Chapter 13
Toby
"I can cancel," Robin says for the fifth time, hovering by the door in his catering blacks.
His chef's coat is pristine, his hair actually styled for once, and he's got that focused energy he gets before big events.
But his eyes keep drifting back to me, worried.
"The Mitchells' anniversary party can survive without me. "
"You're the head pastry chef. They specifically requested you." I pull the blanket tighter around myself, burrowing deeper into my corner of the couch. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine." He gestures at my setup—the nest of blankets I've constructed, the half-eaten pint of ice cream on the coffee table, the TV playing Moana for what might be the third time today. "You're watching Disney movies on repeat and you've eaten nothing but rocky road since breakfast."
"Ice cream is food. It has dairy. Calcium."
"Toby—"
"Robin, go. Seriously." I gesture at the couch nest like it's evidence of my stability. "I'm just going to nap anyway. See? All settled in. Very cozy. Absolutely not having a breakdown."
He doesn't look convinced. His keys jingle in his hand as he shifts his weight, clearly torn between his job and his best friend duties.
I know he's already rearranged his schedule twice today to stay with me—pushed back prep time, had someone else handle the morning deliveries. He can't miss the actual event.
"I'll have my phone on," he says finally.
"You'll be in the middle of service. You can't check your phone while you're plating desserts for a hundred people."
"I'll have it on anyway. In my pocket. On vibrate. If you need me—"
"I'll be fine."
He comes over, crouching down next to the couch so we're eye level. His hand finds mine under the blanket and squeezes. "There's soup in the fridge if you feel like real food. That tomato basil you like. And those lemon cookies I made yesterday. And leftover pasta from lunch that you didn't eat."
"Robin."
"And I set up the Keurig with your favorite pods, and there's wine in the cabinet if you want it, but maybe not wine and ice cream together because that's a recipe for feeling worse—"
"Robin." I squeeze his hand back. "Go. You're going to be late, and then you'll be stressed, and then your panna cotta will be subpar, and you'll never forgive yourself."
"My panna cotta is never subpar." But he stands, finally, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "I'm coming straight back after. No going to the bar with the team for post-service drinks."
"Deal."
"And if anyone shows up that you don't want to see, you don't have to answer the door."
I know who he means. "He's not going to show up. You told him to stay away."
"I know." Robin's jaw tightens. "But I don't trust him to listen. So if he shows up, you call me. I don't care if I'm in the middle of torching a crème br?lée. I will leave."
"I'll be fine," I say again, and this time I almost believe it.
He leaves, finally, the door clicking shut behind him. I hear his footsteps on the stairs, then the distant sound of his brother's Audi starting up and pulling away.
Silence.
I sink back into my blankets and stare at the TV. Moana is on the ocean now, meeting it for the first time, the water reaching up to touch her like she's something special. Chosen.
I thought I was chosen too.
The ice cream is melting, going soft at the edges. I should put it back in the freezer. I should eat the soup Robin made. I should do something productive, like shower, or put on real clothes, or stop replaying every moment of last night in my head trying to figure out where I went wrong.
Instead I pull the blanket over my head and try not to think about Knox saying mine over and over. Try not to think about his hands, his mouth, the way he looked at me like I was—
Like I was something worth keeping.
God, I'm pathetic.
A knock at the door interrupts my spiral.
"What did you forget?" I call, not moving from my cocoon. Robin has keys, but he always forgets something when he's stressed. Probably his backup phone charger, or the special offset spatula he likes.
Another knock. More insistent this time.
"It's open, just come in!"
Nothing. Just another knock.
Sighing, I extract myself from the blankets and shuffle to the door, still wrapped in the biggest one like a cape. My hair is probably a disaster. My eyes are definitely still puffy from crying earlier. I don't care. It's just Robin.
I open the door without checking the peephole.
It's not Robin.
"Hi," Jason says.
He's standing in the hallway with his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched, looking anywhere but directly at me. He looks... nervous. Which is weird, because Jason always seems like he's one enthusiastic bounce away from knocking something over.
"No." I start to close the door.
"Wait!" His hand shoots out to catch it, but he doesn't push. Just holds it open, pleading. "Please. I'm not—Knox didn't send me. He doesn't even know I'm here."
