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“You forced us together long before they did,” Jonah corrected in a lighthearted voice.
“Be that as it may, we’re both happy and we both do not want to deal with the children being miserable for the next seven to ten business days because both of you refuse to communicate like adults until tragedy strikes. So”—he shoved Delaney forward again just as Jonah helped Jason up—“talk. No one is leaving until you two either tell us you’re breaking up for good, tell us you’re going home to make up, or we hear you climaxing from Jonah’s room.”
Jason looked at Delaney, eyes wide. “Is he serious?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Please choose the second option.”
Tristin threw his arm over Jason’s shoulder and grabbed Jonah’s hand. “They make no promises!” He loudly proclaimed.
Delaney and I both stated in unison, “It won’t be the third option.”
“THEY MAKE NO PROMISES!” Tristin loudly called out from down the hall before closing the door.
“Pretty sure he just really wants to hear us fuck.” I lightly chuckled. When he didn’t reply and I noticed he was still firmly planted by the door, I asked, “How much of it did you hear?”
“Why does it scare you to want act like a dominant alpha?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Not good enough.”
“Can it be?”
“Do you really want to take ten steps back and start keeping secrets again?”
“Did you mean what you said?” I fired back.
Delaney finally moved, sitting beside me. “Honestly? A small part of me did. I can’t deny my biology. Even though I wish I were able to. For the better part of a year, I have been trying so hard to deny who I am and what I want. And it’s exhausting. I can only imagine how exhausting it’s been to do that for over twenty years, Hospital Alpha.”
Avoiding his knowing gaze, I stared at some distant spot on the rug, questioning, “Wouldn’t that make me a hypocrite? For years I’ve said I hate that part of me. I didn’t want to give in to baser instincts. I didn’t want to be who everyone told me I was before I even knew for myself who I was.” When he held my hand, intertwining our fingers, whatever dam had been holding back decades worth of guilt and shame broke, and tears streaked down my cheeks too quickly for me to attempt to stop them.
“No more than it does me when I sneak and take pregnancy tests then tell myself it doesn’t matter because I don’t want kids anyway. Then I go off the deep end and push my mate away by saying something stupid because, lo and behold, it does matter.” Delaney shifted, turning his body towards me. He took hold of my face, using the pads of his thumbs to wipe my cheeks. “We’re mates, remember? Maybe that explains why you suddenly feel the urge to give in to your instincts.”
“IT DOES!” Tristin yelled from the bedroom, and was immediately, playfully berated by Jason before the door closed again.
I couldn’t help but laugh through my tears. “According to the world wide web back there, it does.”
“Then, can you trust me enough to let go? To accept who and what you are? And allow me, much like you’ve asked me, to make any decision I need to for myself?”
I met his eyes—ones that sparkled when he was happy, even if he was insistent that he wasn’t. Ones that crinkled in the corner when he laughed, really laughed. The very ones I’d been lost in from the moment he accepted the lighter I hadn’t used in the past three years but kept forgetting to take out of my jacket. Now, they look at me with so much hope, so much love, that the familiar pain of doubt and uncertainty faded. This moment felt like we were turning a corner. It felt… final.
No. “Final” is the wrong word.
As I replied with a very certain, and very scary, “yes”, it dawned on me.
For twenty years, I’d felt empty. I’d filled the void with all of the things I believed I needed—overworking myself, sex, avoiding relationships, more sex, traveling—and somehow Delaney had begun to fill what felt like the bottomless pit my parents carved out of me.
“Final” was the wrong word because “complete” was the right one.
I leaned in to kiss Delaney. “Let’s go home.”
“Okay, let me go tell Tristin,” he said as he stood, but I grabbed his wrist, stopping him.
“Or—hear me out—we can not and let the three of them figure it out for themselves. I wonder how long it will take them to realize we’re gone?”
Delaney’s giggle was music to my ears. “Okay. But let’s hurry.” As we were putting on our shoes and sneaking out of the house, he pointed out, “I never gave you the space to share your news. I apologize.”
