Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
PAXTON
The door to the apartment closes with a soft click as I’m adding the shrimp to both plates of pasta.
A small wave of peach precedes my fiancée.
My hands tremble, and my mouth dries out.
I cross to the fridge and pull the half-empty bottle of white wine that wasn’t there when I left for the road games Saturday morning.
Billie must have opened it last night after she got back from California.
Deep breaths, James.
“Oh, you made shrimp scampi?” Billie’s voice is tired but happy, and it just makes my nerves worse. “Thank you.”
“How was California?” Simple question. My voice doesn’t even shake.
A mix of emotions fill my chest—happiness and contentment and homesickness—before she answers. “It was good. Dani is glowing even more than when I saw her in October. She’s definitely one of those lucky women who look gorgeous pregnant.”
She settles into one of the chairs at the island, and I wordlessly set a plate of the pasta in front of her and then an empty glass and the wine. Billie’s always preferred filling her own glasses of wine. Her lips flip up.
I keep my left hand tucked in the pocket of my training shorts as I eat my own food. A swell of arousal hits my chest from that other bond, and I don’t dare sit down next to her. So instead, I stay standing. On the other side of the island.
The distance feels like the Grand Canyon.
I’m finished before her, but I don’t say a word as I watch her eat the last few bites, relishing the way her throat moves with each swallow and her fingers curve around the fork.
Her hair is down just like always, a long, straight sheet of blue-black that I can practically feel wrapped around my fist—like the hundreds of times I’ve done it before.
Her ice-blue eyes focus on me, feeling the roaring swell of emotion in our bond.
She slowly sets her fork on her empty plate, a frown pinching in her eyebrows and turning down her lips.
My throat feels like ash. I swallow reflexively.
“We need to talk,” I say.
Her worry overlays the still-present arousal. She doesn’t say a word, taking a long drink of the white wine.
“Is it about Carys and Rhett getting found out because she went into heat? Marilyn told me about it yesterday.”
Well, first part of the conversation done, then. I nod, trying to take in every delicious, gorgeous about her about her before everything inevitably changes.
“I was the one who found her,” I say. Her eyes widen.
She sets the glass down. Her worry gets stronger, gaining an edge of true fear.
I count the heartbeats roaring in my ears.
The arousal from Carys finally fades away.
Then I rip the bandaid. “It… it triggered a rut. We bonded while in the throes of it.”
I pull my hand, holding out the crescent shape of the bite on the pad of my thumb. The wounds have scabbed completely. A few more days, and it’ll only be a series of pink welts, the same way Billie’s were last month before sinking into the silver scar that now straddles her collarbone.
There’s a moment of unending silence as the unspoken action those sentences imply sits between us. Her gaze is locked on my hand, her own frozen around the wine glass. Her hurt is more muted than I expect, a wealth of empathy accompanying it.
“Oh,” she whispers. “Okay.”
She takes a deep breath, and I can feel the mess of emotions swirling through her.
“And you haven’t talked about it with her obviously.” Her voice is oddly detached, like she’s talking about someone else’s design choices or her old coworkers’ lesson plans. “Since she’s still hasn’t surfaced from the heat.”
“Even if she had, I wouldn’t talk to her until we did. You’re more important to me than an accidental bond.”
She sucks in a breath, more empathy spreading under my chest.
“You’ve never had that happen before.” She’s still distant. “A rut, I mean.”
“I know.”
I shove my hand back into my pocket, not wanting to see the marks anymore. She frowns, her voice suddenly very much so in this moment.
“What made her so different? Dani went into heat with you around this summer, and you didn’t go into rut. You even managed to keep her calm until Mark could get to her.”
Last nail, meet coffin.
“Dani and I aren’t scent matches,” I say. “I was able to think around the edge in her scent because her scent itself hadn’t been calling to me for two months.”
Everything changes in a heartbeat, her hesitant hurt and empathy disappearing under a wave of shock and betrayal.
“Scent matches,” she whispers, and it’s there in her voice, too.
Betrayal.
Bile rushes up my throat, burning everything in its path as I fist both my hands. My scent pulses out from me, edged with my own fear and self-loathing. I only nod, not trusting myself to say a single word before she’s processed the depth of my fuck up.
“Months?” The word is sharp. “How long have you known she’s your scent match?”
It doesn’t even occur to me to lie, to soften the blow. That’s never been the dynamic we’ve had, and I love her too much to pussy foot something now.
“The very first time I saw her at the practice arena. She whispered something in your ear, and the orchid smell hit me like a blow to the chest.”
