Inevitably Yours

MICHAEL

“Michael?” he hissed back at me. Jaxx sounded about as happy as I was.

“Give. Her. The. Phone. Back,” I demanded. I was trying to keep myself calm, but being confronted with the singular reason for my insecurity with what Quinn and I were was not what I expected on her birthday.

“How about you get the f**k off the phone with my girlfriend? You’re gone, so stay gone. You don’t get to tell me what to do with my girlfriend’s-,” he shouted.

“I said give her the phone back, b***h. I wasn’t asking,” I cut him off. This wasn’t happening. Not today. It had already gone too far, and I couldn’t unruin her birthday now.

“Who the f**k do you think you are? Don’t call her. Don’t text her. Don’t think about her. You have no business with my girlfriend!”

“Jaxx, I think you forgot who the f**k you’re talking to. I will make you eat this f*****g phone, pick up your teeth, and swallow those too. Quinn is her own person and can talk to me if she-”

“No, she f*****g can’t. Not to you. I’m not scared of you, Michael.”

“You should be. Feel free to ask Ricky how this will go when I see you and remind him that it’s coming for him too,” I growled. I was barely keeping it together.

“I don’t have to ask Ricky shi-”

“Then feel free to ask Daphne,” I spat. I saw red, and the line was gone. I’d gotten in a plane, and I’d flown to a continent beyond the line bringing his sister into it.

“Keep my sister’s name out of your mouth!” he retorted with a scream into the phone.

“Why, when I’ve spent plenty of time in hers?” I asked. I could feel the adrenaline pumping like he was right in front of me, ready to tear him apart. My b***d was boiling, and I needed to destroy something. Anything. I was lucky no one was in the hallway right now to overhear this.

“f**k you!” I heard the phone click and go silent on the other end.

With a roar, I grabbed a trashcan from beside me and threw it forcefully down the hallway, where it disappeared with a huge echoing clatter. I repeated this several times, Eros just as enraged as I was within me but without much to intelligibly say. I’d started tearing a promotional cutout in two when Nic popped her head out of the concert, the sound flooding into the hallway when she opened the door.

“Michael!” she yelled.

I froze. I was in too much of a rage to have noticed her come out.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked. “You came out here to call Quinn? Was her birthday that terrible?” She put her hand on mine and guided it to put the cut out down. “Say something.”

I couldn’t find the words to tell her what happened or how I felt. I wasn’t even sure what had just happened myself beyond a jealous boyfriend picking up his girlfriend’s phone and the other guy reacting to it. Was I wrong here?

“I can’t….” I answered, unsure where to start, and the adrenaline began to wane with no one to expend it on around.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, pulling me by the hand towards the parking lot.

“But the concert-” I started.

“Forget it. That’s not important right now,” she replied before I could finish the thought.

She pushed me toward the passenger seat and grabbed the keys to drive. I didn’t know where we were going, so I let her lead the way. I saw her look at directions on her phone a few times before she found where we were going. Soon, we’d driven through downtown and found ourselves in a huge park. She pulled in, parked, and got out. I followed suit, and we walked in silence. It was like she was looking for somewhere and found it. It was a secluded spot on the bank of a large lake underneath a few trees with the moonlight shining enough to illuminate it for us. She sat down and pulled me with her.

“Now,” she said from beside me as we looked across the water together. “No one’s here but us. Tell me what happened.”

It took me a few minutes to get it out, but as I told her, I realized why I was so upset, “Why doesn’t anyone ever choose me, Nic?”

“What do you mean?” she asked softly.

“She sends me pictures. She sends me dirty texts about how she wants and misses me. She just teased me that she hadn’t found her mate today because I was too far away. Still, she’s with that f*****g tool. My mom constantly puts Tyler ahead of me, probably for the sake of peace, but who knows? The only father I’ve ever known disowned me in writing. He’s going to kill me if I don’t kill him. My actual dad, for all the things that happened, never came back. He chose to stay away instead of choosing me. He chose to leave me with that psychopath….”

“Michael-” she started, turning toward me.

I could feel tears burning at the corners of my eyes. I hated that. It made me feel weak and always came when I needed it the least.

“Even you,” I got out. “You left. You never told me why, and then you disappeared. I thought you were my best friend, and then you just vanished.”

“It wasn’t like that,” she replied, her voice low.

“Then tell me what it is like!” I said a little too loudly. I immediately regretted it because she was trying to help. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to push you about it, and now I’m turning this on you-”

“No, it’s fine,” she said. “You’re right. We haven’t talked about it.” I just sat and waited; the silence was better than saying something stupid. “You know how my mom has a human mate?”

“Yea?” I answered. I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything.

“You know I have a terrible relationship with my mom, so I went to live with my dad. The stigma with human mates and hybrid children is awful. There were always whispers, and I couldn’t take it. Neither could he. So, he joined the human Army, and we had to move. We moved out of the country for a while, and then he got stationed here.”

“So, that’s it?” I asked. “I never would have cared about that. I don’t care what other people-”

“No,” she answered, looking out over the water. “The rest is I’m living on my own now.”

“What do you mean you’re living on your own? You’re seventeen! What about school?” I knew she’d been keeping something from me. She was Quinn’s age and still needed to finish high school. How could she do that while trying to support herself?

“I’m figuring it out, but I’m fine, Michael. I didn’t want to worry you. It happened right after we moved here. I got into it with my dad, and now I’m on my own.”

