To Be More (Slate/Gray Book #2)

Christmas isn’t shaping up to be loud, but there has been more falderal in the week leading up to it than the quieter, more peaceful affair that was Thanksgiving. Asher and Forrest come over to help Alexander put up Christmas lights while Aria and Gray drink hot chocolate and tease them about their crooked lines and the random string of bulbs that they can’t get to work. Aria and Alexander haven’t had a Christmas tree at home in three years and Gray obviously hasn’t either, so they decide to go to a little Christmas tree farm and chop down their own tree. When they bring it home, Slate brings Sage and Raven over to help decorate, generously donating several homemade trinkets to hang on the tree. Slate, Gray, and Jason decorate the Kelley household under Sara’s strict supervision from the couch.

It’s a bit late for winter decorating, but the last two and a half weeks have been stuffed full of the things they missed out on doing while Slate was gone. At last, all the houses amongst the Atwood-Holt family group have been lighted and decorated and everyone is ready for Christmas just to come.

They decide to spend Christmas Eve as individual families and meet up on Christmas morning in the big Atwood house, first thing. The Holts put all their presents under their tree in preparation.

Christmas Eve dinner with Gray and her siblings should be easy and low pressure–and it is. Except for one thing.

As they’re nearing the end of their meals, Gray sets down her cutlery and clears her throat. “Um, I haves something to tell you all,” she says nervously.

Alexander barely spares her a glance, continuing to shovel food into his mouth. Aria’s nose turns up in disgust at his behavior, turning to give Gray her attention. “Okay, what is it? Is it good? Bad? Am I going to be sad? Angry? Is the news–”

“Aria, slow down,” Gray rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to stall or distract me, it’s not bad news. It’s…good news.”

“You don’t sound certain,” Alexander eyes her, still chewing.

“It’s good news,” Gray says more firmly. “It doesn’t change our lives, but it’s good news.”

“Okay then, out with it,” Aria waves a hand impatiently.

Gray briefly wishes she had Slate by her side for this, but the two of them had discussed at length and Gray ultimately decided she needed to tell her siblings about her and Slate on her own. Slate can be distracting, intense, and Gray wants this to be an announcement met with happiness and lighthearted emotion. She’s not sure if that hope will be actualized tonight, but that’s the hope.

“A couple months ago, I…met my True Mate,” she says with a barely contained smile, thinking of that first night she and Slate truly met, how magical it had been.

Alexander chokes on his food and Aria’s jaw drops dramatically, as it is prone to do when she is anywhere from completely shocked to mildly surprised. “You what?” Aria splutters.

“I met my True Mate,” Gray repeats, laughing at her brother and sister. She knows this is serious, but the looks on their faces are too good to not laugh at.

Then Aria surprises Gray. “What about Slate?” She demands, sounding offended.

Alexander narrows his eyes as well, saying almost accusingly, “Yeah, I thought you and Slate had a thing.”

Color Gray surprised. It seems almost like…her siblings want her to be with Slate. If they were just confused because of a misunderstanding, they wouldn’t be acting almost hostile. No, they’re offended for Slate.

They like Slate.

A cheshire grin grows on Gray’s face, smug. When Aria sees it, she flaps a hand. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Are you cheating on Slate? Have you broken up with him? Frankly I thought you could have done worse, but maybe your True Mate–”

“Aria, slow down. Slate is my True Mate,” Gray laughs again.

“What?” Aria gapes again.

Alexander leans back in his seat, finally dropping the fork he’d been gripping. “Hold up, you and Slate are True Mates?”

Gray nods, “True Mates, I know it.”

“Wow,” Aria says with big, dramatic eyes.

Alexander, however, recovers remarkably quickly. “Huh, that actually kind of makes sense.”

“Makes sense how?” Gray tilts her head curiously.

“Well,” he shrugs, “he spends a lot of his time with you. You were important to him really quickly and that’s not normal with him. He treats you like you’re one of his.”

He says the last sentence with a kind of reverence. Like being one of Slate’s is a position of high honor, something sacred. Gray agrees with this characterization. Something doesn’t sit quite right, however. “Alexander,” Gray starts, brows furrowed, “you know you’re one of his too, right?”

Alexander shakes his head. “I’m not, but that’s okay. Not many people are.”

Gray shakes her head back, needing him to understand this. “You’re right that not many people are, but you are one of those ‘not many’ people. I know you are.”

“How would you know that?” Alexander asks, starting to get defensive.

Gray purses her lips and sits back, trying to think about how to open his eyes. She decides on, “Honestly? Because I felt the same way for a long time.”

“How?” Aria asks. “It was so obvious. He’s always so…aloof. But he was, like, kind of warm with you or something.”

“Well maybe that’s the problem,” Gray says back. “You guys could see it because you knew him, you knew the difference between how he treats his family and how he treats others and I didn’t. But now,” she continues, “I know better. I know him better. Better than you do, and I know you matter to him–both of you.”

“Gray,” Alexander starts, rubbing his forehead in frustration. “I think we need to agree to disagree on this one.”

“Or maybe,” Gray leans forward and catches his eye, “you’re just not looking in the right place. Tell me he hasn’t made an effort to talk to you, to bond with you, to help you,” she challenges.

