Only 1 update this time, I'm so busy with work this side! Forgive me? I'll make it up to yall.
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What feels like a couple of business days has to have been just a few seconds in reality. Within this, I simply remain seated, staring at him almost as if I didn't hear him, though I did, and I am certain he's aware of this too. I stay still because he remains standing before me, expectantly, with the corner of his bottom lip being cradled between his teeth.
His fingers continue caressing the skin of my thighs, gently, leaving traces of lingering warm sparks in his touch's path. My eyes drop to watch, inhaling before slowly exhaling as I process his question.
He has a mate, Julius had once said. He doesn't have a girlfriend, Micah had admitted. Both statements could completely contradict each other and yet, both statements could be completely true.
Don't get me wrong; the last time this was a topic, I had wished he did it without asking. A huge part of me feels the exact same, that he should have just done it and we'd endure the consequences later.
Asking means permission, and permission means thinking about the pros and cons, and how it potentially could shift things. Change things for the better?
Change things for the worst, because I'd be allowing us to get to a point Julius warned me about, apparently on two different occasions excluding recently, and by occasions, I mean realities. Two different lives, different miracles. It would be stupid, as he'd say, for me to allow such to happen again.
He chuckles a bit, softly. "I take it as a no?"
My shoulder slift to my ears, and after seconds of holding them up, I huff as they fall back down. "I'm not saying no."
"But?"
"Ahm... I just think..." I pout, lifting my eyes at his already lingering gaze. "I don't even care that much anymore, that only a few days ago, I was in a relationship. I value you. A lot, so I don't want things to be complicated or, I don't want to find us dealing with blurred lines. I don't want to get to a bridge we'd have to cross, and question if I want to cross it or whatever else. I don't want to feel like... you know, I'm using you."
"You're not. I'll never feel like that."
I nod at first. Then, I'm shaking my head in disagreement because really, if he suddenly was to find out the truth, won't he feel like he is just some pawn? Like he was being played?
"You have a girlfriend Micah."
"I don't." He shakes his head.
"Julius said so."
He takes his fingers through his hair, sighing heavily before he glances down at my thighs. "She's not my girlfriend. It's... complicated, I should say."
"What's complicated about it?"
"People have expectations for us, but I don't plan to fulfill it. Not until I have no other choice."
So, in otherwords, he has a mate. Maybe he has not imprinted on her, claimed her as his before his pack, but he has a mate is what I am understanding.
I can't say what I am feeling; whether it's disappointment or sadness, confusion or simply aggravated by the knowledge, but knowing that he has a mate —even despite him admitting it verbatim, since I think he's said all he has needed to without saying too much — doesn't sit well with me. Not in the slightest. Perhaps it's due to the fact that once, before, even though he had a mate, he had fought hard and well to ensure he wouldn't end up with her. Yet, here we are, him not exactly fighting his fate but not giving in to it so easily.
