Chapter 2 - Manuel

     Seeing Gabe struggling with being asked about mates rings true to me too. He is not the only one. Our family is so big, and with that means there is a lot of support and love, but also it can mean there is a lot of family members to interrogate you, harass you about if you found your mate yet. Give you tips on how to find them.

   It gets irritating after a while. I am the quieter of the two of us, so I sit there and don’t say much about it, not out loud anyway, just inside my head I am going crazy, getting frustrated, Sick to death of being asked if I found my mate yet. They think if I had I wouldn’t have been telling the entire world by now?!

   I swear each time they ask I wonder just how stupid my family actually are. Or if they actually have any thought for my feelings. Though they have their mates so they won’t even consider that part of it.

    Gabe generally says what he is feeling and I don’t blame him. he has never been one for holding back. Sometimes I wish I was more like him. But I am too worried what people will think. But I know the fact he hasn’t found his mate is hurting him as much as it is hurting me. He is approaching 24 now, and I am 23, we would normally be expected to have our mates and be settled down with at least one pup by now.

    So to be our age and not have met them is rare, but not impossible, obviously. If she is from a different pack and the paths of the packs don’t cross often then meeting her would be less simple. Though you’d like to think fate would give you a helping hand. Though the more time goes along, the harder it is not to start to wonder if she has already passed on.

    My uncles and some of my cousins have suggested taking a chosen mate, but I don’t know if I want to do that. Seeing what Indie and Dan have and what Knox and Lilah have as fated mates, and hearing the tales my family tell of their fated mates, makes me want to wait in the hopes of meeting my fated mate. I just have to hope that she is still out there somewhere, and she will come along soon. Hopefully Selene, the moon goddess will give the paths a nudge so they cross sooner rather than later; because I am really starting to struggle.

   “Gets boring doesn’t it” I mutter.

    “What does?” Gabe looks to me.

    “Waiting. Being Alone.” I say with a shrug.

     “Too right. Abuela is probably right. My mate probably ran for the hills!” he smiles.

   I shake my head at him, hoping he is joking and knowing our grandmother will have been winding him up when she said it with him winding her up, it being a regular occurrence between the two. Gabe is a lot like his Dad, my Uncle, in that regard, forever making jokes and forever teasing his Mum.

     We sit and watch some of our younger cousins fighting as they play football.

   “Well least with no mates, we don’t have to put up with our own screaming kids” Gabe grins at me.

  “No, just everyone else’s” I laugh.

   “True that”

    “Yo, Manny, come give me a hand at the grill son” My Dad shouts me over.

      “I have been summoned” I say.

      “Yeah, I am guessing I will not be needed” Gabe grins at me, his skills at the BBQ are renowned for being terrible at our family BBQs, and despite our grandfather, and our fathers and Uncles alike trying to teach him he was still terrible. So he just supplied the beers instead.

    “Just keep the beers in good supply and they will be happy” I laugh.

   I love our family. It is a massive family, originally from Mexico, when traced back to our great great grandfathers, but we ended up at Midnight Forest Pack when they moved here as Warriors way back when, and the rest as they say is history. I have to say we couldn’t wish for a better family, more loving or caring, nosey as hell at times, and at times you wish they would leave you the hell alone, but they were always there when you needed someone. At the same time I am glad it was this pack our family ended up at too, as it meant I ended up with the friends that I did. And again, while they were a crazy mismatch of a bunch, they were the best friends I could ask for. Recently added to by the addition of two mates, Lilah and Indie, but they had become as much of the group of friends as the rest of us. And I could not imagine them not being there now either.

   That was another reason I was desperate to find my mate, to add further to our friend circle, and I know Jake and Gabe were the same. Unlike Gabe, I was also desperate to have kids, I loved Knox and Lilah’s little one Kai, and Indie and Dan’s little boy Finn. They were so sweet, and I could not wait for kids of my own one day. Having grown up in such a big family, it was something I had always assumed would happen, I just didn’t realised fate would make me wait quite this long for my mate……