33. More of a Cat Person
More of a Cat Person
Five Years Earlier
Cian
My parents owned a villa on the most southern tip of the Human Realms in a little beachside village named Kuda Bay. They called it their summer house, but the entire area was unbearable between the months of June and August. The temperature was so hot and dry that only the locals were hardy enough—or foolhardy enough—to withstand it.
Mash had recently graduated from his PhD. He was a doctor now, so to celebrate, we borrowed the keys from my parents and took a vacation in the epicentre of hell.
Mash didn’t seem to mind the searing temperatures. There was air con, which he viewed as a luxury, a private pool, a few local resorts which were open but quiet because it was the off-season, and the ocean was right there.
Despite the unendurable conditions, I enjoyed Kuda Bay for two reasons. One, Mash in swim shorts, and two, Jack Brandel.
Jack was human. Twenty-five to my nearly thirty. Practically a babe. He worked as a barman at a nearby resort, The Laguna. This was the third summer in a row we’d hooked up on the regular, and the closest—besides Mash—I’d ever come to love. We’d never said those three words to each other, but Jack had been talking about leaving Kuda Bay and coming to live in Borderlands.
I’d offered to help him sort out his visas and had said he could crash in my spare room until he found a job and his own place to live. In my mind, it would never reach that point. We’d fall in love—properly fall in love—and Jack would simply move from the guest bed into mine.
One night, Jack was sitting on my lap. We were sweaty and spent, my cock still buried in his ass while we waited for my knot to deflate enough to untangle ourselves. We were eighteen days into my twenty-one-day holiday.
“I’m going to leave it another year, I think,” Jack said while tracing the lines of my tattoos with his fingertips. “To move to Borderlands. I’m not ready. I need to build up a bit more cash. Do one last busy season here. The tips . . . the tips are just too good, and I need as much as I can get in the bank before I go. You understand, right?”
“Of course,” I said, because I did. I was disappointed, but I understood. I pulled him down to me and kissed him. “Will you still come to Remy, or go to Bordalis, or somewhere else?”
“Pretty sure Remy. You’ll be there, won’t you? And I have a few other friends who live in the city.”
In the distance, I heard the front door open and snick shut. A moment later, the shower in Mash’s room switched on. That meant he probably just got laid too.
“You’re in love with him?” Jack said.
I was so startled by his question, I almost denied it. Almost. But what was the point? “Yes.”
“But he likes women.” That wasn’t a question.
I answered regardless. “Yes.”
“He loves you back, though, no? I hear him say it all the time. This morning, he called you the sunshine of his soul. I don’t know many straight dudes who say shit like that.”
“No, you’re right. He does love me . . . just not in the same way.”
Jack rocked himself forward, testing the hold my knot still had on him. Another fifteen minutes at least. “Are you entirely sure about that? Because I’ve seen the way he watches you.”
“The way he . . .” But I couldn’t quite finish my sentence. Wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say.
“You two ever fucked?”
“No.”
“Kissed?”
When I didn’t answer, Jack raised an eyebrow. His expression read called it .
“He’s moving back to the Mythic Realms soon. This is kind of our goodbye holiday.”
Mash had told me so many times that as soon as he’d finished his PhD, he’d have to go home permanently. Though he was always super vague about the reasons. Every time I asked why his family didn’t understand his life was his own, he would shrug and say, “Werewolf thing,” or “Pack is pack.”
“So, this is your goodbye vacation, and you’re spending it with me, while he’s up Laguna shagging all my waitresses?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Does he know how you feel about him?”
“Gods, no,” I said.
“No, fuck that. I’m not letting that happen. I’m not letting this be your goodbye.” Jack pushed himself onto his knees, yanking my knot from his ass and crying out with the pain of the stretch. He stumbled off the bed and threw a towel at me. “Wash my cum off your chest and go after him.”
“Jack—”
“You can’t let him leave without telling him how you feel.”
