Chapter 15
fifteen
VI
My heart pounded like a freight train, my music blaring loud in an attempt to keep my thoughts out of Eli’s head.
He was following me—of course he was following me.
But I was too upset by what I’d learned to stop.
So, I kept driving.
Tears were leaking down my cheeks, but I ignored them fiercely.
Eli had known I was going to be his mate for two years. Or at least hoped. He’d done everything he possibly could to set off a bond between us.
He flirted.
He teased.
He argued.
I could remember his hand brushing my knee and arm a few different times while we were disagreeing. They’d made me want him, desperately.
But they hadn’t started the bond.
It had taken sex to do that.
I wiped my tears away angrily.
If we were really meant to be, wouldn’t heat have ignited the first time we met? Or the first time we touched? Or the first time he drank from my glass, like with Randa and Jasper?
Eli had snagged food from my fingers and drinks from my hands at least four or five times since we met. I’d thought he was teasing me. He’d acted like he was teasing me.
And maybe he was.
But there had been a purpose to the teasing.
He wanted a relationship. Which he couldn’t have known I didn’t want… but he’d still wanted it.
And even if we were meant to be, what did it matter? I didn’t want a romantic relationship. I didn’t want a repeat of Gavin.
I just wanted… peace.
Happiness.
Freedom.
Granted, I didn’t like being alone.
Maybe I even hated it.
Not having anyone to cook for?
Not having anyone to joke with?
Not having anyone around?
It was lonely for me.
Really lonely.
And I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life.
So maybe being roommates was still the right answer.
Except…
Eli.
He might be willing to be roommates, but he wanted more.
And as much of a bitch as I could be, I wasn’t purposefully cruel. I didn’t want to hurt him. Being roommates might be perfect for me, but it wasn’t what he wanted. Which meant I’d be using him.
I couldn’t just use him.
Concealing the truth aside, he was a good guy. And a really good friend, even with that considered.
So no, I couldn’t use him.
But what was the alternative?
There was no answer that would satisfy both of us.
I bit my lip.
Though I’d prefer to deal with my shit on my own, Randa was my sounding board. She always had been.
So, I called her.
The phone rang a few times. Just as it started going to voicemail, she answered.
“Hello?” She sounded out of breath.
I wasn’t asking why.
“Hey. You have a minute? Away from Jasper?”
“Mmhm. Just give me a second to go in the other room.”
She whispered an apology to him, and I heard a door shut, then another open. That one closed too, and then she finally let out a breath. She’d probably sat down.
“Okay, we have privacy. What’s up?”
“Me and Eli finally had the conversation.”
“Oh.” Her voice was hesitant. “What did he say?”
“He knew I was his since the first day we met. Everything he did was an attempt to trigger heat. The flirting. The fighting. The food-stealing.”
“Even the sex?”
I considered it. “Maybe not that,” I finally said. “He wasn’t the one who propositioned me, and he said the same thing Jasper told you, about not letting me leave with another guy. That was probably my fault.”
“Well, that’s good at least.”
“Yeah.” I let out a long breath. “I don’t know what to think. Or what to do about it. I’m hurt, but… I kind of get it. You know if I want something, I do whatever I have to in order to make it happen.”
“You do,” she agreed.
“If I was in his shoes, I probably would’ve done more, and sooner,” I added. “I don’t think he was over-the-top about it. He didn’t intrude on my privacy or try to force me into it. And he wasn’t lying about being okay with the roommate thing. He says he’ll take whatever I give him.”
“Well, I like that.”
“Me too.”
“So I don’t really have an issue with what he did. I would’ve rather he told me, but I understand why he didn’t.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “But where do you go from here?”
“That’s what I’m struggling with. I don’t know what to do. Now that I know he wants to be a lot more than roommates, I’ll feel guilty if I insist on keeping it friendly.”
“I don’t think it would be ridiculous for you to do that,” Randa countered. “He wants you, but you’re not there yet. You can give it time. And if you don’t ever want more than friendship, that’s your decision to make. He was the one who sprung the mate bond on you. Just because he wants you doesn’t mean you have to want him.”
