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by Megan Linden


  When Patrick parked outside Sylvia’s house, neither of them said anything for a few seconds. Finally, Ollie leaned in to kiss him goodbye. Patrick started to do the same, but in the next moment he pulled away from Ollie as if he’d been burned.

  What’s wrong? Ollie wanted to ask, but before the words could form on his tongue, he turned to where Patrick’s gaze had drifted just a second before.

  He saw Taylor and Kevin standing on the other side of the street, looking in their direction.

  And suddenly, the fury burned bright and hot inside of him, taking over everything. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The moment Patrick had registered Taylor and Kevin there, he’d pulled back so hard that he’d plastered himself against his seat. His heart was going crazy, trying to hammer out of his chest as the alarms blasted in his head. They will tell the Alpha, Alpha will know, Alpha can’t know.

  The memories of his father’s voice were next. ‘There’s no place for homosexuals in the pack. I will never allow it.’

  ‘There had never been a human mate in our family’s history. We know better than that.’

  ‘There’s no place for you in this pack.’

  That last one was from his father’s—his Alpha’s—final rejection, the moment he’d been cast out of the pack. Even now, his wolf whined in distress at the reminder.

  “You got to be kidding me.” Ollie’s angry voice brought Patrick back to the present.

  The car. The kiss. Ollie. Taylor and Kevin.

  Fuck.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathed, his thoughts still all over the place. “It’s just—”

  “I know what it is. Don’t bother,” Ollie told him in the coldest voice Patrick had ever heard from him. He yanked the door on his side. “Let me out.”

  No. Nonono. His head might still be scrambling to catch up, but he knew that he couldn’t let Ollie leave like this. “Wait, please, listen—”

  “There’s only so many hints one needs to finally get a clue.” Ollie’s nostrils flared as he tightened his grip on his backpack’s straps. Patrick’s wolf whined at the scent of distress, sorrow and sudden, overwhelming loneliness. “It took me a while, but I get it now, loud and clear.”

  “You don’t,” Patrick protested. “You really don’t. Whatever it is, it’s not what you think.”

  Ollie snorted without a trace of humor. “So you didn’t flinch away from a kiss because you thought someone would see it?”

  Patrick winced, and apparently, that was all Ollie needed.

  “I thought so. I should’ve known, really.” He snorted again. “Going to the nearby town to get laid, not talking to me at the pack function, taking me out as far as possible… God, I should’ve known.”

  “It’s not—”

  “Let me out of the car,” Ollie told him, his voice slow and furious, “or I will make a scene like you have never seen. Then, I assure you, everyone will be talking about you.”

  For a second Patrick wanted to dig his heels in. He wanted to explain, to clear the air, not leave with Ollie thinking the worst of him. But the words couldn’t quite come and Ollie obviously wasn’t in the mood for patience. It would likely be a disaster.

  He didn’t even want to imagine the scene Ollie had threatened him with.

  “Okay,” Patrick said, “whatever you want. Just please, know that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. And I’d like to explain it all when you’d—”

  Ollie got out as soon as Patrick unlocked the doors, not looking back at him even once before going into the house and shutting the door.

  Fuck.

  Patrick tightened his grip on the steering wheel hard enough for the leather to squeak under his palms, so he took a deep breath to control himself. But his wolf was whining and his head was a mess, and Ollie…

  Then he remembered Taylor and Kevin on the other side of the street. He couldn’t stand it if they came over.

  That thought pushed through the fog in his head and he was on the road before he realized he’d turned the engine back on.

  He needed to get home.

  * * * *

  He lost track of time, sitting in the darkening living room and staring at the wall.

  He hadn’t had a flashback like that for months now. He’d had memories, sure, and some of them had crept up on him in the worst possible moments, but the full-on flashback when he’d felt as if he were back there, reliving the situation… That hadn’t happened since his first month in Harrington Hills.

  Why did it have to happen like this, though? Patrick bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard, at the memory of Ollie, furious and crushed in equal measures, telling him to let him out. Fuck. It was obvious what he’d thought and Patrick couldn’t blame him, because from the outside, it appeared exactly like Ollie had thought it did. And it wasn’t like Patrick hadn’t given him enough reasons to doubt him before.

  ‘Going to the nearby town to get laid, not talking to me at the pack function, taking me out as far as possible… God, I should’ve known.’

  Patrick felt sick. The worst thing was that, although it wasn’t true and Patrick hadn’t planned any of it like that, he realized when he was forced to examine it that some part of it might not be completely wrong. He couldn’t say in all honesty that he would have for sure started something with Ollie if he’d first met him in Harrington Hills.

  He hadn’t planned on having a partner any time soon when he’d come here, wanting to first get used to living in the pack that wouldn’t balk at him choosing a man. But plans or not, he had fantasized. He’d watched the relationships around him and pictured himself having one like it—aside from the triad thing, because, no, no way—and he’d told himself, One day. One day.

  None of those fantasies had involved a human mate, though.

  Because the Alpha might forgive one thing but wouldn’t forgive two at once.

