Intimacy | ✔️ {Wattys 2017}

The Week Has Just Begun

A/N: Highly recommend listening to this song while reading this chapter. Love you all

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My body is cold. My hair is sticking to my neck, soaked from the rain. My clothes are ruined, my feet making a squishing noise in the shoes I wear as the storm has passed and the run is finished. With my teeth chattering, I rub my arms, heading back into the massive pack house as I take off my shoes. I'm one of the last to come back, watching Flynn head back to the house before I would head back in. Looking to the grand staircase, I rather take a left, heading down the hallways as I know where the back staircase is located.

Wringing out my hair, I find the back staircase, climbing the two flights of stairs as I reach the third floor. The second I push open the door, my eyes go wide, hunter green eyes connecting with my own. I'm screwed.

"Avoiding someone?" Flynn asks, crossing his arms as he looks me over in my messy state. He has a mate out there. Let go now than let go later and only be hurt in return. This is a difficult situation because I have my mate and he has yet to have his. "After all, you've been running from me every time I get closer than fifty feet."

A lump forms in my throat, wondering what to reply with as he blocks my path. I want to change out of these damp clothes, to shower and get in clean clothes. Not here, facing Flynn as I know these next two weeks will only get worse every time he talks to me. "It's because of what I said earlier."

It's no question. He doesn't need the reassurance to know that he's right. We both know it's all about what he said earlier, how I picked Augustus like a stack of cards...but fate can be like that sometime. Fate can be a random occurrence and it happens so fast that you can question if you're swimming with the tide. But fate paired Augustus and I together, and sure some mates never happen because of massive reasons that shake your reality, but fate paired us and it is now taking action. I have suffered for so long that I now get what I have wanted. Sure, I wait. I waited because I could not fight. He was in love. Love. Flynn has someone out there who will love him for every fiber he is worth, and until then, he has to accept that.

"Flynn, it's best for the two of us if it's like this. It's best for me because Augustus is my mate and it's best for you because your mate is out there."

"Best for us?" Flynn asks, scoffing as he shakes his head. "You speak in the subject as if Augustus is some cure." I raise an eyebrow. "Best for us?! It implies that you feel something for me deep down and you know that going with it will hurt your heart. You think it will hurt your heart because you believe mates are a match made in heaven an will always work out in the end."

"Flynn-

"My parents are mates, Amory!" He snaps, taking a step forward as I feel caged in. "My father slept with other women and my mother forgives him every day. She tries to forgive him every day. Mates are not perfect and sometimes they don't work out."

"Your-

"My parents are not perfect an my father has confessed me that if he was not Alpha and my mother the Luna, he would reject her and move away."

I keep my mouth shut, knowing that Flynn has a point. I've seen mates tear each other apart and create a toxic environment before one leaves and never comes back. My uncle had that, how his mate left him. He said mates are made by fate, and sometimes, that feeling of overwhelming joy when your with your mate is only temporarily. He has fates brings you together, but it doesn't have to keep you together.

"Please hear me out."

"You know I made a choice. You know I picked Augustus."

Flynn shakes his head.

"You didn't make a choice. You followed the crowd believing that your mate is always your best pick," Flynn explains, his eyes searching my face for any sign of reaction to his words. His words that sting. His words that hurt because they are the truth. But fate...fate you are told stories of as a child for bedtime stories in this community rather than Cinderella or Jack and the Bean Stock. It's set in our society that you follow fate because it is always in your best interest. People who reject their mate are rare, usually frowned upon by the community even if their mate had to be rejected because of vampire or a rogue. You follow fate. You follow what society says. It's pathetic and weak, but the werewolf community is set on tradition. Hell, you break one traditional unwritten rule and you're seen as an imposter within the community. "Amory, mates are important, but sometimes, fate doesn't intend for a happily ever after."

He's right. But I don't want to admit it. My parents are mates, head over heels for one another. Yet again, Flynn's parents are mates and barely surviving to mask their true relationship to the pack. "I've waited for Augustus for so long," I whisper, my voice weak as I look over Flynn's shoulder, unable to look him in the eyes. "I didn't interfere with him and Molly because I knew he loved her. I respected that and let it happen because he deserved that happiness. But now him and Molly and done and I know he is happy."

Flynn shakes his head, running a hand through his thick locks of hair as I take in a deep breath. "I love him."

"What is love?"

"What?" I ask, rather confused.

"It's a simple question," Flynn explains, "What is love?" I don't know rather to give him some dictionary definition or try and search for one all on my own. "Because my mother once described it as being around that person and unable to hold back how much you love them. That love is where you will fight until you can no longer fight. Love is when you would die for the other person, where you watch them grow old with you, when you look forward to them being the first thing that you see when you wake up in the morning. Love is an endless amount of emotion." Flynn is passionate with how he talks, as if entering another dimension as I no longer recognize the boy before me. At school he's seen as someone to never turn your back on or even start a rumor about. At school he'll punch a kid or turn down a girl without a second thought.

With me he is someone else. With me he has climbed through my window in the dead of night to pour out his heart to me over a girl. To me he will drive me home when he thinks I'm a danger to myself. To me he tries to get my wolf back, he fights for me to have my other half back that has four paws and fur. To me, he lets me see his family not as they are to everyone else, but who they truly are. To me...to me...to me...he lets me see the things no one else will ever get to see. To me...he trusts me and believes in me.

To me he needs me.

"Amory?" I blink, reminding myself where I am as I still stand wet, my hair a mess, my clothes wet with some mud, my shoes squeaky, and on full display to him in my worst appearance. "Mates may be made by fate, but fate only works to get them together, not to keep them together. Why do you think people can reject their mates?"

"I-I have to go. The week has just begun," I explain, pushing past Flynn as I head to my room, my vision creating a tunnel as everything else becomes a blur. My eyes are focused upon my door, Flynn all a blur as he catches up to me. It's too much. It's all too much to take in.

As I reach for the handle of my door, he takes ahold of my arm, spinning me around to meet those famous hunter green eyes so many girls say you could get lost in. A soft kiss is placed upon my lips, barely present as my heart skips a beat.

He pulls back, his lips inches from mine as his hot breath fans my cheek. "You're right, Amory," he begins, his voice soft as we hold a strong gaze. "The week has just begun."