“That’s true.” I paused.
Because it was true.
But… I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
Not really.
“But?” she prodded.
“But I might want him too,” I finally whispered.
“Well, that complicates things. Or simplifies them, depending.”
“Depending on what?”
“How sure you are. And how much you’re willing to risk.”
My stomach clenched. “Right.”
“Gavin really hurt you,” she said.
My stomach tightened more.
“But Eli isn’t Gavin. And a mate bond isn’t a human relationship.”
“How do you figure that? And why does him not being Gavin matter?”
“Just look at their personalities. Gavin was very… analytical. Everything was about facts and numbers with him. He didn’t care about anyone else’s feelings. He didn’t make jokes. You were both driven, but all you ever really talked about was your plans for the future. You guys weren’t passionate, either. Don’t tell me you were—I was there. You hooked up like once a month.”
“Eli and I haven’t had sex since heat,” I protested.
“You told him you’re just roommates, remember?”
I had told him that.
And he’d mentioned jerking off in the shower.
Every day.
My body flushed.
I’d caught a few small glimpses of us together from his mind when he was in the shower, but I hadn’t put together what he might’ve been doing. And I hadn’t dared touch my vibrator. If he heard it, I had no idea what he would think or how he would feel.
“So there’s a lot more passion between me and Eli,” I finally said. “It doesn’t really mean anything.”
“You have fun with him,” Randa reminded me. “It’s been years since I’ve seen you smile as much as you did that night we came to visit you guys.”
“He has a really good sense of humor,” I admitted, slightly grudgingly. “We’re always teasing each other.”
When I wasn’t hiding in my room, at least.
Which I’d been doing ever since Randa and Jasper left that night, because my mind had been racing. I hadn’t been sure I wanted the truth, but I hadn’t been able to act like I wasn’t thinking about it.
“And a mate bond is a lot different than a human relationship, because it’s not only based on trust and promises. There’s literal magic binding you together. Eli couldn’t cheat on you if he wanted to—and he wouldn’t want to. The magic makes you the center of his world even more than it makes him the center of yours.”
She added, “Every time I get irritated with Jasper, he picks up on it in my scent, and he makes me talk about it until we’re both satisfied. If I do something to bug him, he makes me some kind of dessert and we sit down to have a conversation about it. It’s never comfortable to talk about those kinds of things, but the mate bond ensures that we know when we need to have those chats.”
“So it’s not exactly a relationship,” I said, my mind still spinning a little. I was going to have to pull off the dirt road soon to give myself time to think without focusing on driving too. Or maybe just head back to Eli’s cabin.
“It’s more like a partnership that involves love and really good sex,” she said. “Really, really good sex.”
My lips quirked upward.
She wasn’t wrong about that.
“But I still don’t know if I want it,” I said.
“You don’t have to decide today, or even this month. You’re immortal now, remember? You can think about it, or maybe even give it a test run or something. I’m sure Eli wouldn’t be opposed to that.”
“I would feel bad if I decided I wasn’t interested in more after a test run, though.”
“Why? You guys are a team, remember? If he didn’t want to be romantic with you, would you push him for more?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Of course not.”
“Exactly.”
“I guess that makes sense. I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Just give yourself time,” she repeated. “You’ve been so determined not to have a relationship that you haven’t even stopped to think about how different it would be with Eli, right?”
“Right,” I admitted.
“So start considering that. Comparison is usually the thief of joy, but in this case, it can give you pretty good insight.”
She had a point.
A fairly good one.
“Alright. I’m going to hang up so I can think in peace,” I said. “Thank you. I love you.”
“Love you too! Good luck!” She hung up the phone, and I let out a long breath. My music started blaring through the speakers again, but I turned it down.
She was right.
I needed to think.
I made a U-turn and headed back, peeking at Eli in his truck through my rearview mirror every now and then as I tried to mentally work through everything.