“You could have stayed with us!”

“Stop it, Michael,” she demanded. “I’ve had to do some things I’m not proud of. I’ve had to miss classes sometimes, but I’m making it. Just leave it at that.”

“I have to ask….” I started. It hurt even to think she could be involved or say the words aloud. “Those things you’re not proud of. They don’t have anything to do with Lawrence or Stary, do they?”

“No,” she answered flatly, maybe a touch indignant. “I would never do anything to hurt you, and I haven’t talked to anyone from Stary other than you since I left. I promise. Lawrence can’t Alpha command me either. I joined my abuela’s pack in Puerto Rico when I visited before we moved here.”

“I just needed to hear you say it.”

“I’m just glad the Goddess put us in the same place at the same time. I can’t believe we both ended up here out of all places,” she said gently.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. It had been nagging at me in the back of my mind, but I ignored it for our friendship. Nic leaned against me, and I pulled her closer. I looked down and saw tears pooling, then slowly descending the lines they’d already made on her face. I gently wiped them from her cheeks and under her eyes with my fingers.

“I’m sorry I ruined tonight,” I apologized. This was so far from how I imagined the evening going.

“You didn’t; it’s okay. I know she’s important to you, and apparently, we needed to have this talk too.”

Then, I made my first mistake of the evening. Like so many times before, whether in l**t for Nic or indifference to whoever I was dating at the time, I leaned down and kissed her soft lips. She looked surprised, but her eyes closed, and she melted into me as she returned it. I shifted her into my lap, her legs wrapping around my waist as the sun dress she was wearing left nothing but the thin fabric of her panties between me and the heat growing at her center. Eros was quiet; I don’t think he knew what to do anymore either. Our kissing grew deeper, and Nic’s dress was soon in the grass beside us. Her skin was flushed; her scent was so familiar that it was comforting. She reached under herself to unzip me, and I sprang free from the shorts trapping me within them, now rubbing against the thin piece of cloth soaked in desire. Without a word, she pushed my obstacle to the side, and I drove myself in easily as she gasped.

–

Both of us were breathing heavily, and my mind was spinning. Post-s*x guilt set in now that I’d finished, and I could only think about Quinn. I sometimes wished I could explain to my female friends the change in mindset from before and after.

“You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?” Nic panted.

“I’m sorry,” I answered. I didn’t want to lie, even if it did make this awkward.

“I’m not upset with you, Michael. It’s okay,” she told me, her thumb rubbing my hand reassuringly. “I’ve never felt bad about doing this until now, and it sounds like you feel the same?”

“I feel terrible,” I admitted. “This used to be how I escaped things at home, but Quinn doesn’t deserve this. Not that back then, I didn’t want you. You just… you know what I mean.”

“I get it,” she told me. “You really do love her.”

“I don’t know if it matters if she’s my fated,” I admitted. “I’d love her anyway.”

“Then ask her, Michael,” she said, a little forcefully.

“Ask her what?”

“You’re so dense sometimes,” she sighed. “Maybe she doesn’t realize you’re a real choice, Michael. You’re over a thousand miles away, and she doesn’t know you’re coming back for her. I don’t know why she’s with this guy, but maybe if you asked her to choose you, she would. Communicate with her. Let her know you’re a choice for her!”

I felt stupid. I was trying to give Quinn space to make a choice, but maybe Nic was right. Did she even know that I was one? Was she in love with someone she thought would never come back, and for some reason, Quinn felt she had to be with the cunt she’d chosen in the meantime?Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“Thanks, Nic,” I told her. Even though I felt terrible for what just happened, I was glad to have her. I felt like a wall had been broken down, and she was truly back. I didn’t know how I would help with her home situation, but I’d have to figure out a way. “I’m going to have to tell her about this.”

“That’s up to you. I know why you feel bad, but she is dating someone else right now. I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t. I’m just saying I don’t think you’re wrong either way.”

I leaned my head against the soft grass underneath us and stared into the dark tree canopy above, “I’ll think about it.”

“If you do, you can tell her that it wasn’t meant to hurt her, and it won’t happen again, at least without her permission,” she giggled on the last part, and I couldn’t tell if she was serious. “I want her to like me because I don’t want to lose you again. We’re supposed to be friends for life.”

“Fair enough,” I answered. I wasn’t sure how Quinn would feel about any of this, but from limited conversations in the past, she’d been incredibly understanding about me with other girls before. She knew we weren’t together, and I wasn’t the only one making that choice.

“Besides, she is really cute,” she teased. I’d shown her a fully clothed picture on more than one occasion. I wouldn’t show the others without Quinn’s permission. “I wouldn’t mind the three of us, with your permission, that is.”

“Let’s slow that roll down until I find out if there’s a two of us,” I laughed. I knew Nic was bi, but I didn’t realize she’d had that thought. I involuntarily began to grow upwards again, so I shoved myself back into my shorts. “Besides, I have a lot to focus on with Quinn before that’s even a remote thought.”

She rolled over and grabbed her dress, rolling it under her head as a pillow. I’d forgotten, she really disliked wearing clothes if she didn’t have to.

“Just get her back, Michael. I don’t want you to spend your whole life wondering.”

“I don’t either,” I lamented, hoping that a future with Quinn was still possible after today. That’s when my phone buzzed. I was surprised when I saw the time. It was incredibly late, far after the game was over. We’d been in the park longer than I thought.

MATE