God, I'm pathetic.
A knock at the door interrupts my spiral.
"What did you forget?" I call, not moving from my cocoon. Robin has keys, but he always forgets something when he's stressed. Probably his backup phone charger, or the special offset spatula he likes.
Another knock. More insistent this time.
"It's open, just come in!"
Nothing. Just another knock.
Sighing, I extract myself from the blankets and shuffle to the door, still wrapped in the biggest one like a cape. My hair is probably a disaster. My eyes are definitely still puffy from crying earlier. I don't care. It's just Robin.
I open the door without checking the peephole.
It's not Robin.
"Hi," Jason says.
He's standing in the hallway with his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched, looking anywhere but directly at me. He looks... nervous. Which is weird, because Jason always seems like he's one enthusiastic bounce away from knocking something over.
"No." I start to close the door.
"Wait!" His hand shoots out to catch it, but he doesn't push. Just holds it open, pleading. "Please. I'm not—Knox didn't send me. He doesn't even know I'm here."
"I don't care."
"Toby, please." His voice cracks slightly. "Just... five minutes? I need to tell you something. And then if you want me to leave, I'll leave. I swear."
"If this is Knox trying to explain through you—"
"It's not. He's not—" Jason stops, runs a hand through his hair. "He's actually shifted and refusing to shift back, which is a whole different problem, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I fucked up, and I need to fix it."
I should close the door. I should go back to my blanket nest and my melting ice cream and my Disney movie and forget any of this ever happened.
Instead, I step aside.
Jason lets out a breath and slips past me into the apartment. He stands awkwardly in the middle of the living room, taking in the scene—the couch covered in blankets, the tissues on the floor, the ice cream, Moana still playing on the TV.
"Moana's good," he offers weakly.
"Jason."
"Right. Okay." He takes a breath, squares his shoulders like he's preparing for something difficult. "We fucked up. Me, Ezra, Silas—we fucked up. We said things we shouldn't have said, and we didn't know—we didn't realize—"
"Didn't realize what? That telling me about Knox's rotating lineup of hookups might be hurtful?" I can hear the bitterness in my own voice. "That maybe I didn't want to know about the drawer full of clothes from all the people he's fucked and discarded?"
"That you were different." Jason meets my eyes finally. "That Knox claimed you."
I laugh. It sounds awful, even to me. "He claims everyone, apparently. The wolf who stayed three days, the bear shifter who ended up in the hospital—"
"No." Jason cuts me off, firm. "No, he fucked them. There's a difference."
"What difference? What possible difference could there be?"
"Can you—" He gestures at the couch. "Can you sit down? Please? This is going to take more than thirty seconds to explain and you look like you're about to fall over."
I don't want to sit down. I want to throw him out and go back to wallowing. But my legs are shaky—I've barely eaten today, despite Robin's best efforts—so I shuffle back to my corner of the couch and curl up, pulling the blanket around me like armor.
