“Do you want me to make you a blind promise without thinking about it?” I feel like I’m stomping my foot and throwing a tantrum. He glares down at me.
“No, but I also can’t act on this until I know your answer.”
“I don’t want you to give up what you love, Mikael. But you’re my scent match, basically my destined soulmate. Are you telling me that hockey comes before that?” I don’t wait for him to answer. I’m being honest, I understand that they’ve spent the majority of their lives working toward this goal, and I don’t want them to give it up. Timing again is not on my fucking side, but it’s better than me bonding a pack, and then finding my scent matches. Fate brought us together now for a reason, and the fact that he is scoffing over this gift is pissing me off.
“Charlotte,” he pleads.
I spin around and point at him. “I’m going back to bed with Anders and Eli. Neither of them treat me like a burden, like I’m the fall of their hopes and dreams. I didn’t choose to be your scent match, Mikael. But I am actively choosing to get to know you and see where this could go. So go back to your room and brood. Just know you’re missing out on this precious time we have. I hope you don’t regret it.”
On that last note, I turn back down the hall and walk back to Eli’s bedroom. I shuck the offensive hoodie off in the hallway and glare at it. I’m not sure what pisses me off more, the way he makes the tension so thick between us that I want what I can’t have. Or that I feel so rejected to my core that it makes me want to cry.
I feel itchy and uncomfortable in my own skin. Wanting something soft, I open their hall closet and grab the softest alpaca blanket I’ve ever felt. I make a note to myself to grab some things from home tomorrow. The cabin feels a little stifling, and I need some of my own touches to make it feel comfortable.
With the blanket wrapped around me, I open Eli’s door and crawl back into bed.
“You okay, baby?” Eli says groggily, his arm gripping my hip.
“Eli, how is this going to work when we all go back to school?”
He sighs, gripping my hip hard and scenting my hair. “I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.”
There’s a whine that wants to rip out of my throat, but I lock it down. It’s just so crazy how people who didn’t even exist in my mind have become the center of my world. Maybe Mikael’s fear is warranted, but there’s no point in fighting the inevitable.
“I will probably need to switch to virtual for my last year anyway.”
He nods. “I wish it was easier, Char, I really do. Just know I’m in this 100%. Whatever that looks like—I’m in.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. I know it’s fucking crazy. I didn’t even know about scent matches until a few days ago. But it’s like the moment I picked you up off the ice, I knew something precious was in my arms. We’re not letting you go.”
I nod, my nose pressed against his chest, his pine scent calming me. I try to push down all the fears of how I’ll feel without them in the same place at the same time. Maybe I should just go virtual now and move to Boston. I sound crazy.
Strong arms wrap around my back, and I sigh. “I promise too,” Anders says behind me.
I wish that both of their promises made me feel more secure, but the feeling of this being doomed before it really gets to start sits heavily in my stomach. I get a tingling feeling that I should leave before I get left.
Chapter nineteen
I’mfuckingthisallup and the worst part is I know how bad I’m messing up, and I can’t help myself. When she looked up at me with those longing, blue eyes and I had my hands on her, I wanted to give her everything. I suppose that’s the problem; she has the ability to make me throw everything away. And I know if I did, I would resent her, even if she was my everything. That’s no way to start a relationship. Anders and Eli are in so fucking deep that I know if I don’t get on board, it will be me ruining everything, not her.
It was unfair of me to ask her that question on the spot and walk away when I didn’t get an answer. But I needed an out. If I didn’t walk away right then and there, I would have fucked her on the counter, given her my knot, and we would have been figuratively and literally knotted together forever.
The thing is we’re scent matches. I know that nothing will compare. There’s no going back to school and wanting anyone else. But how attached I get is the problem. If I could just keep her at an arm’s length until I’m ready. Until our futures are secured. Nothing in our lives is a certainty right now, and that’s probably what has me in shambles most of all. I’ve spent my life in uncertainty. I just want one fucking moment where my life makes sense—where something, anything, is clear.
And just because Charlotte and I aren’t together right now doesn’t mean we won’t be some day. I don’t want to be labeled as the pack dick, even if the title fits. That’s why I’m wearing khaki pants and a sweater right now as we sit at Charlotte’s dining table. The last thing I want is her mother to know what a fucking asshole I am. I didn’t want to come, truly; I wanted to stay at home and sulk. But when Charlotte said her mom was making dinner and that we were invited, I knew I couldn’t bail.
It doesn’t hurt that her mom makes a mean ass baked ziti.
“Wow, Kathy, this is delicious,” pack suck-up Eli says to Charlotte’s mother.
“Oh, thank you, Eli. I made two because I didn’t know how much you boys could eat.”
“Thank you for having us over,” Anders: pack kiss-ass number two says.
“Of course. So, Mikael, where are you from?” Kathy asks.
“I grew up in Quebec.”