  Fuck. He tightened his grip on his thighs until it became painful. He’d thought he’d purged this out of himself, that it was nothing but cruel memories—something others had said, and believed, but not him. Then, at the first possible moment, he’d faltered. The ingrained rules caused him to pull back, to hide.

  Alpha can’t know.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’d been so sure he’d separated Alpha Harrington from his father, so sure that his biggest issue was Taylor. And yet, he’d transferred all the bullshit from one Alpha to the next.

  He might have left his former pack but he’d taken all the mess with him.

  He wondered now if he would balk at seeing Ollie at the pack function like he had that first time if Ollie were a werewolf, and the unsure answer forming in his head was not the one he wished he’d come up with.

  But after… After they’d made up, after they’d gotten to know each other better, Ollie being a human had stopped being an issue at all. Patrick didn’t think about it most of the time, even when he should’ve, like when they had been hiking in the woods.

  The question was…did it matter? Did it matter that he’d changed, that he’d pulled his head out of his ass, if he’d had it in there in the first place? Or was that initial bias too damning anyway?

  Especially since his fucked-up head was still serving him flashbacks directly related to said bias.

  Patrick didn’t know. He knew what he would like these answers to be, but that didn’t change anything. He’d hurt Ollie again. And Ollie had the right to never speak to him after that, to not even care whether Patrick was sorry or not.

  He pulled his legs close to his chest and circled his arms around them before putting his forehead against his knees. The mere idea that he would have to give Ollie up made his stomach turn and his inner wolf whine in distress. They’d been on one overnight date, but they’d been doing this song and dance for almost a month now. Sure, they hadn’t been anything official, but they were… They were something —something good and right that Patrick didn’t want to give up.

  He might not have
a choice anymore, though.

  * * * *

  He’d stayed in hiding.

  He wasn’t proud of that, but he also didn’t quite know what else to do. He’d tried calling Ollie, tried texting him, but all his messages had gone unanswered, so he didn’t think showing up at Ollie’s sister’s house would be well-received either. Patrick couldn’t bring himself to say everything he wanted to say in those texts either, so that didn’t help. The best he’d done was ‘There’s stuff in my past that affects me more than I thought’, but as far as explanations went, it was weak and he knew it.

  So he stayed in his own house, working from home, ordering food delivery, not even going out on the patio until very late at night when everyone was sleeping.

  He knew his solitude would have to be temporary, but for now, it was what it was.

  It came to an end when Adrian came barging in on Friday. He’d been out of town for some case in the next county until the previous night or else Adrian would have been on his doorstep on Wednesday at the latest.

  “Want to tell me what’s with the story about you and Ollie having a fight in public on Sunday?” Adrian asked by way of a greeting as he came inside.

  Patrick watched in silence as his friend took two beers out of a six-pack, stored the rest in the fridge then walked over and handed him one of the bottles before sitting next to him on the couch.

  “It wasn’t…” Patrick grimaced and took a gulp of his beer, not sure what to say. He wanted to tell Adrian it hadn’t been a fight. But that will be a lie, won’t it? “It wasn’t in public, per se,” he finally said. Their conversation had happened in the car, but nobody—not even Taylor and Kevin—should’ve been able to hear it, Patrick hoped. He hadn’t even considered the fact that someone could overhear them.

  “It was in public enough to make the rounds,” Adrian told him.

  Patrick shrugged and took another gulp of beer.

  “Talk to me. What the hell happened? You were excited about your camping date, as much as you can be openly excited about anything. Did it go wrong?”

  “No,” Patrick said, staring at the bottle in his hand. “It went great.”

  “But?”

  He knew he could stall for a while longer, but at some point, Adrian would push him into spilling his guts. Maybe it was time to speed up the process and just come clean, about some of it at least.

  “Our trip was great.” He started from the easier part. “We made plans to go again and everything. But when we came back…I made a stupid mistake.”

  There were a few seconds of silence before Adrian nudged him with his knee. “Which was?”

  “He went to kiss me goodbye,” Patrick admitted after another moment. “I saw Taylor and Kevin out on the street and reacted. I didn’t even think. I pulled back.”

  “Why?” came another question, quieter this time.

  Patrick took a deep breath. “Some stuff my father told me came back to me. I heard him in my head.”

  This time it was Adrian who pulled a long gulp of his beer. “Was it about being gay?” he asked slowly, the words coming out unsure as he stared at the wall ahead.

  And the thing was, for a moment, Patrick was tempted to say that was it, that there was nothing else to it. After all, it was the reason why his father had cast him away—not for having a human mate, but because he was gay.

  But he didn’t want to lie and he was tired of his own bullshit. He would never be free of it if he didn’t own up to it.

  He just didn’t know how to tell Adrian the truth without sounding like an utter asshole.

  Maybe there was no way.

  “Some of it was,” he finally said. “But my father was… is very conservative about a lot of things, not just homosexuality.” Adrian knew that part, since Patrick had told him a long time ago why he’d been cast out. He just didn’t know the rest. Patrick drained the rest of the bottle. “He’s not… There are no humans in the Donnelly Pack—or anywhere close.”

