Taylor had suggested they place bets on who made it to the front first, but Isla had poo-poohed it and said betting on the general public was probably illegal.
“Please, no. I can’t deal with that today. I’ve still got bruises on my arse from last time,” Taylor moaned, because the elderly were pinchy little bastards.
“So do I, from cops and fucking robbers.Youare being the robber next time, mark my words.”
Johnny took a left off the main housing stretch, following the road towards the woods.
“Where’re we going?” Taylor said, rubbing the tops of his legs.
Johnny didn’t really know. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere Johnny could let off steam and rid himself of the unbearable sense of urgency that had started squeezing every part of his body. His arms felt heavy with it, and his heart was hammering. It was his wolf, he realised, giving his body a massive fucking adrenaline dump and telling him to just get on with it.
Drifting beneath the trees, he followed the fire road all the way up to a picnic area and stopped when they reached the clearing.
“JP?” Taylor said, when he finally turned off the engine.
Johnny let out a breath. “Tay,” he said, rubbing a hand over his chin. It made a scratchy sound as his five o’clock shadow started to poke through. “About the other night.”
Taylor’s knee immediately started bouncing, so Johnny closed a hand around it. Colour crept up Taylor’s neck from beneath his black shirt, and it was taking all of Johnny’s self-restraint not to lean across and press his face into it.
“Yeah?” Taylor said, his expression tight.
“I… uh,”
Fuck.
Five minutes ago he’d been ready to tell Taylor everything. To just say ‘fuck it’ and hope for the best. Confessions should be better planned, he knew that. He’d even had some of the words figured out, but now Taylor was looking at him, and they were alone, and maybe telling him how he felt wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“I’m… sorry, for pushing you about Sam. That was really shitty of me.”
Taylor let out a breath, his eyes darting all over the car. “It’s… uh, yeah it’s okay, JP. It’s… Don’t worry about it. It was probably a surprise.”
Understatement of the century.
“And sorry for pushing you about whether you like alphas. Dragging it out of you like that wasn’t fair.”
Taylor wet his lips, leg bouncing again.
“Tay,” Johnny whispered, tucking his fingers around the back of his knee and rubbing his thigh with his thumb. “Taylor, I?—”
“Do you hate me, JP?”
“What?”
Taylor’s nostrils flared, and he pushed his lips together so tightly they turned white. After several seconds he sighed and looked up. “Do you hate me for all the shit I keep putting you through? It’s… it’s okay, you know. If you do. You can just tell me.”
Johnny let out a soft breath and leaned across the gap between the chairs. “What shit, Tay? There is no shit.”
Taylor let out a strangled sound and pulled away, flattening himself against the door. “You mean apart from making things worse with Manders? Not coming home? Losing our spots in West Newton, getting kicked out of our old house, the biting, th-the…” he trailed off, looking down at his hands.
“The sex?” Johnny said, eyes trailing over Taylor’s face.
Taylor swallowed and looked up as though praying for divine intervention. Johnny couldn’t blame him.
“Yeah. You weren’t into it, that was plain as day. I should have just… I should’ve just dragged you out of there rather than going along with it.”
Johnny let out a humourless laugh, fingers tightening around Taylor’s knee. “You’re right,” he said, pressing his lips together. “I wasn’t into it. Not with Theo. But when you came in I wanted to stay.”
“You don’t mean that.”
