Chapter Twenty-Nine
Shawn
FML
There’s part of me that wants to feel bad about storming out of the office the way I did.
The rest of me says fuck that shit and wants to go home, lick my emotional wounds while steering clear of Jax until I can have a rational discussion with him without being a petty fucking bitch—worse than I already am, that is—and not make the situation worse.
Because my logic brain, the part of me privy to running the pack and the complex logistics involved with that, knows that if Jax says our baby plans have changed yet again, I’ll probably have to agree with him no matter how much that would piss me off.
Children—even children of vampires—and other innocents who are already living and in danger take precedence over a hypothetical pup of our own that hasn’t even been conceived.
And at the rate we’re going, it’s looking less likely it ever will be conceived.
Fuck my life.
Except…I would not be able to look myself in the mirror if we didn’t help the refugees and then something else happened.
But I don’t head home.
I don’t even head out to go for a run.
I drive down to Brooksville with my work laptop, set up at a small coffeeshop inside a New Age store right on the main town square, and shove my earbuds in and play music while I work.
Because I do have work to do.
And if I let myself be alone at home, or go on a run, I’ll wallow in self-pity alternating with bouts of hating Jax’s guts for this change in situation that’s absolutely no fault of his.
I’ll keep spinning myself up until I’m entirely incapable of having anything even remotely resembling a rational conversation.
The pack has to come first. I know this.
As the pack Alpha’s mate, I insist upon it.
Can’t control who you feel a mate bond for, but when Mike talked about handing control over to Jax, I was all for it.
I was all-in both as his mate and his work partner.
Mainly because I’d never felt like I had a home before arriving here.
I spent many years wishing I had a pack, a community I could serve and be part of, to lean on in hard times, and then I finally had one with Jax.
Giving back to our pack, to me, is sacred work and keeps our bond strong.
Keeping us all safe.
Keeping our pack happy and thriving.
There might be room in our marriage for me to be a petty bitch about personal stuff, but there truly isn’t room in the office for it.
And I owe Jax an apology. Fortunately, I didn’t show my ass—too badly—in front of Marchman, or I would feel like I owed the vampire one as well.
The sooner we can help the vampires fight back against whoever the fuck is trying to wipe people out, the sooner they’ll be safe to leave, and our lives can go back to normal.
Maybe part of me really didn’t believe Jax when he said we’d start trying for a baby. Maybe there’s already been too many years, too many delays.
Maybe my body is trying to tell me my best days are long behind me and I should’ve had a pup when my chances were better.
I will need to come to terms with this in my own time and own way, and I need Jax to give me that time and space.
Do I think he believed he was telling me the truth about trying?
Absolutely.
I can’t let my emotions allow Jax to not put the pack first.
Adulting sucks balls.
Not in fun ways, either.
I avoid checking my phone for a couple of hours as I drink too much damned good coffee and eat a few delicious baked goods they also sell. When I finally check my phone, I’m not sure if it relieves me or pisses me off that there aren’t any calls or texts from Jax.
Fuck.
I sit back and rub my eyes. All around me are clueless humans going about their day, both in here with me and outside walking into and out of the courthouse across the street.
They lead their self-absorbed lives and usually give little to no thought about things that go on around them that don’t impact them.
Things like monsters rolling up on groups of people just living their lives without fucking with others and getting murdered for it.
Literal monsters.
Because anyone who would do that to children and mates is, in my opinion, a monster.
If you have beef with someone, take it to them personally and don’t be a fucking coward and attack their family.
Then again, people like Sterling are, at their center, narcissistic cowards, which drives the majority of their behavior.
Honestly, it’s amazing that news of the attacks hasn’t leaked out to humans and sent them into a frenzy of shifter-hating madness.
We unfortunately have a long way to go. In this year of our Goddess of 2060, plenty of humans still bury their heads in the sand and willfully ignore what’s going on around them as long as they don’t feel, much less understand, the personal impact on their own lives.
They think they don’t know a shifter or a vampire or a fae, or a fill-in-the-blank, so they think whatever happens to “them” doesn’t matter.
But isn’t that pretty much the history of sentient beings on this planet from the moment they evolved from ground-dwelling apes into whatever the fuck it is all of us now are?
By four o’clock, I still haven’t heard anything from Jax, so I pack my stuff and stop by one of the large grocery stores to shop. Might as well stock up since I’m here and it’ll save me another trip later in the week.
I have absolutely zero desire to cook dinner, so I pick up several packs of freshly prepared sushi from the seafood counter because I can shovel it into my snout with no prep involved on my part.
Jax can do whatever the fuck he wants for dinner. He’s a big boy.
Oh, yeah. Still feeling nuclear-level petty.
Check.
It’s super-easy to tell myself to get the fuck over it and myself, but that’s now how my brain works.
Wrapped up in all of this—a huge part of this—is I’m mad at myself for getting my hopes up.
Again.
I’d expected we’d start introducing Mal around and setting up his initiation as long as that went well, but if Sterling’s involved in attacking the nests, bands, and covens, that makes Mal’s very presence in our pack compound…
Problematic.
Before I load my groceries I wheel my cart next door to the liquor store and load up on a few bottles of assorted high-proof beverages that I might feel like imbibing tonight.
What the fuck difference does it make? Not like I’m pregnant or anything.
I angrily blink back the stinging tears as I pay for my purchase, load those two bags into my cart with the rest of my groceries, and then get everything packed into the trunk to head home.
Maybe what I need is an all-night solo run. Cut loose, zone out, and fall asleep curled nose-to-tail in the woods while forgetting about life for a few hours. Burn off some of this negative energy I honestly am not sure how to shake.
I love my husband, but right now my soul hurts in a way that makes me want to lash out, and I know that’s not fair.
But knowing something and being able to respond appropriately aren’t necessarily tied together at the hip.
Not in my brain, at least.