He Will Be Mine

Chapter 22: Can't Stay Away

*** Tyler's POV ***

After two weeks of basically avoiding Aly, I finally can't take it anymore. I've been sulking, pouting, thinking, arguing with myself, working out twice as much as usual (avoiding my normal times, in case Aly is there and so I don't have to deal with the looks my friends give me), and quite frankly, eating more cafeteria desserts than anyone should. I think I figured it out, though.

I love Aly, that's all there is to it, and though I want a relationship with her, more than that I just want her. I'll take what I can get. I've tried to talk myself out of it because it seems like such a hopeless, lovesick puppy thing to do, but there's no way around the fact that I'm happier when I'm around her. If it has to be just as friends, then I'll settle for that. I don't want to get in the way of her being able to be with Matt if that's what she really wants. I also need to go to her and talk about all the things I don't know about her being a werewolf and her mate thing. I promised her I'd be back, so that's it, I'm back.

I wake up with this epiphany on a Wednesday morning, which is unfortunate because we're both kind of busy on Wednesdays. I decide to send her a text instead to let her know I want to talk and that I would like us both to go to our normal workout time and place tomorrow morning.

I'm so glad to hear from you, Ty, she responds, and I can't help but smile. It didn't even take her three seconds to send that back to me. She does care.

We make plans over text to have our normal workout in the morning and get together to talk after classes. Just knowing that I'll be seeing her tomorrow seems to put a little extra pep in my step. For the first time in weeks, I'm back to my normal self, it feels like, even singing and whistling while I shower and get ready for class.

Trevor is in the living room when I come out and he's grinning at me like the weirdo he is.

"He's back!" he announces in a stupid sing-song voice, but I know he is just glad his friend is back to normal so it doesn't even annoy me. This time.

"Did you make up with Aly, I take it?" he asks. "She coming to the party this weekend?"

"First off, I haven't been paying attention to your party schedule so no, I haven't even invited her." This dude loves to party way too much, though I suppose I can't blame him. He's into some high-level academic stuff that probably gets pretty stressful. "And secondly, who said Aly and I were fighting?"

"Well, nobody, but she hasn't been around in awhile and you've been all mopey, so it's not hard to put two and two together. Plus, last time I saw her she came charging out of your room and just left without saying goodbye or anything, so I figured there was a fight."

"Fair enough. Well, we didn't fight, but we had a serious talk about where things with us were going, and I asked for time to think. So, in a way, we 'made up' because I decided that I still want to hang out with her, even if we're not, like, together. So yeah, we're going to hang out tomorrow."

"Just make sure you remind her that we scheduled lab time tomorrow after class, so it will have to be after that," Matt interjects. I hadn't even noticed him sitting over there he was so quiet. "There's not a lot of times left on the schedule so we can't put it off."

Leave it to him to burst my happy little bubble. It kind of bothers me that he gets her before me, because isn't that the whole problem here? But then I remember that technically I get her before and after him because of our morning workout, and I feel a little better.

"Yeah, sure. She didn't give me a specific time or anything, just said after she's done with classes. I'll remind her, though. I'm sure she won't miss your precious lab time."