels creepy?"Yeah, I mean, with the baby was one thing, I knew I wouldn't learn much anyway. Part of me feels like it would be really wrong to ask you to go snooping around in Kayden's brain. Or his feelings, or whatever. The other part is just flat-out desperate for you to tell me anything you know."

"I get it. How about I just tell you one thing?"

She nodded, brimming with excitement but trying to hold it back.

"Okay. So, when you and Kayden are together, your... auras turns the same color." I wasn't sure I loved to use this word-aura-because what I experienced empathically was not exactly something that was easy to see and understand. But I do see colors in my vision when I perceive people's energies. It just surrounds their bodies in a shiny, blurry way that I have to squint and look at sideways to make out.

Nina narrowed her eyes, waiting for me to explain.

"And it's a color I haven't seen coming from anyone else, that's the interesting thing. Just you have it when you re around Kayden, and he has it around you." "And what color is it?"

"Kind of a pinkish red, fuchsia color. Actually, almost exactly like." My eyes moved to Nina's hair.

She followed my gaze, pulled some of her hair forward in front of her face and looked it, furrowing her eyebrows. "What the f**k? The f**k does that mean, Fi?"

I shrugged. "I can tell you my theory, but like I said, I don't get a lot of really specific or helpful information easily just by using my gift. It's a bit limited."

"Okay, what's the theory?"

"Basically all I know is that whatever good feelings you feel when you're with Kayden, he feels just the same. And other pink colors I have seen... they usually mean loving kinds of things..."

Nina had been running her hands through her hair compulsively, intermittently holding it in front of her face and studying the color. "Weird. I don't know what to do with this information, Fi." "Welcome to my world. I know a lot of weird stuff and don't know how to process most of it. Sorry I don't have more clear intel for you."

"That's okay." Nina stopped obsessing over her hair and looked at me. "It's for the best. Like I said, I'd feel. like a snoop, like I'd read his diary or something, if you could tell me something more precise. I just... you want' to hear something really weird?" "Weirder than what I just told you?"

Her eyes widened and she bobbed her head up and down. "It changed while we were f*****g in the shower just now. My hair, I mean."

"What?" I looked at the baby, who'd been placidly, silently relaxing on my knee while Nina and I were chatting. A rather senseless maternal impulse had me wanting to cover her ears.

Nina saw me look at the baby and understood. "I hadn't planned on changing my hair today. I was... um, just finishing with Kayden, and suddenly he got this wild look on his face, and said, 'holy shit.' He wouldn't tell me why, just said I should look in the mirror. He was tripping out, having watched it turn."

"When's the last time that happened? That your hair changed without you doing it on purpose?"

"The hologram highlights came through when I was trying to keep it white. That was a fun surprise I woke up to one morning. I knew it would happen, though. I'd gotten bored and knew I couldn't hold off a change for much longer. Before that... it'd been years. And I've never had it happen during.." She cleared her throat, guiltily glancing at the baby. "In a scenario like that."

Finally I allowed myself to laugh, snorting, at how very hilarious it was to listen to Nina painedly censoring herself. It probably was not actually necessary around.

án infant, but I appreciated the effort anyway.

"I need to take you shopping," Nina announced for the second time this week. The first had been the other night when she gave me a mini makeover, when she'd looked through everything in my closet before resorting to finding something of her own for me to borrow. "That dress you're wearing is cute, but it doesn't fit you, babe. Most of the stuff in your closet is maternity clothes. Are you keeping those for a reason?"

"Well, I suppose I should keep them, yes. I'm not planning on getting pregnant again anytime soon, but I think sometime down the road, we will have another baby."

Nina grinned. "Yeah, you probably should. That one you've made already is crazy cute. You and Alex have some really good-looking genes to pass on." "Stop."

She giggled.

"I don't want to go out shopping, Nina. I don't like how people watch me in public, now that they know who I am."

"That's fair. That's exactly why online shopping was invented though, babe. Tell you what-I'm going to go through your closet and sort out the maternity stuff.

We'll box it up or something, store it away for now. You get on your computer and start shopping."

I liked this plan, and I'd just finished feeding Lexi and getting her down for her afternoon nap, so I did as my friend instructed

She'd been in the closet for just a few minutes when she popped her head into the doorway and called out," Get some new earrings, too. Dangly ones." She winked.

I rolled my eyes. "I already have like ten pairs."

Now Nina stepped fully out of the dressing room. She was holding a single high heeled shoe in one hand, having been in the middle of moving stuff around." Babe." She pointed the shoe at me for emphasis. "Do you know how many pairs of earrings I own?" "I dunno... fifty? A hundred?"

She shrugged. "We'll never know. Too many to count.

Now go order some fyn, new shiny things to show off to your boo, princess."