Taken In by the Pack: Second Chances

by Alana Hart

  I picked out a cute retro-style knee length skirt and matching top, grabbed my bag and purse, practically skipped my way out to my car, and headed for campus. Despite the decisions still in front of me, I was feeling better than I had in weeks.

  Before I even made it all the way to the plaza where we normally met, I saw Angie waiting right at the edge, bouncing in impatience. Once she spotted me, she practically pounced on me.

  “Ada! Where have you been all weekend, girl? Why didn’t you call me? How did it go?” Her voice was barely below a squeal. Had she really been that worried about me?

  “Phones work both ways, you know, if you were that worried.” I laughed softly, continuing to walk, forcing her to have to follow along if she wanted to keep talking, and give me a sort of timer for the conversation.

  I spotted Elijah on the far side of the plaza, and had to suppress a sigh. I nodded slightly to him, and he returned the nod, but luckily Angie didn’t seem to notice.

  “Don’t evade the question. What happened? How did it go?” she pressed.

  I sighed softly. “It was-” I paused, trying to find words to convey it without piquing her curiosity too much, “it was very strange. Bryson and his group aren’t at all how they seem at first. But it was really amazing, too. I can’t really talk about it, much, though. And he wants to get back together.”

  She squealed in mingled delight and horror, bouncing her steps a bit. “You aren’t seriously considering it? After what he did to you?”

  “I—” my voice broke, choking up a bit, and I could feel tears pricking at my eyes, threatening to spill, though I managed to keep them in check. “I don’t know, Ang. Part of me wants to, so very badly. And he says that there were— erm— extenuating circumstances last time, that he didn’t do it by choice really, and that he’d never do anything like that again. And I believe that he means that. I just don’t know if I could ever really trust him.”

  She shook her head, her face solemn. “Fool me once? Come on, you can’t trust someone who would just abandon you like that.”

  “He did have reasons, though. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but I can see where he was coming from.”

  Angie rolled her eyes. “What reasons?”

  I bit my lip. Here was the hard part, in discussing any of this with Angie, even in the abstract. She was never satisfied with vague platitudes.

  “I— I really can’t talk about it, Ang. I wish I could, believe me.” I sighed softly.

  Her eyes grew wide. “Oooh, like super-secret spy stuff? Or witness protection?”

  I gave a small, bitter little laugh. “Something like that.”

  “Ooooooh!” She considered that for a long moment, as we headed into the building our class was in. “Well, he still could have at least said goodbye, let you know he was leaving.”

  I smirked, snorting softly. “That’s basically what I said. Men.”

  She nodded, in perfect agreement on that point. “Yeah. Men.” We both broke into fits of giggles in unison, and were still laughing as we took our seats, earning a stern glare from the professor even though class had not yet started.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The rest of Monday, and most of Tuesday for that matter, were quiet for once. By this point I had just come to accept Elijah’s presence in the background; it’s not like I could do anything about it, and even if it was a little creepy, at least now I knew it was meant well. Thankfully, Angie seemed sufficiently unobservant that I didn’t have to try to explain why I wasn’t freaking out anymore.

  After classes were over, Angie and I spent a couple of hours in one of the little mini-parks on campus, enjoying the nice weather, helping each other study, and of course gossiping. It was difficult for me to hold back on all the thoughts and questions I had about Bryson, but I knew that if I said any more than absolutely necessary, Angie would never let it go until I had told her the whole sordid tale, and that just wasn’t a possibility.

  Hanging out with her did at least keep my mind off the issue for the most part. I was no longer panicky about it, no longer obsessing. I had a fairly straightforward, if far from simple, decision to make.

  Once I got home in the evenings, though, it was harder to stay on task. I needed to keep studying, I had a midterm test on Wednesday. At least when I was able to keep my mind on my schoolwork, it was actually effective, unlike last week. Keeping on task was a bit of a challenge, though. My mind kept drifting, reliving moments from the weekend.

  More than anything else, of course, I couldn’t get those last few minutes just before I left out of my mind. Bryson, telling me that of course he wanted to be with me; the feel of his arms around me, holding me to that magnificent broad chest; and obviously, the way his lips felt on mine, riding the perfect line between beseeching and demanding.

  There was so much more, though. Listening to the wolves yipping and howling in the woods as they hunted the boar. Bryson feeding me from his hand, and feeding him from my own in turn. Miss Madge and her obvious acceptance of me, and all her help and explanations. The utter contentment and comfort of being at Bryson’s side, that time and time again had pushed all the questions I needed to ask out of my mind until the moment was gone and I had no chance to ask them. I found myself wishing I could be back there, longing to be at his side.

  Each time my mind wandered off, I scolded myself and tried to refocus on my studying. I could not afford to bomb another test. At least I was accomplishing something between my ill-timed trips down memory lane.

