“Okay, perfect.” Her face lights up in a way that makes my heartbeat funny.
I guess the only thing I can do is wait and see what’s going on.
The hotel is nice.
We end up in two suites with four rooms in each. Riot, Creed, and Bellamy take one of the suites, while Declan, Damian, Cove, and I end up in the other. They’re exact copies of each other and on the same floor.
It’s going to be annoying if the twins throw a party, which has been known to happeneverysingle time we end up in a hotel. It’s still a little early for that, but Iamsuspicious about why they’re hanging out in our room.
I mean, we all ate together, then Cove disappeared to take a shower while Damian and I came out on the balcony to smoke. I’m trying to get everyone to disperse, so Cove and I can talk, but they all keep close.
Bells said she was going to skip this round, but Riot and Creed are lingering on our balcony when they could be out at a bar finding people to bring back for the party that we all know they’re going to have.
It’s making me suspicious.
“All right, so we finally have forward movement.” Riot leans forward, swiping his beer off the table. His shoulder-length locs fall around his face as he smirks, pointing the bottle at me. “Don’t fuck it up.”
“See, what you need to do is chill,” Creed says. “Accept her apology or whatever, but make sure you apologize too. I’ve been thinking about this. You’re both hardheaded.”
“Here.” Damian stretches an arm over, patting my chest with the back of his hand as he holds out a joint. “You need this more than I do.”
I laugh, grabbing it and taking a hit. “I wish I knew what this intervention was about.”
I’d rather smoke a blunt than a joint. The throat burn is better that way, and the fruity bump you get from blowing it out your nose, but whatever. This will have to do.
“Don’t play dumb,” Creed says, pulling his hands up. He keeps them about an inch apart and weaves them up and down. “This is you and Cove. You’re like the same sides of magnets. You’ll get close, but there’s a line where you get too up close and personal. That’s where you both start pushing back, always keeping a level of distance.”
I exhale, passing the weed as I cough. “That’s her, not me.”
Riot snatches the joint. “You’re self-righteous. She’s stubborn. Actually, you both are.”
“You’ve told her that she’s going to love you so many times, I’m tired of hearing it,” Damian says, laughing.
“Yup,” Creed agrees. “And you had the chance to deepen your relationshipyearsago when she first went into heat.”
“Do you think it didn’t mess her up to see you walk away?” Riot chokes out as smoke spills from his nose.
“She’s anomega.They don’t do well with rejection,” Creed chimes in.
“This is basically dead. You want it or should I put it out?” Riot asks.
“Kill it,” Creed says, shaking his head.
“Is anyone going to consider how I felt?” I grind out, contemplating where I can find new friends. “I had two options. Neither of them was good. If I had stuck around, one of two things would have happened. I would have lost myself to the fog and bitten her, which only would have given her more ammunition to hate me.”
An even worse possibility would be that she could have denied the bond. I don’t even say that part out loud because I don’t want to put it out into the universe. If someone denies a claiming bite, that’s it. There are no second chances. You never get to try again with that person.
I get myself back on track and go on. “The second option is, by the grace of God, I managed to control myself even in rut.Once her heat was over, she would have wanted to go back to just being bandmates. That would have mademeresenther. I had no good choices to choose from.”
“Yeah, we get it,” Riot says.
He says that, but I don’t think hereallydoes.
I have morals and values that I’m not going to compromise for anyone.
“I’ve seen the mistakes our parents made. The first person I have sex with is also going to be the last.” I know that they know my stance on this, but they seem to forget at the most inconvenient times. That, or they don’t take my conviction seriously.
I’ve held out for twenty-four years. I can hold out for a few more if I have to.
