The Shadow of Stars

Nine

"Yeah so that happened," I tell Henry as I pull on my gym shoes, tying the laces as we sit side by side in the gym. He laughs hard, so hard that I shove his shoulder in an attempt to make him stop.

"Am I next?" He teases, doubling over again and I shake my head before putting it in my hands.

"Stoppp, I'm not aggressive. I'm so embarrassed by it. The fact that I could even show my face there the next day to help him out-" I stop myself, wincing. "The bruises just looked worse."

Henry continues laughing, pulling on his own gym shoes. "What did Al have to say about it?" He asks before leaning back as we wait for our grumpy old gym teacher to arrive. Mr Hog isn't all that bad, purely because he is so unenthusiastic he lets us get away with doing nothing but as an actual gym teacher-he's the worst of them all by a mile. And this class is admittedly also the worst, all the nerds and uncoordinated students, mostly humans and wolves who couldn't care less, lumped together in a free period.

"We both agreed not to tell him," I reply, watching as a small-very small-group of students start stretching to limber up. I have no motivation for exercise at all-none, zilch, nada.

"Lucky you," he mumbles and opens his mouth to say more, a devilish expression covering his face but the piercing blow of a whistle cuts him off.

"Come on all of you! Up you get! I want everyone stretching-see them?" I follow the hoarse voice of Mr Hogs, finding him motioning with his chubby index finger towards the group that are giving a damn. "Look at what they are doing and just copy it or whatever-quickly."

He carries on drinking his morning coffee like he couldn't care less but his tone was harsher than usual-harsh enough to make us all walk groggily to the floor of the gym and move our limbs around like we had any clue what we were doing.

"So what's his name then? This mystery mafia guy?" Henry asks, that smirk reappearing and I shoot him a look.

"Come on, don't do me like that," I reply and he holds his hands up in surrender. "Gabe," I conclude.

"I'll have to meet the poor man," he remarks and I roll my eyes.

"We are in need of a dish bitch if you care to join the team," I tease and he laughs. I've been trying to get him to work at Al's for as long as I've been there but he claims that he doesn't need it. He's happy enough coming in on my shifts to hang around in the kitchen chatting to Al eating free fish.

"How did Friday go anyway? We haven't really been able to speak much on it," he asks, his voice slightly strained at the sensitive subject.

"Aside from being completely grounded by my parents?" I joke and he winces. "It was alright, he-I mean we had fun I guess. He seems nice and we mainly just talked about football because of the whole interview thing."

"So it wasn't awkward?" He asks and I shrug.

"A little I suppose. It's always going to be awkward, though. He wants me to be his mate and I... I don't know what I want. He seems fully willing to give me time but in the end of the day he still expects me to eventually come around and that's..." I don't even know how to explain it through words—the weight of his expectation. It leaves me feeling choice-less which ultimately leaves me feeling sad.

I see sympathy flicker in Henrys eyes. "Well I guess it could be worse," he offers, though I can tell by his tone how he really feels about it. "As useless as I might be, if you ever need me to kick his ass, I'll attempt it with everything I have and most likely fail—but I'll try. Just know that you've still got control over how your life pans out."

It's like he read my mind, could see just what exactly about being mated was so off-putting to me. Something that could only really be achieved through years of close friendship.