  Worse than the replays, though, were the still-unanswered questions. Or more accurately, perhaps, the unanswered question. Do I, or don’t I?

  Do I want to join the pack? Despite my initial discomfort with them, I was reaching the point that I liked being around them, and yes, I could even see coming to think of them as a sort of extended family.

  Tied up with that, though, was whether I wanted to stay the inside-outsider, to remain human as I was, or to fully join them, and become a wolf myself. That night by the fire, listening to them in the woods, yes, I had wanted — wanted very much — to join them. But a momentary yearning was not the same as making a life-altering decision. I had no illusions whatsoever that it wouldn’t be extremely life-altering. Even if I had held such illusions before, these last two days had put an end to them; as hard as it was to talk with Angie after a single weekend, I knew it would be verging on impossible to maintain any kind of real friendship with anyone who was not “in the know” as the saying went.

  Then, of course, there was how I would go about achieving that goal. There isn’t much that would alter my life more than — it was hard even to think it — than having children. Especially at my age. I mean, I still had a good year and a half or two before I even graduated. This was no time to be considering motherhood!

  By the time ten o’clock rolled around, I decided I had probably absorbed all I was likely to, and that I was better off getting a good night’s sleep before the test. I packed up my books and went to crawl into bed, trying to get my mind to shut up long enough to fall asleep. It didn’t take very long, thankfully.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  It was hard to convince myself to get up the next morning, though at least I was well rested. I honestly just wanted to stay in bed for a week or so and not have to deal with anything. But of course, that wasn’t an option, so eventually I drug myself out of bed to face the day.

  I was jittery all through our first class. I very nearly skipped the class to spend the time studying for my test, but I decided that was probably counter-productive. Angie and I did, however, spend the 45 minutes between classes in a deep cramming session, drilling each other relentlessly. I felt at least reasonably prepared by the time we headed to take the test.

  It was grueling, but in the end, I decided I had gotten at least most, if not all, of the questions right; and I was rather proud of my final essay question, actually. I might not make a perfect score, but I was quite confident I had easily passed.

  I w
as in a buoyant mood by the time we left the classroom and were headed for the cafeteria for lunch, linked arm-in-arm with Angie, chattering happily about nothing in particular.

  About halfway to the cafeteria, however, my bubbly mood collapsed. I spotted Bryson on an intersecting sidewalk from the one we were on. Worse, he spotted me, and raised a hand, waving it to get my attention. Despite the butterflies that sprang to life in my tummy on seeing him, I just wasn’t ready to deal with it all yet. I tried to simply pretend I hadn’t seen him, looking off in a different direction. He was considerably further from where the sidewalks crossed than we were, so unless he made a run for it, we’d already be well gone by the time he reached it.

  Of course, he could just follow us if he wanted to, but I imagined he must be on his way to a class, and following us in the opposite direction was not exactly a smart move towards that goal. I must have been right, because even though I could almost swear I could feel his annoyance, he didn’t follow us.

  I probably should have at least acknowledged him, admit that I’d seen him and wave back, but I just simply was not ready to deal with it yet. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, how I wanted to proceed, and I didn’t want to do anything that might be perceived as either confirmation or denial.

  The way Angie went quiet, I assumed she had seen him, too, and had picked up on my farce of having not seen him.

  Once we were a good way further down the walk, she glanced back; I assume what she saw was a lack of Bryson following, since she then looked to me, and demanded snippily, “Okay, spill. What was that all about?”

  I sighed softly, shaking my head. “I don’t know, Ang, I’m just— it’s all so complicated, and I just don’t know how I feel, honestly. I’m not ready to make a decision, and I know he’ll push for one.” I shrugged a little, knowing full well I sounded pretty lame with so many of the details missing.

  “Seems pretty cut and dry to me, but the heart isn’t one to listen to logic, I guess.”

  “Yeah, logic just doesn’t enter the picture most of the time.” I wrinkled up my nose a bit.

  By that time, we’d made it to the cafeteria, and the subject was mercifully dropped in favor of discussing just exactly how disgusting this item of food or that was. I tried to be cheerful and act like nothing was amiss, but my jovial good mood had evaporated.

  At least I was relatively good at acting; Angie seemed to forget that anything was amiss before we even made it to a table.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Thursday was unusually quiet, particularly in contrast to the last few weeks. The highlight of the day was when the test scores from the day before posted, and I had indeed made an A. As a reward for having done so well, after classes I let myself have the evening off, curling up on the couch with popcorn and cheesy movies on Netflix. I even got myself a pizza, a treat I almost never allowed myself, for both monetary and caloric concerns.

  Friday I only had one class, and since I was done with it by lunch time, I decided to go to the gym for the afternoon. I had been far too lax with everything that had been going on, and I decided that must be part of why I had been so scatterbrained and easily distracted. Angie was a little pouty about it; I think she’d hoped to drag me to the mall or something like that.

