“Yup.” He kept working on the car.
I waited.
“I kissed her that night. It was… uncomfortable. Like kissing my sister. If I had one,” he said.
I cringed. “Ugh.”
“We spent the next few weeks trying to train ourselves to adjust to it. It didn’t work. There was no chemistry. The small amount of attraction had existed at the beginning disappeared fast. After a month, we decided to call it on the kissing thing and just try to live together like mates. Sharing a bed and whatnot.”
My cringe deepened. “I take it that didn’t go well.”
“It did not.”
“Yikes.”
“After a month of that, we tried living in separate rooms. We hoped that would help with the attraction, but it didn’t. We stuck with that arrangement and avoided discussing it for about ten months.”
My eyebrows shot upward. “It went on an entireyear?”
“Mmhm.”
“Fuck.”
“There was definitely no fucking.”
I snorted. “How did it end?”
“Even more poorly than it started, if you can believe it.”
“Oof.”
“She was waiting in my room when I came home one night. Said she wanted to try kissing again. I wasn’t enthusiastic, but agreed. Not like I could turn my mate down when she wanted me to kiss her.”
“You absolutely could, but continue.”
“We kissed. I thought I felt something, for once. A spark. It went on for a few minutes, until she finally pulled away. She was crying. She said she couldn’t do it, and apologized. Her wolf finally took over, and walked away. The relationship had been miserable, but the pain when the bond shattered was still excruciating. I didn’t think I’d make it.”
“You survived it, though. Obviously.”
“I did. Spent the next day in the forest, wrestling my wolf, but eventually came stumbling back to the apartment. Walked in on her and Aidan hooking up on the couch with matching mate marks. Fate had paired them earlier that day. Apparently, she’d been pouring her heart out to him about the mess of our bond for the better part of the year. I grabbed some cash and the key to my bike, and left. Never looked back.”
“Wow. It really did get worse.”
“Yup.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Eleven years, give or take.”
“Pretty long ago, then. Do you feel like you’ve moved on?”
He was silent for a moment.
I waited for ano. To hear that he was still bitter, that he wished he’d figured out a way to work it out with Corrine.
“The moment I drove away, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I’ve never gone back to my hometown, but I’ve never regretted leaving.”
Damn.
