Chapter Five

Jack

I'd been here a week, thinking everything was going great. The daily schedules were working out as far as meals went, school would be starting up in a couple of days, and we'd had a huge rainstorm with no leaks. But, best of all, I was finally getting used to not having the heartache that came with seeing Aziz all the time.

And then, this afternoon, I turn around, and there he stood, bag in hand. Suddenly, all the safeguards I had to protect my heart, keeping everything close, fell away. I let too much out about what was happening, my feelings, and why I was here. And then what did he do? He left. Of course, he left. He didn't want me to fully know where he was going. Just that he was.

Part of me thought something might've happened, but that was the part living in denial. The truth was, he saw me, heard my words, and was a big old nope. It sucked.

"When did you get here?" I asked Pop-Tart, who might not be a shifter at all but instead a freaking ninja, the way he slid in and out.

I'd been sobbing from the big blowup, my eyes blurry and my voice cracking. This was the first I'd been able to ask anything. I hated the hold Aziz had on me. It sucked. And it wasn't even his fault.

He didn't answer, instead looking at my face with pity.

"Where did he go? Can you tell me that much?"

"He probably needed air." It didn't sound like a getting-air kind of departure, but what did I know.

"What was that all about?" It became abundantly clear he wasn't going to tell me shit. "Let's go check on Bryant."

"Where is he?" And he seemed more than willing to pretend he didn't walk in on what he had walked in on. I wasn't sure if I should be grateful or pissed.

"He's with Nora, coloring, while she figures out the pantry order for the week. He loves coloring."

I grabbed a tissue and wiped the tears from my eyes. Blasted tears. I hated how much I let Aziz get to me.

"What was that all about?" Apparently Pop-Tart wasn't letting it go.

"What was it all about?" I asked, buying time to try and form an answer he'd accept without have to reopen the wound. Not that it had healed.

He nodded.

"I just... I shouldn't have said anything."

"Actually, it sounds like maybe you should have said a lot more and earlier. There were a whole lot of big feelings coming out, and it sounds like they've been bottled up for quite a while."

"Not that long." Which was a big-ass lie. It shouldn't have surprised me that Pop-Tart called me on it.

"How long have they been bottled up?"

It took me a full minute to be able to answer, but I wanted to be honest. He'd been spot-on about me bottling it up, and that wasn't good for anyone.

"Since Bryant's birth."

"On his birthday?" Apparently I'd keep my secret from everyone better than I thought if Pop-Tart seriously didn't know enough to misconstrue my words.

"No, at his birth." I looked to the ground, not wanting to see the pity on his face.

"His birth, meaning, since we got you out of there?" His voice was so understanding, so calm, almost soothing. He really was the best of us.

"Yeah."

"And you've been holding it in this whole time?"

"Yeah." Boy, wasn't I the one for details. Ugg.

"You've had a crush on him?" If only it had been that. Crushes fade. This? This was only going to grow and that sucked.

"It's not a crush." I couldn't believe I was going to say this aloud, but out it came. "My beast thinks he's my mate. But, he can't be, right? Because he doesn't feel anything for me. He called me his fucking friend." And not in an I'm not that into you kind of way.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Pop-Tart didn't pretend to have answers or assert that everything was going to be fine. He knew how horrific being rejected by a mate was supposed to be.

That was the epitome of badness. There was no coming back from it. And the hopelessness of it all made everything twice as bad.

"It's fine. I just didn't expect him to be here." It was not fine. It was very not fine.

"About that." Pop-Tart took a step back, and I looked up at him. "The thing is, he's not here just for a day. He's here permanently."

"What?" He couldn't be saying that. I'd come here partly to get away with him, and suddenly he wanted to come live with the omegas? No. I refused to even consider that as a possibility.

"Yeah, he's going to be staying here and do perimeter runs and such." Which made sense, even if I hated it.

"There's no bedroom." We'd filled every last one. Thank gods.

"He's going to be taking the secondary office as his room."

"Why?" I thought…I thought…gods, I didn't even know what I thought. But the first week had gone fine the way we had done it. Change wasn't necessary.

"Because we don't know for sure that this place is as safe as it can be…as it needs to be. And who's the best at sussing out the danger around us?"

He was right. That was Aziz. Gods, why had I just said all the things that I did. It was going to make everything ten times harder than it needed to be.

"But he's not going to want to stay."

"You don't know that. Maybe his beast is broken. I don't know how the goddess works. Maybe he didn't sense you the way you sense him? Maybe it's a hyena thing?"

Now, he was grasping at straws.

"No. I don't think I've heard that about hyenas. I thought that was only platypuses."

"The platypus thing is false. They sense it. People think they don't because they find them weird. So, of course, everything about them has to be weird, including the mate pull."

"That means, the chances are that it isn't because he's a hyena. It's because of me."

"Why don't we go tell Nora you're going to be a while and see if she minds keeping Bryant. You need to shift."

"Sounds like a plan. And, Pop-Tart, I'm glad you came to visit today."

"I am too."

When I went to find Aziz later, he was gone, having told cook there was something he needed to take care of and he'd be a while.

Fuck. I'd scared him away completely.