He looked… relaxed.
That alone was a big difference from Gavin.
Everything I’d done had stressed Gavin out. He was constantly giving me advice and suggestions on how to look better. Do better. Be better. I thought it had been out of love…
But I’d never heard August tell Elodie her sleeves were too tight, or that she needed to add sit-ups to her workout routine.
I’d never heard Jasper tell Randa that she needed to curl her hair to look better, or stop wearing it up so no one could see her ears.
I’d never heard my dad criticize my mom’s cooking the way Gavin had criticized mine.
I sure as hell hadn’t heard Eli do that. The bastard complimented me too often for me to think he was judging me at all. He’d challenged my spaghetti-making abilities, but only because he didn’t like spaghetti sauce from a jar.
That alone was a big difference.
A big improvement .
Throughout the rest of the drive, I wracked my brain for the differences.
There were a lot of them. An endless number, really.
And every one was a good thing.
…Except the part where he didn’t tell me he was trying to start the bond. That wasn’t great.
But I did understand why he had.
I had seen us as enemies, so I would’ve run the other way, fast.
And I would’ve been absolutely devastated if we’d tried to ignite a bond and failed.
By the time I got back to the cabin, I was absolutely sure of one thing:
A mate bond with Eli wouldn’t be anything like my relationship with Gavin.
It wasn’t a huge revelation. It didn’t change everything.
But it was still significant to me.
Eli gave me a few minutes alone in the cabin before he joined me.
I’d been itching to eat a home-cooked meal after so much takeout food, so I was already getting out ingredients for the recipe I’d chosen when he came in.
Though he seemed hesitant, he made his way to the kitchen and sat down in one of the bar stools. I pounded the chicken breasts with my rolling pin, and he eyed the tool suspiciously.
“I’m not going to hit you with this,” I grumbled.
“Thank the sky for that.”
I shot him a dirty look then refocused on my work.
He leaned back in his chair. “On a scale of one to ten, how pissed are you?”
“Is ten high or low?”
“High.”
“Probably a six, then.”
He whistled. “Way better than I thought. Want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
“You’re not hiding in your room anymore, though.”
“I was trying to avoid confronting you,” I said. “Jasper told Randa that he couldn’t have let her go home with another guy at Elodie’s wedding reception. It sounded suspiciously like our situation.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Next time, you should just confront me.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Is there going to be a next time?”
“Where I’m keeping secrets from you? No. But I can see a similar situation occurring if there was something else you didn’t want to confront me about. Like… something I did wrong.”
“I don’t usually avoid confrontation.”
“I know you don’t. But I’d rather fight with you than dance around the truth.”
“Me too.”
He was quiet for a moment.
I got the chicken cooking, feeling his gaze on me as I did.
“How do you feel about what I said?” he finally asked.
“I haven’t decided.”
“You’re usually pretty damn decisive, Spaghetti.”
“I’m aware.” My back was to him while I kept working.
“You don’t want to tell me your thoughts so we can figure out a plan?”
“Not yet,” I said honestly. “I need to decide what I want first. And how I feel.”
“Alright. Can we put that conversation on the calendar?”
He wanted to know when it would be resolved.
I did too.
But I didn’t have an answer for him. Not the way he wanted me to.
“I’ll tell you when I know.”
He let out a long breath. “Alright.”
That respect? The acceptance?
It was a really big deal to me. Especially in the long term.
“Thanks,” I said.
The gratitude wasn’t enough, but it was genuine.
He was quiet a few minutes while I continued cooking. When I was stirring the sauce with one hand and trying to turn the chicken with another, he stepped up beside me and snagged the whisk from my hand.
It caught me off guard, but the help wasn’t unwelcome.
I just wasn’t used to it after living alone so much. Elodie used to help me make dinner when I cooked for the three of us, and having assistance was nice. I hadn’t realized how much I missed that.
“How good are you at cooking?” I asked him, focusing on the chicken.
