He Will Be Mine

Chapter 50: It's Not Over Yet

*** Alyssa's POV ***

"Come on, Matt. Do you see her?" Tyler gestures to where I'm sitting on my bed. "That's your mate. You know, everything your parents had that you've always wanted, the love of your life? Your mate. So, stop with this nonsense and go to her."

They've been at it like this since we got back to my room, Matt all mopey and withdrawn and Tyler cycling between anger, hurt, and concern for Matt. And concern for me, though it's his brother who seems to need it most.

"I can't," Matt pulls his arm from Tyler's grasp and turns away from him. "I can't do this again, hurting the people I love. Being selfish. You heard him. He said there's a chance for you, but none for either of us if you include me."

"That's not what he ... Jesus, Matt! That's not at all what I heard!" Tyler shouts. "I heard him say that if you keep it up with this nonsense then we all lose, that's what I heard."

"Matt, what do you even mean by that? Being selfish. Since when?" I demand, trying to keep my tone level and approachable.

"Since ... agh!" he throws his arms up in frustration, and then flops into my fuzzy chair. "Since always. Since I get everything, and he gets nothing. Since I make stupid decisions that feel good and hurt people in the process. Just everything! You, Jess, my parents. Everything."

"You're being such a drama queen right now, and it's seriously pissing me off," Tyler grits out, giving up on trying to physically make Matt turn and look at me and coming to sit down next to me instead.

"So, you're telling me that you don't even care that because of us, she doesn't get to be the Alpha or whatever? That because I care I'm being too dramatic? Why don't you look at your mate right there and tell me you don't see how that hurts her."

"Of course I see that," Tyler sighs. "But it's so aggravating that you think that making this decision for us, or pretending to know how I feel about your parents and my life, is not the very definition of being selfish. Because it is, for the record. It is. And if you give up on this," he gestures emphatically between the three of us, "then we all lose out on it. I don't know, maybe it's just that you don't seem to understand what a mate bond even is ..."

Matt lunges out of his chair at Tyler and knocks him back on the bed, pinning him with his knee and his hands on his shoulders. "Don't act like you know everything and I'm so ignorant just because you had a little extra time to think about it. You don't know anything either, just admit it!"

Tyler forces him back and flips them over, and then the two of them start wrestling in a way that knocks them to the floor. They're still arguing through all the grunting and slapping and pulling of clothes, but I've lost track of what they're even arguing about anymore.

Stop them, Mari pleads, getting upset at seeing them fight like that. I should say more upset, since we've been experiencing pretty much every emotion in the last half hour.

I think they might need to get this out of their systems, I argue, knowing that every pair of brothers I've ever seen fights like this, and these two have been through it lately. And then there's all the unresolved feelings they probably still have about finding out that they're brothers in the first place.

So, I let them go at it for a few before finally I reach down and pull Matt off Tyler, since he's the one on top at that moment.

"Just stop," I say, exasperated, and realize that I sound completely exhausted and like all the fight has gone out of me. "I already told you both where I stand on all this, so I don't even fully understand what you're fighting about, or what you think you'd be accomplishing by leaving us, Matt. Assuming you're both agreed that you want to be my mates, then that's all there is to it. If not, well then, I suppose we need to talk. Later, not now."