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I stood up so sharply my chair clattered behind me, half the restaurant turning toward me.
“Everything okay?” Jason asked.
“Yep. I’m so sorry but I need to go. I completely forgot I already had a commitment today.”
“Do you need help?” Luna asked.
“No, no. You all stay and enjoy the brunch. It was lovely to meet all of you.” I spun on my heel and dashed away without giving anyone a chance to respond.
As I sat in the driver’s seat, staring at my friends through the window, I couldn’t help but twist myself into knots. I had wanted Sidney for four years, and I wanted him even more now that I had gotten to fully experience him.
What did it matter if the bond made that possible or not? I was happy. He made me happy, and I didn’t want a pack, or anyone else. Even if the bond made it impossible to want anyone else ever again, I could still be grateful for this opportunity.
Fuck it.
I gunned it out of the parking lot and back to the house. I was just going to put my all into this relationship and let time tell if it was something that would keep making both of us happy.
The house was quiet when I arrived. Sidney was asleep on the bed, his hand hanging over the edge where Prince napped in his floor bed, his head resting on Sidney’s fingers. I crept in quietly, but not quietly enough to keep from waking Prince. He lifted his little head and I scooped him up, crawled onto the other side of the bed, and snuggled up to Sidney.
My alpha woke slowly, rolling over to face me. “Did I sleep a long time or did you come home early?”
“I came home early.”
“You weren’t having fun?”
I shrugged, toying with Prince’s paws while he wiggled around between us. “It was fine. They were all very nice but I don’t want any of them. I want this. I want you and that’s it. No one else.”
His smile was impossibly soft as he reached out, smoothing my hair before curving his fingers against the back of my head to draw me closer for a kiss that lasted only a moment before Prince decided that he deserved kisses more.
“I haven’t even had you back for two months yet,” he said. “You’re sure you don’t want to keep looking for anyone else?”
I shook my head. “I decided to just let myself be happy.” I used Prince as a distraction and a shield, hiding my face even though he tried to eat my nose. “I figure that I was in love with you for four years, and spending time with you just makes me fall harder. I don’t want to fight something that feels this good, I just want to let myself love you and be okay with that.”
“Well, that’s a relief because I feel like each day makes me love you more and it’s already too much to keep to myself.” Sidney laced his fingers with mine, his warm eyes watching me closely. “I think I loved you from the moment I met you. I loved your sweetness, your candor, your openness to experience. I love that I have the opportunity to see you flourish and the chance to be a part of your life. I’m here for as long as you want to keep me.”
I started crying while he spoke, and wiped my eyes with a pillowcase so that I didn’t have to move. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not old enough to know what love actually is, and what that lifelong connection means, but I also feel like every day that we’re together I’m learning it because you’re showing me. I don’t need all the presents, though I do like them. You know, all morning I was just thinking about how I wanted to come home and do laundry with you and sit on the couch with this squirming little muffin.”
“A peaceful life gets a lot more enticing the older you get. It takes a special bond for that to be enough when all of the flash and excitement and distractions are stripped away. Are you sure it’s enough?”
“I don’t know what the future holds, but it feels like enough. It does feel too easy, though. Everyone always talks about having to fight for the relationship.”
“Sometimes things just fit. That’s not to say things won’t ever change, or issues won’t pop up, but if you’re growing together, you tackle those things as a team. Maybe fighting is right for other people, and maybe easy is right for us. We can cross whatever bridges we come to together.”
I snuggled closer, resting my cheek on his shoulder and settling Prince on his chest. “I like that. And I love you.”
I squeaked when he scooped us closer, picking up my hand to press my knuckles to his lips. “I love you too, kitten.”
“You really think it’s good enough?”
“I literally can’t see a single thing wrong with it,” Sidney replied. “The whole concept is beautiful.”
He had assured me of the same before I’d submitted my project to be considered for the promotion, but today was announcement day and I had barely been able to sleep the night before. I had no idea how the hell I was going to get through an entire workday, waiting for the results. My brain didn’t care that my friends and my mate all told me the work was incredible. I needed that external validation and the elevation that would come with it. I wanted to do more and be more at my job, and I wanted my mate to be proud of me for accomplishing it.
Luna did her best to distract me on the work chat function while we both fussed through our tasks, but that quiet scream in the back of my head was singing its swan song and refusing to be silenced.
A knock on my office door had me leaping out of my skin.
I nearly tripped myself in my haste to open it, but it was Sidney on the other side of the door and not my boss. “Hey! What are you doing here?”