Alexander stays silent, jaw working. Aria interjects, “Actually…I think you might be right, Gray. He’s so busy, but he went out of his way to come here and talk with me–us. And he has never been unkind, ever. He’s–no offense–kind of scary, but if you really think about it, he’s put a lot more effort into us now than we have to him.”

Alexander purses his lips to one side, arms folded, still resistant. Gray opens her mouth the say something, but Aria jabs him in the side with her elbow first. “He talked to us about his mom, Zander. I’d bet my life he doesn’t go around talking about her with just anyone. You can’t argue with that. I think…I think he loves us, Z. I think we are two of his,” Aria says with a sort of wonderment. A sweet, shy smile slowly creeps onto her face. “Yeah, yeah I think we are.”

Gray, meanwhile, is flabbergasted. His mom? He’d talked about his mom with them? Gray wonders what he could have possibly said. She knows better than to think he shared everything with them that he has with Gray. Gray was the first person he’d ever spoken to about a lot of those things.

Alexander looks off to the side, mutters, “Yeah, I guess.”

Gray stares at him with some incredulity. How could he still not get it? He knows Slate. Or at least has been around him much longer than Gray has. And he knows the family. He knows exactly how much Camille Atwood is discussed–which is to say, never. The only time Gray had ever heard them mention her in her presence was in brief relation to the farm or that one occasion at Thanksgiving dinner.

“Why are you so reluctant to admit Slate cares about you?” Gray asks at last.

Alexander says nothing for a while, so Aria takes it upon herself to jab him again, harder. “Dude. We’re trying to help you, here.”

“Ow,” he says disdainfully. “Stop that.”

“Well?” Aria shoots back, not backing down.

After a pregnant pause, Alexander sighs at the ground, slouching in his seat. “It’s just…we didn’t really have a dad,” he says, surprising both his sisters. “We had a dictator whose rules were more present than his actual body. Slate has so much more power and influence than us–how do we know he won’t abuse it?”

Aria has the gall to roll her eyes at what she no doubt considers dramatics. “Bro, it’s like you walk around this place with your eyes closed half the time. When has Slate ever hinted at trying to exert force over anyone who wasn’t threatening his family or the pack?” She leans into his space. “Never, that’s when. He doesn’t do that kind of stuff. He couldn’t be more different than our dad.”

“He’s not going to hurt you, Alex, or any of us,” Gray adds more gently. “He’ll fight for your trust until the day he dies if he has to.”

Alexander finally raises his head. “You think he would?”

“I think he is.”

“You think he could love us like he loves his family? Like he loves you?” In this moment he reminds her of the Zander of three years ago, who was stripped down to his essentials, raw, vulnerable, young, and trusting her perfectly.

However, it’s not Gray who comes through. “Dude,” Aria pokes her brother in the shoulder lovingly. “I think he’s been trying to tell us that he already does.”

Gray is incredibly proud of her sister in this moment. She has finally realized what it took Gray far too long to: his actions have always and will always speak more than his voice. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that his actions speak louder than his words, because he wields words with a kind of power most people don’t have, it’s just that he uses less of them.

Alexander finally meets their eyes, his gaze flicking between his sisters. He nods at them. “Okay. I believe you.”

Gray smiles at him and can’t help but leap to her feet, pull him manfully out of his chair, and squeeze him half to death. “Love you, bro,” she says into his shoulder.

“Hey, make room for me!”

Both older siblings lift an arm for Aria at the same time and she dives in without hesitation, completing their trifecta.

When Alexander has had enough, he wriggles out of their group hug. “Okay, okay, I love you guys too, but I’d like my insides to still function. You guys are like boa constrictors.”

Aria laughs and flips her hair. “I’ll take the label of serpentine. I kinda like it.”

Alexander reaches out to put her in a head lock, earning a squawk. “Less serpentine, more scaly.”

“Oh, whatever. You just can’t bear to tell us you love us without a thinly veiled insult attached.” She scoffs, slithering out of his hold as if to spitefully live up to the snake-like moniker she’d assigned herself. “What a man.”

“Better to be called a man than a snake,” He retorts.

Gray rolls her eyes. “No one in this room is a man or woman except for me. You’re both children.”

“Young at heart,” Aria amends for Gray, pointing a finger at her sister.

“Hey, Gray?” Alexander says suddenly.

Still grinning, Gray turns to her brother. The grin fades when she sees the soberness on his countenance. Brow furrowing, she says, “Yeah?”

“You should know that I forgive you. For leaving us and lying to us. I understand, and you deserve to know that. To be told that. So, I forgive you.”

Gray has to blink away tears. She’d come to terms with the fact that while they might have forgiven her, they’d never want to say it to her face. She thought the incident would lay cast aside and boxed up, mutually agreed upon to leave in the past and never speak of again. “I…thank you,” is all she can say. “Thank you.”

“I forgive you too,” Aria says, never to be outdone.

For her siblings’ sake, she doesn’t hide her emotions, just lets the tears fall and squeezes them to her again. “I love you both,” she says in the close space between the three of them. “I love you forever.”

“I love you forever.”