  It seemed to take forever before Adrian caught on to what Patrick was saying. Then…

  “Wait, what?” Adrian turned in his seat to face him, straightening as he went.

  “He—”

  “He hates gays and humans. I got that.” He put his bottle down on the coffee table as he started bouncing his leg up and down. “But that’s him. What about you?” He paused for a second. “Did you decide not to kiss your date in public because you still believe all the shit that your father spews?”

  “I don’t!” Patrick shook his head. “I don’t believe that! Fuck, you’ve known me for years. You know I’m not like that.”

  “Well, I also thought you weren’t the kind of person who would be ashamed of having a human boyfriend, so what do I know?”

  “It’s not like that!” Patrick put his bottle down as well and stood up. “I’m not ashamed of him. If I’d had two seconds to think, I wouldn’t have done what I did. But I had this freaking voice in my head and suddenly I was back there, being thrown out of the pack, and all I could think about was that it couldn’t happen again.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not my father. I just have his fucking voice stuck in my head and there are times when I can’t catch myself in time.” He swallowed against the bile in his throat. “Do you think I like it?”

  He turned to Adrian, suddenly angry—at Adrian, at himself, at his damned father, whom Patrick was apparently stuck with, no matter how far he went.

  “Do you think I like having these moments when I think that maybe I truly am less than any straight person? When I watch people close to me and—” He closed his mouth and ran a hand over his hair. “I hate it. And I hate when I let those moments slip, when I react before I think, when I lose to the bastard who— Never mind.” He shook his head. “I do hate it, though. And I wish it didn’t happen. I wish I didn’t hear that voice in my head ever again. But I do and it did happen, and that’s why Ollie doesn’t want to talk to me or see me. So there it is. That’s your story.”

  Adrian looked at him for a long moment before standing up. There was a pang in Patrick’s chest— he’s leaving, he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore either —and he forced himself to stay still. There was nothing else left to say.

  But Adrian didn’t move toward the door. No. He stepped closer to Patrick and pulled him into a hug.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered while Patrick stood there, not knowing what to do. “I’m sorry.”

  Patrick closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath before hugging Adrian back. “I’m sorry too.”

  They stood like that for a long time, but then Adrian pulled back and caught him by the shoulders. “You need to make Ollie listen to this,” he said, looking Patrick straight in the eye in a way that made it impossible to turn away. “You need to tell him about your old pack and about why you’re here, so he knows you’re not really this person that sometimes comes out of you. That Patrick is an asshole. This one?” he added, shaking him lightly. “This one is the real deal and he deserves a chance.”

  Patrick slumped his shoulders. “I don’t know if—”

  “You won’t know until you try,” Adrian cut in. “And take it from someone who took the biggest leap of his life a few months ago. Trying can be the best thing you’ve ever done.”

  The last time I tried to take a big risk, I ended up thrown out of my pack, Patrick wanted to tell him, but he didn’t. Perhaps it was time to work harder on leaving the Donnelly Pack behind him. Harrington Hills was a completely different world. He needed to get used to the new rules.

  But first things first. He needed to talk to Ollie.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ollie’s phone pinged on the nightstand, signaling a new message, but he turned away, not wanting to see what it was. It was almost midnight and he needed to be up at seven. He should be sleeping, not—

  He turned back and grabbed the phone.

  It wasn’t Patrick, though.

  Ollie tried to pretend he wasn’t disappointed
as he read the text from Trevor, his friend from Linwood.

  Are you free tomorrow? I know it’s last min but I need a bartender for Sat night. Pls help.

  He sighed. He didn’t have any plans for the next night, since Sylvia and Desiree were staying home the entire weekend, but he wasn’t sure he was up for the hustle of bartending. On the other hand, with Desiree due the next week, it might be his last chance to get out of town for a while, and maybe it would do him some good, getting out of Hills, even for one night. He could always grab a beer with Trevor beforehand and vent a bit.

  I will check with my sister tomorrow morning, but for now I’m in.

  The reply came a few seconds later.

  Thank you!!!

  With his phone in hand, Ollie couldn’t resist going back to the thread with Patrick’s messages. He hadn’t responded to any of them, but he’d read through them all at least five times a day, sometimes more.

  There were several that had almost broken his resolve and made him write back, but then he would remember how shitty it had felt, being rejected in public, and he would put the phone away. He did the same thing now and turned his back to the nightstand again, trying to forget the whole thing, but Patrick’s numerous apologies and explanations stayed in his head. Hell, he could recite some of them from memory by now. He scoffed at some, got angry at a few, but there were also those that made him think that maybe… Maybe Patrick really didn’t mean to do what he’d done. Perhaps there was an explanation that would make sense and didn’t leave Ollie feeling like he did right now—once again thought of as less for being human instead of a werewolf.

  But maybe Patrick had gotten tired of apologizing, since he hadn’t sent anything since yesterday. He hadn’t tried calling Ollie since Tuesday, either, so maybe he was done.

 

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