Taylor rubbed his face.He needed help, which meant that he had to stop wasting time.His mate was still in the bedroom, and Taylor would have to do something about him sooner rather than later.He had to get over his panic and take charge of the situation.“He’s my mate, Jacob.”
Jacob was silent for a moment.Taylor gave him time to understand what he’d said.It had taken him a second, too, and he was much more involved.
“Ben is your mate?”Jacob asked.
Taylor blinked.“Who’s Ben?”
“The panda shifter.Tony let me know his name earlier.”
“That’s good.”
“So the panda shifter is your mate?”
“Yeah.What am I supposed to do?”Taylor asked.He didn’t know, but maybe Jacob would.Taylor would be happy even with a gentle push in the right direction.He just wanted to stop feeling like he didn’t know himself.
“I think that, to begin with, you need to breathe.I understand why you’re overwhelmed, but being Ben’s mate doesn’t change who you are.You don’t have to be with him.You don’t even have to go back in that room and see him ever again if you don’t want to.”
“But it would be bad if I didn’t want to be with him.”Because they were mates.Could Taylor reject Ben?His first instinct was to say no, but could he?
Jacob grimaced.“Well, you won’t have another mate, so if you want that kind of bond with someone, you’ll have to accept Ben.”
“I wasn’t looking for my mate.”In fact, Taylor had been happy dating here and there and never going further than that.He hadn’t been saving himself for his mate or anything like that.He hadn’t been thinking about what would happen if he did.Even when Jacob had met Tony, Taylor hadn’t thought he’d be next.
He wished he hadn’t been.
“You may not have been looking for him, but he found you anyway,” Jacob said gently.“You’re going to have to deal with that.Running away from Ben isn’t going to help either of you.You don’t have to decide what you want right now, but you’ll have to eventually.You can’t just ignore all of this, Taylor.”
But he could try, right?Jacob’s expression told Taylor that he wouldn’t let him, but that didn’t mean that Jacob had to go all in.“I don’t know what to do, but it wouldn’t be fair to him to reject him right off the bat, right?”he asked.He already knew the answer, but he needed Jacob to approve.
He wouldn’t.
“You can do whatever you want.”
“You don’t really think that.”Taylor knew Jacob, maybe better than he knew himself, considering everything.He wouldn’t approve of Taylor running away or rejecting Ben right away.
“I don’t, but I won’t judge you if that’s what you do.I think that you’re overwhelmed and that Ben needs help.We need to focus on that before anything else.It will give you time to wrap your mind around what happened and understand yourself a little better.At the very least, you should talk to Ben, but not today.”
Taylor slumped against the wall.He did need to talk to Ben.Taylor was overwhelmed and confused, but none of that was Ben’s fault.He couldn’t help the fact that he was Taylor’s mate.He hadn’t chosen this.
Neither of them had.
* * * *
BEN WANTED TO GO AFTERTaylor.He wanted to know what was going through Taylor’s mind, but the only way for him to find out would be to ask Taylor, and he doubted he’d be able to do that.Hell, even if he could, would Taylor tell him anything?The way he’d reacted when he’d smelled Ben told Ben everything he needed to know.The only thing he could do was hope that once the initial shock had faded, Taylor would at least agree to talk to him.
“We can’t help you if you don’t tell us what you’re running from,” Gal said.
He sounded nice and understanding, but Ben still wasn’t sure he could trust him.He wished Taylor was here.His presence had been enough to keep Ben calm these past few days, but that was gone now.Ben was the furthest thing from calm.
Tony cleared his throat.Even with his uniform, he wasn’t as intimidating as Gal, maybe because he couldn’t turn into a massive bear and hurt Ben.Ben kind of liked him.He wasn’t pushy, even though he had to want things to move forward.
“Maybe we can give Ben a few more days,” Tony suggested.“He just shifted back to his human form after who knows how many days.”
“Weeks,” Ben murmured.“Maybe more.I’m not sure what month it is.”He’d spent time in his human form when he’d been in Jimmy’s basement, but it had felt safer for him to be in his panda fur when he’d escaped.It still did, and it took everything he had not to shift back.
“Well, no matter how long it’s been, I can’t begin to imagine how confused you have to be, and that’s not even considering everything else.I think you should take a shower and maybe eat something if you feel up to it.We can sit down and talk in a few days, once things have calmed down.”
Ben desperately wanted that, but would it mean that Taylor would stay away from him for a few days?“And Taylor?”
