Chapter 15 #3
He sighs, and I feel bad for asking until his fine facade crumbles a second later.
“It’s one thing to leave like that when they know the rules, but to still want to test me after all this time …
” He shakes his head, pulling his hand away.
“They want to see how much I mess things up while they’re gone because they can’t fathom a reality where I don’t. ”
“You?” I sit up. “You, who’s perfect at everything?”
Julian laughs dryly like he doesn’t believe it.
“Julian, you’re like the blueprint for what a new alpha should be. You do everything by the book, and you don’t mess up. Even my parents are always ‘Julian this’ and ‘Julian that’.”
“Well, my parents are more ‘Oliver this’ and ‘Oliver that’,” he mumbles, pulling at a blade of grass.
I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry as Max whines for our mate.
I don’t have many memories of Oliver since I’d never really liked him.
There was no reason for it; I just didn’t like him, but I knew how much everyone else did.
The golden boy. I remember him being perfect.
So perfect that, now that I thought about it, even Julian’s greatest efforts must’ve greyed in comparison.
“They shouldn’t compare you two,” I say after some time. “You’re different people, and you’re trying your best.”
Julian shrugs. “It’s how things are.”
And it was, for both of us. I didn’t have a brother or any sibling to be compared to, but my mother still found ways to knock me down wherever she could, and I’m pretty sure I’m nothing close to the son my father wanted. My only saving grace is their guilt.
“But like you said yesterday, I’m looking on the bright side,” Julian says, dusting off and getting to his feet. “They’re not here, so it doesn’t matter.”
Except it does. But it’s clear that he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, so I let it go as I drag myself up too. “Want to head back?”
“Yeah, I’m tired,” he replies with a small smile.
Feeling the same, I dress quickly before I snag our bag and follow Julian as he starts the journey back.
“We should watch a movie when we get in,” I say.
“I have homew—”
“Ah-ah. No,” I cut in with a pointed finger. “No fucking homework today. No work today. You can do that shit tomorrow, so until then, you can afford to watch a movie with me, Jewels.”
He doesn’t argue, but his frown doesn’t fade until I step closer, letting our hands brush as we walk before I take his. We walk like that all the way back to his place, and I keep my fingers intertwined in his as I tug him into the living room.
Julian groans about cleaning up but I drag us both down onto the sofa.
“What do you want to watch?” I ask as I scroll through the TV’s selection. “We can go with some action shit, something romantic, horror?” I list before gasping as my eyes land on a treasure. “Or … we can go with a Twilight?”
“No!” He dives over me to snatch the remote. “We’re not watching that. We’ll go with a classic,” Julian states before he chooses Lilo and Stich.
I gasp again, “Who would’ve thought? It has a heart.”
He tosses the remote at me. “Half-wit,” he snipes.
“Termite,” I shoot back before I lie down with my head in his lap.
I half expect him to shove me off, but he doesn’t.
He doesn’t say or do anything as the movie starts.
His fingers slide into my hair instead, combing through with a slow but firm touch that weighs my eyelids down.
He doesn’t stop, lulling me to sleep while the cartoon alien continues to wreak havoc.
I wake to the scent of fried chicken, and it has me groaning longingly as I open my eyes. I blink at the orange-glazed sky through Julian’s doors. I must’ve slept through the whole movie and then some.
“You’re alive,” Julian calls from the kitchen.
I hum as I stretch across the couch before finally dragging myself upright. I waver like that, then go in search of my mate. Julian bounces between several dishes cooking on the stove with far more energy than I’m used to.
“Sorry I knocked out,” I mumble, scratching my ass.
“It’s fine. I fell asleep after you,” he admits. “I guess we both needed the rest.”
I grunt and move closer to survey what he’s making. “Are you almost done?”
“My dinner is finished,” he says, taking a pan of fried mushrooms and some other stuff off the heat. “I’m still working on yours.”
Guilt pinches at my gut, but I push it away. It isn’t my fault Julian doesn’t eat meat. Most werewolves eat meat. Hells, most people eat meat.
“Julian,” I start and he hums. “Why don’t you eat meat?”
“It makes me feel sick,” he says simply. “It didn’t use to, but I saw animals being torn apart on hunts as a kid, and I just can’t do it. It’s psychological, I guess.”
“You watched me hunt today,” I point out, praying I haven’t inadvertently added to that trauma.
“That was different,” he says, turning the chicken cutlets over. “You don’t do it for sport, and you didn’t extend their suffering, or make it brutal. We’re wolves, we hunt. It’s normal. I just don’t like it when it’s excessive.”
Keep my bloodiest habits away from my mate—got it.
“Sorry about putting a dead deer in your bedroom,” I mutter. I don’t mean to laugh, but when Julian glares at me, I can’t help it. “Wait, I’m being serious.”
“Oh, you are?” he mocks, voice like ice. “I couldn’t get the smell out for weeks.”
“We did horrible shit to each other,” I protest, but that doesn’t soften him an inch. I scratch the back of my head, mumbling, “I said sorry.”
His molten rage simmers until he takes a deep breath. “Well then, I guess I’m sorry for poisoning your hamsters.”
My smile drops. “That was sick,” I declare, but sick doesn’t begin to cover it.
I will never forget how Mr. Puff and his wife died frothing in my hands, their little eyes begging me to end their suffering, but I couldn’t. I cried for months, believing that it had been my fault before Julian admitted to killing them almost an entire year later.
“We were both sick kids,” he defends, and I don’t bother arguing that he was way worse—we both know he was. “The point is, I don’t eat meat ’cause it grosses me out.”
“Hm.” I watch Julian plate my food, but my mind still itches with another question.
“If that’s the reason you don’t eat meat, why don’t you eat fish?”
“What?”
“You know, become a pesco-vegetarian person,” I say in a babble. The chicken has my mouth watering. “You never saw a fish get brutally murdered, right?”
I pick at the food, waiting for a response, but when it doesn’t come, I look up. He’s staring at me as if I just uncovered a new law from Newton. “Don’t tell me you never thought of that.”
He shifts. “I just didn’t.”
“And you’re supposed to be the smart one,” I chuckle as I bypass him for the fridge.
There’s a slab of salmon that I’ve been saving for tomorrow, but I could make sacrifices in the name of the greater good and all of that.
I lift it for Julian’s eyes as I shut the fridge behind me.
“I can have it done in about ten minutes.”
“Okay,” he says, awkwardly stepping away from the stove.
“Here’s where you say, ‘thank you, Aiden’,” I tell him as I grab some salt.
Julian, of course, stays quiet, and I chuckle to myself while I focus on seasoning the fish. He stands idly beside me as I rummage through the cupboards for a fresh pan, watching to learn—or so I think—until he suddenly steps forward and presses his lips to my cheek.
“Thank you, Aiden,” he whispers before backing away, leaving me staring dumbly into the cupboard. I can’t even remember why I’d opened it.