It was a division one team and had a good track record for people going pro. I told him I had to think about it.
“I can give you twenty-four hours.”
Stan had heard enough of the conversation and told me I had no choice.
“You take it, and I’ll read about your exploits on ESPN.”
My wolf was clawing at me, saying we couldn’t leave Stan. He had to come with us. But I refused to destroy his career.
I accepted the offer, and on the day I left, Stan and I promised to stay in touch. But he’d get a new roommate and complete his studies, and who knew where he’d end up?
We hugged, and I memorized his scent while tamping down the trauma I was experiencing at being separated from my mate. Stan’s forlorn face as we waved goodbye was also committed to memory.
My wolf told me he’d never forgive me, and I walked away, wondering if I’d ruined my life.
2
STAN
We were slammed at work. It was funny how that happened, and not funny ha-ha. The ER being busy always meant people were hurting, and there was nothing humorous about that.
There were days when the weather was horrible, and I expected to have a ton of people come in for slip-and-falls or car accidents. There were times when the Norovirus was going around, so you knew it was going to be a hotbed of grossness. And then there were days like today, where it was a normal weekday, gorgeous outside, no surges in any particular illness going around, and yet we were bursting at the seams.
One after another after another, people came in by car and by ambulance. We had an elderly patient who fell down the stairs, two heart attacks, a case of pneumonia, and a kid who ran into a wall in gym class, and on and on it went.
My job was never boring, not any day. Being an ER nurse wasn’t a sea of tranquility; even on days when it was slow, there was always something that needed doing and people who neededcare. But today? Today was off the charts… well, on the charts… because nursing humor made the days brighter.
“Stan, we have a patient who needs a room. Is there anyone being discharged in the next 20 minutes?” James, a fellow nurse, asked.
He was frazzled, being new to the ER. He was a great nurse but had come from a much calmer floor and moved over to get the pay differential because his husband was expecting, and they were hoping to save enough that his omega could stay home with their little one for a few months before going back to work.
“No.” We ran out of those a half-hour earlier. “We already have three in the hallway, and there’s a wait on the cardiac floor for a room, and a wait on… well, all the floors. I can try and move someone to the hallway so you can give the patient some privacy, but that’s the best I can do.”
I always felt guilty lining patients up in the hall, but shifts like today’s gave us no choice. They were usually done receiving their emergency care and waiting for a room upstairs, and sadly, that meant we needed their room here for new patients. What this city needed was a second hospital, but that wasn’t even in the talks yet.
All we could do was put a smile on our faces, treat them the best we could, and keep on going.
“You’re in a pretty good mood, considering the chaos in here today.” James grabbed a new set of gloves out of the box sitting on the nursing station counter.
“Well, James, that’s because I have tickets to tonight’s hockey game.” Which he knew. Everyone knew. I’d been going on and on about them for a month.
“I didn’t know you were into hockey.” He stuck out his tongue. There were days I worried that the pressure of this department would be too much for James, and then he did something like this and I knew he’d be fine. Having a playful spirit in this environment went a long way.
I rolled my eyes. “Har-har.” I talked about hockey non-stop, and it wasn’t even about the team that played, not really. It was the person on the team… Axel.
Axel and I had been roommates for a while in college, and to call him a roommate was dismissive at best. I fell in love with him right away and wanted us to have a future, but fate had other plans. Unlike me, Axel was a wolf shifter and they scented their mates, and he never scented me as his.
That’s why I made sure never to shift with him. It had been selfish, but I didn’t want the proof that he wasn’t mine that came from my fox not recognizing his wolf as ours. Once my fox scented him, there was no turning back. If my fox thought of him as only a playmate, then that was all he’d ever be. I couldn’t love my way into being a true mate. That wasn’t how it worked. It was better to live in a world where he could possibly be mine instead of a world where I knew he never could be.
Gods, I was stupid in my youth. It wasn’t as if everyone had true mates. Falling in love was a way to mating too. Right? Only for many shifters, it wasn’t. You could be mated for love for years and then boom, your beast scents your true mate and your world comes crumbling down. And as selfish as I was, asking Axel to be with me in the hopes that he’d never find his true mate wasn’t something I’d been willing to do. He deserved all the happiness he could find.
But the university cut our time together short when people in the athletic department decided to do all the things illegal in their recruiting process.
Axel was born to play hockey. He was mesmerizing on the ice. There was a gracefulness to him, even amid the checking and the aggression that came with the game. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t think he wanted to leave. But looking back, it was exactly what had to happen.
He was recruited to play at one of the best universities, and his five-year plan was no longer squashed. It was exactly what he needed, and I showed my support as enthusiastically as possible, despite it breaking my heart into a million pieces.
Axel was now one of the top players in the game, and I never missed one of his matches, whether it be on TV or on the rare occasion that they were within driving distance. I was his number one fan, and unlike many of his fans, would continue to be whether he scored again or not.
