“Pancakes would be good. I'm not gonna lie.”
“Perfect! Race you to the truck.”
“You're on!” She giggled as she jumped up off the couch, beating him to the front door. She twisted the handle, yanked the door open, and ran into a hard body blocking her path.
Before Allie could get a look at her visitor, Marc let out a ferocious roar and quickly pulled her behind him. She peeked around his shoulder and gasped in shock when she saw who it was that stood in her door frame.
“Clinton!” she shouted. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Allie growled at her former friend.
“Allie … can we talk?” he asked, eyeing up Marc.
“Absolutely not,” Marc growled at Clinton.
“I asked the lady. Not you.” Clinton looked down at Marc like he was nothing more than a piece of dog shit that he had stepped in by accident.
If Allie would have blinked, she would have missed how quickly Marc did a double tap with his fist against Clinton's face. Her previous self would have been angry with Marc for going to violence right out of the gate, but that was well before Clinton had betrayed her and helped her parents commit a crime against humanity.
Clinton stumbled out of the doorframe, but he'd managed to make a quick recovery, even with the blood dripping down his face. She pushed Marc out of the way to face Clinton.
“You have some fucking nerve showing up at my doorstep after the bullshit you and my parents put me through last night. I suggest you leave before I rip your fucking throat out myself,” she growled.
“Allie, love. You can't possibly mean that. We only want what's best for you,” Clinton said.
“Really!” she screeched like a banshee on the warpath. “You don't get to say that to me anymore, and furthermore, how the fuck do you know what's best for me? Do you really think helping my parents break my connection to my fated mate is what's best for me? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
Allie was livid. She couldn't believe that Clinton had the balls to show up at her doorstep, claiming that he only wanted what was best for her. His audacity blew her mind.
“You know your parents always wanted us to be together. They planned for us to be married. Then you go and mate with this …” Once again, he eyed Marc up and down with a less-than-favorable expression on his face. “I was going to propose to you last night, and your parents knew that. They simply couldn't believe that you had run off and mated the first guy you found. What's so special about this one anyway?” Clinton asked.
“He's my mate. He's the one I will marry. The one I will spend this life and the next with. The one I'll grow old with. The one I will be buried next to. I don't know why you people don't seem to understand any of this. But that's not really my problem. I'm an adult, and I don't need to explain my decisions to anyone, let alone you.
“I have never once in my life given you a single indication that I was interested in you or that I would even accept a proposal from you. I don't know what deal you cooked up with my parents, but I'll have no part in it. So, you best be on your way. Ask my parents for a refund because I will never, ever be with you.”
Allie didn't know how she could make her position any clearer than she just did. She didn't care if she hurt Clinton's feelings. And she certainly didn't give a flying fuck if her parents didn't agree with her or her decisions. It was her life to live. Not theirs. Never theirs.
“You don't know what you're saying,” Clinton said, trying to argue with her.
When Allie failed to be bargained with and failed to listen to Clinton's bullshit, he reached for her, trying to yank her out of her house.
Epic. Mistake.
Marc was on him instantly. His fists flew in rapid succession, one after another, beating Clinton to a pulp.
“Do not ever, ever lay your hands on my mate again, or I will end you. Do you understand me, you piece of shit?”
Clinton nodded and stumbled back toward his Lexus. And the look he gave Allie told her he was not done with their conversation. As far as she was concerned, he no longer existed. He was dead to her. It didn't matter what he wanted to say to her; she didn't want to hear it. There was nothing he could say or do that would ever make her change her mind. She pulled Marc back inside her house and slammed the door.
“You should probably wash your hands to get the blood off before we go anywhere. I'm afraid you may have ruined your shirt as well. I have some T-shirts in my drawer, but I doubt they'd be big enough to fit you.” She laughed, imagining him squeezing his large body into one of her pink T-shirts.
“No worries. We can swing by my house for a few minutes, and I can change.”
“Perfect.” Allie glanced out of the front window to make sure Clinton had left. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and unlocked the screen. She had at least three dozen messages from her parents that she had no intention of reading and one from Gerri.
“Is everything all right?” Marc asked.
“Yep. I have no desire to read all the messages from my parents. They can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned. There is a message here from Gerri asking how we're doing.”
“You should tell her to meet us at The Hole in The Wall for pancakes,” Marc said.