“Oh, how lovely.” No… not really. Not that Quebec was the problem, more so the people that I was surrounded by. It’s amazing how people have the ability to taint a place.
“Have you lived here your whole life?” I ask Kathy. Charlotte beams at me like I’ve figured out world hunger when I simply just asked her mom a question. Damn, my bar is fucking low.
“I have. After the war, my parents met and settled here. My father worked at a lumber yard for a good part of his life. Vermont will always be home to me.” I realize she’s talking about World War II, and I gape a little and nod my head.
“It is lovely here. We haven’t used the cabin much, and I regret that now,” Eli says, looking at Charlotte. Like in some other universe, he would have found her sooner. I’m jealous of how sure Eli is that we will figure out how to make this work, that he can have it all. How can he be so fucking confident? Part of it pisses me off while the other part of me yearns for that raw assuredness.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Kathy says.
I hate that saying, but I nod my head. Was my father an abusive asshole for a reason? Did my brother leave the first chance he got to leave me home with them and never turn back for a reason? The idea of horrible things happening to you to teach you something leaves a bad taste in my mouth, even though I know Kathy didn’t mean it like that.
In a moment of weakness, I look over at Charlotte who is frowning down at her food. She looks flushed, and I wonder what’s going on in her head. Not that I have a right to her thoughts. She’s made it pretty clear that she thinks I’m being a coward—maybe I am.
Kathy pulls out a photo album, and Charlotte seems embarrassed as Anders and Eli coo about how adorable she was.
“Excuse me,” I say to find the bathroom. I feel so fucking out of my depth, so confused, so overwhelmed. I want to consume myself with Charlotte, but want to run as fucking far as I possibly can at the same time.
I don’t find myself in the bathroom though; I find myself in Charlotte’s room. Her scent is thick, so saturated in the small room that it makes my dick hard. I chastise myself mentally but sit on her bed. A journal is open, and I know I shouldn’t look, that it’s an invasion of her privacy, but I do it anyway.
I’m sorry I haven’t written to you in a while, Dad. It’s not that I don’t think about you all the time, I really do. It’s just I haven’t had good news lately, and I know how much you loved our game of good news, bad news. Well, the good news is, I found my scent matches. The bad news is, one of them wants nothing to do with me.
I get it, Dad, I really do. I’m scared, scared that they’ll leave me like you did. I know you didn’t choose to leave, but I can’t help feeling the effect of your absence every day of my life. What if I let them in, and they leave? I know that no day is guaranteed, and we’re all going to die some day. But the pain of losing someone is the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.
I’m working on it though. I know you would be so pissed to hear me talking like this. Pissed that I’m using you as an excuse to not put my heart out there. Especially when I found something so rare. Scent matches, I have fucking scent matches!
Of course Mom is thrilled. She worries about me a lot, probably just as much as I worry about her. She likes them, and I think you would too. It’s funny. I think Mikael would be your favorite, even though he’s the one that wants nothing to do with me. He’s serious, logical, handsome, and he loves hockey.
I forgot to mention that they’re all hockey players. You would love them all just because of that. I’m sure you’d be working your way into getting free tickets as soon as they play professionally.
I don’t know how to make this all work. But I know you’d want me to be happy, and I think they could make me happier than I’ve ever been. So I’m going to take your advice and lead with my heart and not my head for a change.
I love you, Dad, and I wish you were here. I know you’re here in your own way, and I think you’d be proud of me.
Love, Charlotte.
I put the journal down and scrape my hands through my hair.
Fuck.
As if she wasn’t endearing enough, and the fact that she’s putting her heart out there. She’s trying, and I’m fucking hiding. Hiding behind hockey and sulking to save myself.
Could I put her before hockey? Am I being blinded by pheromones and the idea of this fated match? Or am I being a hardheaded asshole and not listening to what my body is telling me? All I know is I’m so sick and fucking tired of fighting this internal conflict.
There’s a clearing of a throat, and I look up to find Anders propping his hip on the doorframe, looking at me. We’ve made up, got over our scuffle a while ago, but he still doesn’t agree with how I’m handling things.
“You good, man?”
“No,” I sigh, my elbows on my knees and my head downcast.
He comes down and sits on the bed next to me. Bumping his shoulder next to mine, he sighs before he says, “The timing is shit. I’ll give you that. None of us know where we’re going to end up. We have a semester to finish, and we don’t live near each other. Honestly, it’s a fucking cluster fuck. But can you honestly tell me that you don’t look at her and see our future?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s bullshit, Mikael, and you know it. It all makes sense now why you, me, and Eli all connected so fast. Why we felt like more than teammates.” I glare at him. “Don’t fucking glare at me, asshole. I know you sensed it, and I know what you’re fighting with Charlotte and, on some level, I get it. I know you didn’t have a great family; you haven’t seen pack life. But I’m telling you, if you don’t spend what little time we have with her now, you’re going to regret it. I won’t lie and say this isn’t going to be hard. To be honest, I think we’re going to have a brutal next two years, but I’d rather fight for this, figure it out, than to look back and realize I fucked up the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Really, the best thing?”
“Yeah, really. Your brother’s an Omega, haven’t you seen him with his pack?” I sigh and shake my head. Timothee left the moment he turned eighteen and never looked back. “That makes sense. You know my mom’s an Omega. I came from pack life. It’s a gift. Do you know how many Alphas find their scent match?” I shake my head again. “Less than four percent.”