"I don't care."
"Toby, please." His voice cracks slightly. "Just... five minutes? I need to tell you something. And then if you want me to leave, I'll leave. I swear."
"If this is Knox trying to explain through you—"
"It's not. He's not—" Jason stops, runs a hand through his hair. "He's actually shifted and refusing to shift back, which is a whole different problem, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I fucked up, and I need to fix it."
I should close the door. I should go back to my blanket nest and my melting ice cream and my Disney movie and forget any of this ever happened.
Instead, I step aside.
Jason lets out a breath and slips past me into the apartment. He stands awkwardly in the middle of the living room, taking in the scene—the couch covered in blankets, the tissues on the floor, the ice cream, Moana still playing on the TV.
"Moana's good," he offers weakly.
"Jason."
"Right. Okay." He takes a breath, squares his shoulders like he's preparing for something difficult. "We fucked up. Me, Ezra, Silas—we fucked up. We said things we shouldn't have said, and we didn't know—we didn't realize—"
"Didn't realize what? That telling me about Knox's rotating lineup of hookups might be hurtful?" I can hear the bitterness in my own voice. "That maybe I didn't want to know about the drawer full of clothes from all the people he's fucked and discarded?"
"That you were different." Jason meets my eyes finally. "That Knox claimed you."
I laugh. It sounds awful, even to me. "He claims everyone, apparently. The wolf who stayed three days, the bear shifter who ended up in the hospital—"
"No." Jason cuts me off, firm. "No, he fucked them. There's a difference."
"What difference? What possible difference could there be?"
"Can you—" He gestures at the couch. "Can you sit down? Please? This is going to take more than thirty seconds to explain and you look like you're about to fall over."
I don't want to sit down. I want to throw him out and go back to wallowing. But my legs are shaky—I've barely eaten today, despite Robin's best efforts—so I shuffle back to my corner of the couch and curl up, pulling the blanket around me like armor.
Jason perches on the edge of the coffee table, facing me, careful not to knock over the ice cream.
"Shifters," he starts, then stops. Tries again.
"Shifters hook up a lot. Especially unmated shifters.
It's... it's physical. It burns off energy.
It feels good. But it doesn't mean anything.
It's like—" He searches for a comparison.
"It's like scratching an itch. You do it, it feels good, you move on. No feelings involved."
"Great. That's really comforting. Thanks for confirming that I was just an itch Knox needed to scratch—"
"That's not what I'm saying." Jason leans forward, earnest. "Knox has had a lot of people in his bed. That's true. I'm not going to lie to you about that. But he's never claimed any of them."
"He said mine to me approximately seven hundred times. You're telling me he's never said that before?"
"Not like that. Not—" Jason struggles for words. "When Knox fucks someone, he's in control the whole time. He doesn't let go. He doesn't let his lion out. He definitely doesn't let anyone mark him."
Something cold prickles at the edge of my awareness. "Mark him?"
"Your marks are all over him, Toby." Jason's voice is quiet now, serious.
"Not just sex scratches. Claim marks. On his back, his shoulders.
You bit him hard enough that it's going to scar on a shifter, and his lion let you.
Do you understand how huge that is? We've never seen him let anyone touch him like that. Never."
I remember biting him. In the heat of it, overwhelmed, lost—I'd sunk my teeth into his shoulder without thinking. He'd groaned and pulled me closer, not pushed me away.
"That doesn't—"
"And the bath," Jason continues. "Did he run you a bath? After?"
I don't answer. The memory of that bath—the hot water, Knox feeding me strawberries, the soft way he'd looked at me—makes my chest ache.
"He's never done that for anyone. Never done aftercare, never made breakfast, never cared if someone was okay after. Most of his hookups are out the door before sunrise. But you—" Jason shakes his head. "He wanted to take care of you. He wanted to keep you."
"But the drawer—"
"Is for hookups. Random fucks that don't matter.
People who know the score, who aren't expecting anything, who are just there to burn off energy.
" Jason holds my gaze. "You're not one of them.
You matter. You matter so much that Knox is currently four hundred pounds of miserable lion lying on his apartment floor, refusing to shift back because his human form hurts too much without you. "
I pull the blanket tighter.
"I'm not his mate," I say, but my voice wavers.