Her breathing catches for a moment. Her knuckles whiten on the wine glass before she slowly peels each finger off of it, crossing her arms over her stomach. There’s a storm of emotions through the bond, too fast to name let alone process.
“You’ve known since before Rhett,” she says. “Since I first got here.”
I swallow and nod once. She doesn’t say anything at all. I’m ready to crawl right out of my skin.
“We don’t need to make anything of it. I can’t take back the bond, but I can ignore it, I promise,” I say into the horrid quiet. “If you don’t want to add them in and build a true pack, we won’t. I just want you.”
“Me?” Her voice is so small. Tears line her lashes. Fuck everything about me, I’ve made her cry. I want to gather her in my arms. I reach for her, but she flinches away. My heart drops to the fucking floor. “She’s your scent match.”
“I know.” My voice cracks. Another pulse of heartbreak across the bond. “And I’ll never talk to her again if that’s what you need, Bee. I’ll never talk to either of them again. You tell me, and it’s done.”
Her eyes harden, her jaw clenching as her shoulders stiffen.
“You can’t promise me that.”
“I will,” I argue.
She shakes her head, blinking away the tears. “No, you can’t. She’ll be touch-starved for you in a matter of weeks. She was with Rhett. And even if it could be something possible,” she says, shaking her head, “you’ll still feel her. I’ll still see her. I’ll always wonder—”
She cuts off all at once, swallowing her words.
Desperation claws at the pit of my stomach, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
“Wonder what?”
There’s a long stretch of silence. “I’ll wonder if it’s really me you want to be touching or if you’re just picturing her.”
The words hit me square in the chest, worse than any check to the boards I’ve ever taken. How could she think that? I’ve never once wished her to be anyone but herself.
“That’s not—”
“Don’t,” she says harshly. “Do not try and tell me that you won’t. I’ve seen the way Omegas are around their scent matches, the way the Alphas can’t resist. Betas aren’t anything compared to that.”
Her words break. I lose my cool, all the frustration and self-hatred I’ve been drowning in for four days raising my voice until it flies across the room like a whip.
“But I have proven that I won’t, haven’t I?
That I don’t picture her or wish it was anyone but you.
I’ve known for months at this point, and it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter when you started working with her and came home smelling like her every damn day.
It didn’t matter when I fucked you to calm you down on Thanksgiving.
And it absolutely didn’t matter when I bonded you.
You were all I thought of. Every time I’ve touched you, it’s only ever been you.
” Her eyes soften for a heartbeat, widening.
Surprise swells across the bond for a moment.
“It still doesn’t matter because I choose you.
I chose you before I ever knew she existed, and I chose you afterward, too.
I’ve chosen you every single day for over three years, and they’ve been the best three years of my damn life. ”
She sucks in a breath. Her heartbreak roars through me, spreading through my limbs as her distrust settles just under my sternum like a blade between the ribs.
I grab the counter to keep from shattering my plate out of frustration just to feel in control of something while my entire world burns down around me.
“I can’t change what happened,” I say, tears in my voice even if my eyes are clear. “God, Bee, if I could, I would. If I could go back and be five fucking minutes later to that damn shop, I would do it in a goddamn heartbeat. But I can’t.”
My own voice breaks. Desperation claws through me.
She doesn’t say anything, her gaze going unfocused as her breathing hitches.
“I need space to figure this out.”
“Of course, Bee.” I soften my voice. “Whatever you—”
She cuts me off.
“I’m…”
The column of her throat ripples as she swallows heavily. Nerves fly across our bond, and I want to puke.
“I’m flying back to Marley.”
The words rip through me, carving me into a husk of a man. I try to close the distance between us, but my legs don’t respond. Do I even have legs? Do I have hands and arms and a body at all? She grabs her bag from the front table, not looking at me.
“For how long?” My voice is empty, too.
Her gaze shutters as she focuses on me, her vulnerability hidden behind that crafted mask of indifference she wears like armor around strangers.
“I don’t know yet.”
Breathing is worse than slicing my palms on the blades of my skates. Fractured ice, frozen heart. Slowly, I manage a single nod. She turns away from me, crossing to the door at a near-run.
“Billie,” I whisper. She pauses with her hand on the doorknob, her shoulders tight. “I love you.”
She doesn’t look toward me. The silence stretches and pulls taut.
Then the door closes, and she’s… she’s gone.
I shove the plate off the counter, relishing in the way the porcelain shatters everywhere, scratching up my feet and legs. The cuts slowly ooze. For a minute, all I can see are the marks on my thumb bleeding as I cleaned them Friday night. Despair presses down on me, heavier than a ton of bricks.
I’ll always wonder if you’re picturing her.
I drop my head into my arms and weep.