On Purpose

Chapter 6: Floating

———Marcus———

Friday, September 27th, 2019

"You want to explain what the fuck that was?" James snapped as soon as the bedroom door clicked shut. He crossed his arms across his chest, and I felt a spike of guilt and nerves.

"I'm sorry," I said sheepishly. James' expression didn't budge.

"Do you want to explain what for?" James continued. I really didn't want to explain it, but I had kind of fucked up enough that it seemed inevitable. I averted my gaze as if I could somehow find a way out of this conversation.

"That was... Greg. I knew him from high school," I said.

"I got that already," James snapped again. "That does not explain why you acted like I was just some guy and not your fucking mate."

"I just— I'm sorry, ok?" I said as frustration started to creep into my tone. "I just panicked."

"I'm not buying that for a second," James countered immediately. "You're literally out to your entire pack. We went around Mountain Springs for weeks as a mated couple. You were fine being public until this guy showed up."

"That's— that's different," I protested.

"I fail to see how," James said, sounding exasperated. "You've never even mentioned this guy before. Is he, like... your ex or something?"

"What? No."

"You never hooked up?"

"No!"

"You never—"

"For fucks' sake, no, James," I interjected. "He was literally just an upperclassman on the football team. There was never anything between us."

"So then why the fuck do you care about his opinion enough to hide our relationship?" James said, and I recognized the concealed hurt peeking through his mask of anger for the first time. "Do you— are you not ok with this after all?"

My stomach dropped. "No, James, I— that's not what this is, I promise."

"Then what is it?" There was a beat of silence as I froze at James' challenge. When I didn't say anything, he averted his gaze.

"Look, Marcus—"

"I like musicals," I blurted out. I mentally face-palmed as James straightened up with a bewildered look.

"Ok? What does that have to do with anything?" James asked incredulously.

"I... I like musicals, but I keep it a secret because... because when I was a freshman, Greg got all the guys on the team laughing about how... how gay the theater kids were, and I..." I trailed off with a halfhearted shrug. "I dunno, seeing him just brought that feeling back, I guess, and I panicked."

"Are you not ok with being seen as bi?" James asked. I didn't know how to answer that. Obviously, the pack and my family were fine with it, but I had been hiding anything that made me seem straight for so long I didn't know how to just let that go.

"Is this why you don't want to have sex with me?" James asked without making eye contact. I felt another spike of guilt.

"No, James, that's— I want to," I said weakly. And I did, I just... chickened out at the last minute. More than once. I had hoped he hadn't noticed, even though I knew realistically there was no way he didn't.

"Could have fooled me," James said with a scoff. "I mean, I thought you just maybe wanted to take things slow, and I don't want to rush you, but if you're not even ok with us holding hands at a bar, it feels like—"