My feet pad on the floor as I make my way down the hall. I hear a throaty laugh as I knock on a door, and I really hope I haven’t interrupted anything.
Jess only looks mildly flustered as she answers. “Are you okay?” she asks immediately. Her eyes sharpen. “What’s happened?”
I wet my lips. “Tristan’s dad is here,” I say numbly. “We might… we might be able to go home, Jess.”
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t for her to lose the color in her face. “W-what?”
Emmett comes up behind her, his hands settling on her shoulders in an easy familiarity. My eyes meet Jess’s as she closes them briefly.
Oh, Jess.
“I can come back,” I say quickly, but she shakes her head.
“No… we need to talk about this, Si. Come in.”
We take a seat on the chairs, Emmett joining us as I talk them through the conversation with Councillor –DavidCohen. Emmett’s face drops until he’s almost as pale as Jess, his eyes sliding over to her.
“So… you’re leaving?” he asks quietly.
It’s not a question for me.
Jess pushes her hair back, her eyes dropping to her lap. “I need to think.”
“Right.” Emmett unfolds himself carefully from the chair. “Let me know, once you decide?”
Jess’s head shoots up. “Emmett—,”
He holds his hands up. “It’s okay,” he says, with a quiet, sad smile that makes my throat hurt even more. “I get it.”
As the door closes, I turn back to Jess. “Jess—,”
“Don’t.” She shakes her head so forcefully that her curls bounce everywhere. “I’ll talk to him, but this is a decision for us. Maybe he gets a say. But this is our life, Si, and we have to make the right choice for us. Not for them. Right?”
I’m about to agree, but something stops me.
On one hand, Jess is right, and we absolutely do have to make the right choice for us. But our choices affect them, too.
Isn’t that the point of having mates? Especially Soul Bonds. We have to talk to each other. We have to communicate, and we’ve been especially lousy at that part so far.
Going back won’t just affect me. It’ll affect them, too. Gray and Logan—
“We all need to talk, Jess,” I whisper. “If he matters.”
Jess looks at me, and her face crumples. “I think… I think he might. Matter.”
“Okay. So we’ll talk it through, and then we’ll go and talk to them.”
She nods. “How do you feel about it?”
I run through my pros and cons list as Jess listens, her head cocked to the side.
“All valid,” she nods. “But I think the question here is… what do you want, Si? In the long run? Do you see them being part of your future?”
“They kind of have to be,” I point out.
“Pssht. There are ways around that,” Jess waves her hand. “But do youwantthem?”
Do I want the Cohen pack?