I opened my mouth to object. Closed it again. How many times had I tried and failed to do exactly that? Too many to count. I’d start to tell him, and bottle out. Never could find the courage I needed to go through with it. The risks were always too great.
But really, what did I have to lose? Mash was leaving. We’d be several hours apart from each other.
What would he do if I told him I loved him? Would he stay with me in Remy? Was I enough? Would he give everything up to . . . do what, hang out with me for another ten years? Could we ever be anything more? Or would he say sorry but you’re a dude and I know we kissed that one time, but it was a mistake, meeting you was a huge mistake, and I’ve wasted my life being your flatmate?
But I had to at least try. Didn’t I?
“Sure. I should—am gonna do that.” I jumped off the bed and hit the “water on” switch of my own shower.
When I stepped out of the shower, Jack had put boxers on and was eating biscuits straight from the packet on my bed. I pretended I didn’t see the crumbs. With any luck, I’d be waking up in Mash’s bed anyway. Jack gave me a thumbs up.
Mash wasn’t in his room, but he’d left the patio doors open, so I knew he couldn’t be too far. I closed them behind me, because fucking mosquitoes.
I walked out to the beach and found him sitting on the floating pontoon, his feet dangling in the warm ocean, his eyes fixed on a tiny light in the distance. A fishing boat, perhaps. It looked as though it was drifting in a vacuum of blackness.
“Bangers,” he said, still not taking his gaze away from the light. “Everything cool?”
I sat next to him, took my flip-flops off, and dropped my feet into the water too. “I hope there are no jellyfish in here.”
“If you get stung, I’ll piss on you.”
“What are friends for?” I said. The fact that Mash hadn’t smiled or laughed yet was an alarm ringing in the back of my mind.
“So . . .”
I breathed slowly through barely parted lips, trying to muster the courage to tell Mash how I felt about him. Could I do that? Could I really confess that I’d been in love with him for a decade?
“I need to tell you something.”
“Can I tell you something first?” he said, finally turning to look at me.
“Uh . . .” The sound tumbled out of my mouth before I could think of a proper response. Mash had never asked me anything like this before. He’d never interrupted me. He was a listener. “Sure.”
He turned away again, let out a sigh.
I waited for him.
“My pack needs me to go home . . . back to Howling Pines. I should have been there five years ago, but . . . They want me to mate, settle down. I’m almost thirty. It’s time I stopped being such a selfish ass.”
I wanted to scream at him. How was he the selfish party here? They were asking him to change who he was, become a different person, give up everything for them.
“I can’t do it, Ci. I can’t do what they need me to.” A tear tracked down his cheek. The moonlight reflected off it. He slapped it off his face. “They have someone they want me to be with. Her name’s Dee-Dee. She’s like my cousin, but not really. But she’s not the someone . . .” He shook his head. “I’ve been talking with the dean. Agnes has offered me a position on the UR payroll if I want to stay. A research fellow. I’d have to teach some classes.” He laughed. “Gods, can you actually imagine me being responsible for young people’s education?”
I kept quiet, couldn’t quite formulate a response. I thought my heart might burst through my chest. Please stay. Please.
“No, me neither,” he whispered.
“What do you want to do?” I said eventually.
He didn’t answer me. Not immediately, and not with words. Instead, he turned his face to mine, wiped another tear away with his knuckles, and simply stared at me. His gaze landed on my lips. His tongue darted out to wet his own. Butterflies erupted in my stomach. But the moment was over as quickly as it had started, and Mash dragged his eyes back to the light in the distance.
“I’m staying in Remy. Alpha is going to be so pissed, but I love you, man. I don’t wanna leave just yet.”
Tell him. Tell him now. Tell him you love him too. That you’ve always loved him. That you will love him no matter what, or where, or who he chooses.
“I . . . I . . .”
Fuck.
“I know,” I said instead. I was a fucking coward.
He watched me for a few more moments. “I’ll get my own place. I think that’d be good for me, even if I have to do nights at Absym to afford it. But I’ll find an apartment within walking distance from yours, yeah? You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”