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but I’m hoping that Justin Meyers will ask me.”
    Ah, yes, Justin Meyers.
    Aspen had been talking about him since she started high school this year.
    I was worried about her infatuation with Justin Meyers and therefore he was a large beacon on my radar. Even though he was just a teenaged kid, he posed a great threat to me and my future happiness. I didn’t want my mate to get involved in a romantic relationship with him, or anyone else for that matter.
    Aspen was mine; she just didn’t know it yet.
    In the end, I’d told her that I was busy and would have to think about it when I was finished working for the day, but she was still pretty upset with me. I think she was hoping that I’d say yes right away.
    Her eyes were furious and glared daggers at me as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and stomped off. I could hear her muttering, “You’re such a friggin jerk, Roan” under her breath as she walked away.
    She was good and ticked off at me, so much so that she wouldn’t even look at me when I got home from work that night. She had been watching tv when I walked in and took my work boots off at the back door, but quickly went into her room and slammed her bedroom door as soon as she heard me, to let me know that she was still upset, of course.
    I laughed and went and knocked on her door.
    I wasn’t particularly enjoying these temperamental, teenage induced, hormonal freak-outs that she’d been having recently. She was so much harder to reason with now.
    Case in point, she refused to answer or acknowledge me when I knocked on her bedroom door, so I just opened it and walked right in. She was curled up on her side on top of her bed and listening to satellite radio on her computer.
    “Roan? This is my room, you can’t just barge in here!” “I knocked. You didn’t answer. I came in. I want you to start your homework,” I said calmly as I turned the music down and walked out again.
    She jumped up off her bed, wearing nothing but a tank top with no bra and tiny little booty shorts and slammed the door again. I hated how infuriating and defiant she was now that she was a teenager; it ticked me off to no end.
    “If you slam this door one more time, little girl, I’m going to unscrew it from the door frame and you won’t have a door to slam anymore, you got me?” I said calmly as I shoved the door back open.
    “I hate you, Roan. You’re nothing but a big mean jerk. You never let me do anything,” she wailed. 
    “Aspen, calm down. I said I’d think about it, okay?” I said trying to sound as reasonable and calm as possible. 
    “Someday I’m going to run away from this crappy little town for good and then I’ll never have to listen to you or your stupid rules ever again!” she screamed.
    I tried to stay calm, because I’m supposed to be the adult here but I hated fighting with Aspen because she instinctively knew each and every single one of my buttons to push. And the threat of her running away from Spruce Hollow was one of my more serious buttons that tended to get me going every single time she pushed it.
    However, the thing that she didn’t realize was that there was nowhere on this earth that she could go that I wouldn’t be able to find her.
    “I don’t give a crap if you hate me. You’ll do exactly what I say, exactly when I say it. And if you ever, ever, run away, little girl, there is nowhere on this planet that you could hide that I wouldn’t find you. Do you understand me, Aspen?” My voice was icy and controlled as I refused to engage her in a screaming match that would only end with her crying and me seething with anger.
    Honestly, some days I thought I was going to go insane from having a sixteen-year-old mate and being responsible for disciplining her. It’s hard being in a parenting role to your own predestined partner.
    I’d known Aspen since she was six years old. I saw her for the first time at an outdoor public pool, in Riverside, the next town over from Spruce