  Once I got there, I changed into my gym clothes in the locker room, then started with a series of yoga-esque stretches on the mats laid out for just that purpose. Why did they always put the yoga mats in front of a bunch of mirrors? Who wanted to look at themselves while contorting themselves into human pretzels?

  When I was done there and all limbered up, went for a run on the treadmill to get my blood pumping. From there, I moved on to the round-robin machines for a while, getting lost in the rhythm and the excellent music they had on.

  By that point, instead of tired, I just felt energized, to I went to work on the wight machines a bit. I was no power lifter, I stuck to the low weight high reps, but I usually did at least a little a couple of times a week.

  It was a couple of hours altogether before I started feeling worn. When I decided I’d had enough, I went back to the locker room, and took a quick shower. I started to get dressed, but then changed my mind, and went to the little sauna room adjacent to the showers.

  Since there was no one else there — early Friday afternoons were only slightly busier at the gym than Sunday at noon — I took the half-reclined bench seat, and sighed in contentment. I found the damp heat of the sauna to be incredibly relaxing, though I knew many people found it unpleasant.

  When it started to edge towards uncomfortable about fifteen or twenty minutes later, I went and took a second even quicker shower, this one lukewarm at best, to help cool my body back down. By the time I was done, I felt pretty incredible. I hadn’t realized how poorly I’d felt from nothing more than failing to make use of my body while my mind was in overdrive these last few weeks. I was tired, sure, but it was a lovely, glowing sort of tired.

  I finally changed back into my normal clothes, tossed my towel and clothesbag into the laundry bin, and headed home.

  I was humming softly to myself, in high spirits, as I arrived at my apartment building, and was tickled to find a parking spot right in front of the stairwell.

  I took the steps two at a time, up to my second floor apartment. I was sufficiently off in my own little world, that I didn’t notice anything odd until I reached my door, and nearly ran smack into Bryson.

  He was standing there, leaning on my doorframe, his wide lips curled into a cheshire sort of smirk, and his warm amber-brown eyes almost disturbingly intent on me. I looked up into his face with slack-jawed surprise, and was momentarily worried that I might simply melt from the sudden heat that flared up inside me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Bryson! You scared the daylights out of me. What are you doing here, anyway? How do you even know— oh, right, Elijah.” I sighed a bit, but then looked at him expectantly, waiting for the answer to my first question. I tried to convince myself that I had not somehow magically summoned him.

  “I wasn’t exactly hiding, Adalyn, it’s not my fault you were completely oblivious.” It wasn’t like he was exactly easy to overlook, either, with his six-foot-plus broad-shouldered frame.

  I wrinkled my nose up at him in annoyance. “Okay, fine. But that doesn’t tell me what you’re doing here.” I was getting sick and tired of the general lack of answers from him.

  His head canted to one side, considering me for a long moment. His lack of reaction to my annoyance was incredibly… well, annoying. Even completely exasperated, though, I couldn’t help admire him, in a physical sense. I hadn’t seen him much in the daytime with proper lighting, just that first day at Applebee’s. Not to mention properly dressed; he had on a very tasteful blue and green button down shirt and a pair of faded but neat jeans, that clung to his muscular thighs in all the right ways.

  “We need to talk, Ada. Can I come in?” he finally asked, opting to ignore my question, apparently.

  “Not if you’re going to continue to refuse to answer my questions!” I fumed.

  He chuckled softly. “I did answer you, honey. I’m here to talk to you, about things that are not really appropriate for a public hallway.”

  That drew me up short. “Oh. Right.” My tone was clipped; I was still miffed at him just showing up and startling me, even if that did make sense.

  For a minute, I seriously considered telling him to go jump off the balcony. That was just the annoyance, though, and mostly just at having been caught unawares.

  I chewed on my lip as I thought it over, fiddling with my keys, which were still in my hand. “If I let you in, will you finally answer some questions?”

  “I’ll do my best. It’s hard to remember that things that are totally obvious to me, to us, aren’t to you. Gram really adores you, she’s spent all week ragging me about how little I actually told you and how I acted and all. You have quite the champion there.” He grinned, but the way he ducked his head and the look in h
is eyes had an air of apology as well. “I really am trying, Adalyn.”

  I sighed heavily, feeling mildly defeated. “I guess, in the end, that’s all anyone can really ask,” I muttered grudgingly. “Alright, fine, you can come in. But if you start being all Mr Enigmatic again I am throwing you out!” I was fully aware that this was rather akin to a kitten threatening to ‘throw out’ a pitbull — or a wolf, haha — but it was my home, dang it!

  He grinned, that gorgeous, playful, boyish grin that I’d always loved so much, and nodded firmly. “Deal.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him to make sure he knew I was serious, then moved to the door, unlocking it and stepping inside.