“I know.”
“Want me to have Clark call him?”
I considered it but dismissed it almost immediately. “Naw, I don’t think so.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I think he’s just trying to reset our relationship to a platonic level.”
“Uh, Mitch? How many of your buddies do you give a bath when you hang out?”
I laughed despite the knot in my throat. “Well, none but to be fair, I don’t share a bed with any of them. I think I’m just going to go along with it. It’s not really fair to keep pushing him for more than he wants to give.”
On the other end of the line, Jackson sighed. “If you’re sure but I’d hate to see your relationship backslide due to a lack of communication.”
“Me, too,” I agreed. “If I see an opportunity without it getting worse, I’ll try talking to him, okay?”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Jackson agreed. “Now, what do you know about my son stalking Otto?”
I snorted a laugh and raised my free hand in a defensive gesture that Jackson couldn’t see. “I’ll have to plead the fifth on that one.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Dane
I was failing, there were no two ways about it.
The harder I tried to show Shelly that I would be a supportive partner and dedicated co-parent, the further he withdrew from me. If I poured a glass of milk with his lunch, he’d thank me politely but end up pouring it down the drain when he finished his meal. When I suggested anything but sushi on our usual take-out night, Shelly suddenly decided he’d rather eat out – alone – instead and headed immediately to Cali Rollin’ for the raw fish. When I ran him a relaxing bath, he’d barely glanced up from his phone screen and told me he was heading out shortly and didn’t have time. Worst of all, he’d stopped sleeping in my bed and my inner beast was grumbling about not being able to hold him close.
Forget failing, present tense. I’d failed, past tense.
Not only had I failed at proving myself to be a suitable mate, Shelly still hadn’t even told me about the pregnancy. He’d made a point of telling me that he’d been given a clean bill of health -at a doctor’s appointment I wasn’t invited to - so I couldn’t really hold onto the shred of hope that he wasn’t telling me because he didn’t know himself. That left me with a pretty limited number of other plausible explanations. Either he didn’t trust me to support his decision or he didn’t want me involved.
Either way, I had failed.
Without a solid plan -or any plan, really – for how to fix things with my Omega, I did the only thing I could think of and backed off to give him space. I wasn’t happy about it and the beast was downright pissed at me, but one lesson I had learned during my failed marriage was not to try and force a relationship to work.
So, the next time Shelly sat down with a cold-cut sandwich, I left the room instead of offering to heat it up or pouring him a glass of milk.
And when he came in from a full-day adoption event complaining about being sore and tired, I mumbled commiserations and continued staring blankly at the television instead of jumping up to fill the soaking tub with steaming water and scented Epsom salts.
But when he crawled into his own bed for the first night in the second week that I’d been left to sleep alone, all of the frustration bottled up inside me began to simmer, threatening to boil over.
Clicking the television off, I tossed the remote onto the coffee table and headed out the door into the crisp evening air. Stripping down in the shadow of the building, I dropped my clothes in a pile and dropped to my knees in the silvery moonlight, ignoring the stabbing pain I received for the rough treatment of my bad knee. The bear immediately began to push forward and I relaxed into the shift, sinking back into my mind and letting it happen.
The bear stretched, elongating his neck and sliding his lower jaw from one side to the other before roaring up into the night sky. The scent of apples was heavy in the air and he inhaled deeply, saliva pooling and dripping over his lips as he began to make his way through the meadow toward the orchard full of late fall fruit.
The small wooden fence surrounding the trees was no challenge to climb but also wasn’t as sturdy as it had appeared, one section collapsing under the bear’s weight, making him grunt and sending another pain shooting through his hind leg when he landed on the ground littered with plump apples.
Without even bothering to shuffle to all fours, he stretched his neck and began to gobble up the sweet, pungent fruits. The more he ate, the deeper into myself I fell until all of the background noise of the past few weeks had faded away, leaving me communing with my inner beast on a deeper level than I had in years.
~*~
My head was killing me. Pulsating pain at my skull cap, pinching behind my eyes, full-on cranial crisis. As I tried to focus on my situation, I realized a horrific headache wasn’t the only problem I had. My bad leg was throbbing, my back ached, my stomach was roiling, even my butt cheek was sore and I had no idea why.
Forcing my eyes open, I winced at the assault of sunlight and promptly let the lids drop again.
“Feel like shit, huh?” Shelly’s voice was strained and entirely too loud. “Serves you right, asshole.”