“I can follow simple instructions well enough. Never cared much for making fancy meals, but cooking isn’t hard.”
“Unless you’re time-blind, like Randa.” My lips curved as I remembered her burning my sauce.
Repeatedly.
“Can you stir that for three minutes, then take it off the heat?” I asked.
“Sure.” He kept whisking.
And I kept glancing over at him.
At the muscles hidden beneath his t-shirt.
At the dark circles beneath his eyes.
My mind went back to the way he’d confronted me in my bedroom doorway.
He’d seemed like he was at his wit’s end.
…And there had been takeout food in his hands.
“You already bought dinner,” I blurted out. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“I’d rather eat this.” He gave me a quick smile.
Damn, those circles were deep.
He must’ve been sleeping even less than I was.
I couldn’t make him wait any longer to tell him what I was feeling. I didn’t have to make a decision—but I did have to talk to him. We needed to figure out a resolution.
Immediately.
After we were done cooking, we sat down at the table to eat.
And I said, “You want to talk?”
He blinked at me before he answered, “Desperately.”
The word was honest.
Raw.
“You don’t believe I’m not mad at you?”
“I don’t know, Spaghetti. I feel like I screwed everything up.”
“You didn’t. I’m just… debating.”
“Debating what?”
“My view of life. And mate bonds.”
He blinked again. “Mate bonds?”
“Mmhm. Randa says a mate bond isn’t like a human relationship.”
His forehead creased. “How?”
“She thinks it’s not possible for a mated pair to cheat on each other.”
Eli’s face twisted. “It’s not. The magic would cause us serious pain if we tried.”
“That’s pretty significant to me, given the way my last engagement ended.”
His expression darkened. “I’d sooner tear off my wings than hurt you like that.”
“I’m starting to see that.” I finally cut into my food, though Eli still hadn’t touched his. “I was mad that you didn’t tell me the truth at first, but I get why you didn’t. You didn’t know if a bond would actually form, and you knew there was a good chance I’d run for the hills if it did.”
He nodded. “It drove me fucking insane. I fantasized about you in every spare moment after we met. Dreamed about you almost every night. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get heat to start.”
“That sounds shitty.”
“It was. But it led to this, so it was worth it.”
He gestured between us.
I nodded, taking another bite. “You haven’t been sleeping.”
“I can’t sleep away from you anymore.”
My chest warmed. “I haven’t been getting much sleep either. I miss the cuddling.”
“Thank fuck.”
I couldn’t hide my smile.
“What else have you been thinking about?”
“Randa said I should give it a test run. Being actually mated. Romantically.”
Eli’s eyebrows lifted. “A test run?”
“Yeah. But there’s a real chance that it could bring back all my shitty memories, and I could change my mind after we try. Which would be unfair to you.”
“Not any more unfair than me surprising you with a mate bond while we had sex.”
“True.” I took another bite. “Have you been eating enough?”
He glanced down at his plate, as if remembering that we were having dinner. “Sure.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Alright, I haven’t.” He picked up his fork and knife. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t hide again.”
“Thank you.” He lifted a bite to his mouth. “Do you want to give it a test run?”
“I’m still trying to decide. What do you think it would be like, if we were together that way?”
He studied me, considering it.
Finally, he said, “Remember that night we did karaoke? With the good food, the laughing, and the cuddling?”
“Of course.”
I hoped to never forget that night.
“I think it’d be like that. But a little more laid-back, most of the time. So that, but more comfortable.”
“I was plenty comfortable that night.”
“So was I.”
He just thought it would be even better if we were really and truly together.
I couldn’t say the idea didn’t sound good. Or that I didn’t see the appeal of it.
It sounded amazing.
I was just still a little uncertain about jumping in. “Do you mind if I take a bit longer to think about it?”
“Of course not. Take as long as you need to. We’ve got plenty of time.”
All of the time, actually.
We would be together permanently. Immortally, too.
And that was just…
A lot.
In a good way, maybe?
That was also on the list of shit I needed to figure out.