Chapter 3
three
FINN
A pair of shorts hit me in the face and fell onto my lap. They were wet. Everything was. It had been raining since Emmy drove away the night before.
“How long have you been sitting there?” Nico asked.
“A couple hours.”
He sat down on the step next to me. “All night, then.”
My jaw flexed.
I didn’t try to stop him from sitting, despite the instincts that screamed at me to get him out of my territory so it wouldn’t smell like him when my mate came back.
She wasn’t fucking coming back.
I’d ensured that, hadn’t I?
“Her eyes were watering,” I gritted out.
“Abby said Emmy cries all the time. They joke about it.”
“It didn’t feel like a joke.”
“She’s your mate, Finn. It’s never going to feel like a joke.”
I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe slowly through my nose. “She told Abby what happened?”
“Zoe called her and Stella this morning and caught them up.”
“Zoe’s her best friend?”
“Emmy’s best friend, yeah. She went to Zoe’s after she left here, and spent the night at Zoe’s place.”
I gritted my teeth as the wolf in me nearly shoved his way out. He didn’t want his mate spending the night with anyone else during the climax, even platonically.
Neither did I. I just wasn’t going to do anything about it.
“I’m here. Sorry. Got distracted.” Wyatt came jogging up to the porch.
I scowled in his direction. “Aren’t you in the climax?”
“Aren’t you?” Wyatt plopped down next to me.
Nico stood up. The happy bastard must’ve decided he was going to step in when Wyatt didn’t show up.
I grunted. “Fuck off.”
“Working on it.” Nico tucked his hands in his pockets. “We’ll drop something off on your porch for dinner tonight.”
Forcing food on you was my asshole friends’ version of let me know if you need anything.
Nico disappeared.
Wyatt leaned back on the steps. The fucker was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him before. We both knew why.
“What happened?”
“Don’t act like you didn’t hear the full story from everyone else.”
“I’ve been a little busy.”
I scowled.
That tracked, though. Wyatt and Jade should’ve been almost through the climax.
“She showed up on my porch with a bright pink wedding cake. Thought it was your place. I tried to get rid of her. Made the mistake of looking into her eyes. She fell off the porch and hurt herself. My wolf freaked out about the injury and forced her into the house. She talked him into biting her. When I shifted back, I had a panic attack. Her wolf bit me too.”
Wyatt whistled. “That’s got to be a new record for the shortest mate hunt. And chase.”
I clenched my jaw.
Another wave of heat and need had me breathing through a fucking awful, stabbing pain in my abdomen. My cock, too.
“She ran away afterward?” he checked.
“No. She suggested we spend the climax together and go back to our normal lives afterward.”
“So she offered sex and a platonic mate bond?”
I grunted.
“Why the fuck did you turn her down?”
“I didn’t say no. She offered time to think about it, and that seemed like a good call at the moment.”
“Did you get her phone number? For after you think about it?”
I let out a harsh breath. “Didn’t think about that.”
“It’s a damn good thing she’s friends with a bunch of our mates.”
No kidding.
“Have you?” he asked me.
“Have I what?”
“Thought about it?”
“Haven’t done anything else since she left.” I looked back out at the forest. “She cried.”
“Jade said she cries a lot.”
I scowled. “Her mate shouldn’t make her cry.”
“A lot of the bastards in town abduct their mates when they meet them. Tears happen.”
They shouldn’t happen to my mate.
Hell, I shouldn’t have a fucking mate.
“She didn’t reject me,” I said.
“I’m pretty sure she did the opposite, man.”
He had a point.
“I didn’t reject her,” I added.
Wyatt tossed an arm over my shoulders. “I know.”
I tried to shove his arm away. “Fuck off.”
“Nah.” He pulled me closer.
“You reek of Jade.”
“Best scent in the world.”
“For you, maybe. I’m going to have to shower before I—” I cut myself off.
“Before you what?”
I growled. “You’re a pushy asshole, you know that?”
“I’m a fucking joy, and you know it.”
“Mating has ruined you.”
“I’ll miss the depressing loneliness desperately,” Wyatt drawled.
“I didn’t want a mate,” I said, finally shaking his arm off.
“Fate doesn’t give a damn what you want. At least Emmy is nothing like Jo.”
I grunted.
That couldn’t be debated.
Jo was a divorce lawyer.
Emmy was a kindergarten teacher who was wearing not one, but four pink articles of clothing when we met. One of which was fuzzy. And one of which was a thong.
The thong was under my couch. I’d smelled it there. It had taken serious restraint not to grab it and carry it out to the porch with me like a fucking security blanket when I followed her outside.
“Have you seen her house?” Wyatt asked.
“When would I have seen her house?” I paused “And when did you?”
“There was a girls’ night. They made my wolf pretend to be Abby’s dog.” He brushed that off, like it wasn’t ridiculous. “Her house is yellow.”
“Yellow?”
“Lemon yellow. It basically glows. It’s pink, too. And that’s just the outside. Jade calls her a ray of fucking sunshine.”
I believed it.
“She offered me cake before she left,” I said.
“Do you have it?” Wyatt looked over his shoulder, squinting as he tried to see into my house through the open front door. Emmy’s scent was inside, so I couldn’t talk myself into closing it. “I’m starving, and her cakes are supposed to be incredible.”
“I turned her down.”
“What? Why would you turn down cake?”
“I don’t fucking know. She was offering cake while I was kicking her out. Accepting it seemed like an asshole move.”
“Kicking her out was an asshole move.”
“I know.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I have to go find her.”
“You think?”
I tried to elbow him in the gut, but he blocked me.
“Starting as platonic mates could be exactly what you need. If you realize you’re still too messed up from what happened with Jo, you can just keep things friendly.”
“I know I’m still too messed up. No realizations needed.”
“You can’t really know until you try to jump in. I thought after Corrinne—”
I interrupted. “Your situation with Corrine was different.”
“I know. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope for you.”
“Sure,” I drawled.
Wyatt threw his arm over my shoulder again. I shoved it away, and he grinned. “Hey, even if you stick with the platonic thing, that’s better than just being rejected for the rest of your life. You’ve got a mate, man. That’s a built-in friend, if nothing else.”
“As long as she’s okay with it.”
“Jade said Emmy’s never really wanted a boyfriend. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Something within me bristled.
I didn’t expect her to want me, but maybe I wanted her to. Just a little.
“Go get her, asshole.” Wyatt left me on the porch.
“Ask your mate to text me Emmy’s phone number and address,” I yelled after him.
“She already did,” he called back.
I stepped into the house long enough to rinse Wyatt and Jade’s scents off my skin, grab a pair of sweats, and find my phone before heading out to my truck. My heart beat hard, I was sweaty all over, and I was so horny that my entire body hurt, but I was heading toward my mate.
It was fucking surreal.