SWNOVELS The Alpha’s Pen Pal: Chapter 21
We walked through the park, with Haven deep in thought as she continued to drink her latte. She had both her hands wrapped around the cup to keep them warm, and I mentally kicked myself for not realizing it was getting dark and, therefore, cooler outside.
We stopped on the small wooden footbridge, and she set her cup on the railing, folding her arms around herself as she leaned against it.
“We can go back to your apartment if you’re cold,” I said, setting my cup next to hers and reaching out to stroke her arm a little.
“I’m fine,” she replied, and I nodded but kept my hand on her.
As she stood there, staring out at the stream that ran through the park, I waited for her to be ready to speak to me. I didn’t want to push her. I knew I was regaining her trust and didn’t want to take any steps backwards. But my lycan was on edge, sensing her distress and anxiety and mine as well.
“Thank you,” she said out of the blue, breaking my lycan from his angry pacing.
“For the coffee?” I chuckled. “It’s really not that big of a deal, I—”
“Not for the coffee, Wes,” she said, looking at me with meaning.
I swallowed and nodded, my thumb rubbing her shoulder. “I did what I could,” I muttered. “When I discovered you had been adopted, I felt so helpless. So I did the next best thing I could think of,” I told her. “And I would have told you. Eventually. At some point. I was working on a plan to grovel, and—”
“Grovel? How?”
“Well, I hadn’t actually figured out what I was going to do, but I was going to do it,” I admitted with an embarrassed laugh.
She laughed softly, then turned serious again. “I thought I’d never see them again,” she whispered, staring out at the stream.
“You could have looked them up on google or something.”
“No, I mean—” She shook her head and chewed on her lip, her arms wrapping tighter around herself.
“The first year my… Matthew and Melissa had the football season tickets… they tried to… One of the games was the same weekend as the Youth America Grand Prix—that’s a big, prestigious ballet competition. And they told me I had to choose between going to the game and going to the competition,” she told me, changing the subject.
I held back my anger and true feelings at this revelation and her using their first names instead of calling them her parents. Barely. “And you chose the competition?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I’m guessing there’s more to this story?” I asked with the barest amount of restraint, and she nodded.
“I chose the competition, but they chose the game,” she said in a voice so quiet even I had to strain to hear.
“Excuse me?” I growled, seeing red.
I removed my hand from her arm and grabbed onto the railing, needing to keep myself from hurting her. I needed to keep my rage and my lycan in check.
“Did you miss it?” I asked her through clenched teeth.
“No,” she answered with a shake of her head. “I had to ask another dancer’s family to give me a ride, but I was able to go.”
“How old?”
“Thirteen.”
“Fuck, Haven, I’m sorry,” I mumbled, my hand forming into a fist and slamming down onto the rail.
“It’s okay,” she shrugged.
“No, it’s not,” I told her. “I don’t personally know what it’s like, but I’ve seen how Reid would get when his dad would miss out on shit. It’s not okay, Haven.”
“They went to everything else. But they never really tried to understand ballet and why it was important to me. They just wrote the checks and drove me where I needed to be.”
I clenched my jaw and leaned over the railing, clasping my hands together so my claws wouldn’t come out.
“For a long time, I didn’t think much of it,” she continued. “Well, at first, I was too young to realize there was something not right. They adopted me and took care of me. Our relationship was never amazing, but it was never bad either.”
I nodded as I listened to her talk, still holding back the beast inside. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to hurt someone or have me grab her and kiss her pain away, but neither were good options.
“Then, when I was older, I was just so happy to be dancing, to be doing something I loved, that I brushed off a lot of things or ignored them altogether because I didn’t want to think about it. It was easier for me to not acknowledge it. I was healthy. I had everything I needed, everything I wanted. But after last weekend and today, I…” She stopped, her head tilting up towards the darkening sky as she blinked her eyes rapidly, the tip of her nose turning pink.
“You what?” I asked, standing up straighter.
It didn’t escape my notice the other day that she’d hidden her tears from me once she realized she was crying. Maybe she saw it as a weakness, or maybe she just never let people see that side of her, but I didn’t want her to hide it. Not from me, anyway.
“They told me he died,” she said in a hoarse voice, followed by a sharp, shaky intake of breath that was almost a sob.
I stood stock still. Unable to breathe. My heart was in my feet, and my stomach was in my throat. I had no words.
“They told me Jack died, and Shirley was put in a home for… mental health issues… and—” She sniffled and turned her head away from me, faking a cough to cover her sobs.
I doused the fiery anger threatening to consume me quickly because of her shaking shoulders and trembling body. As furious as I was, I had to put it aside and deal with it later because I needed to tend to her feelings first.
But make no mistake, I would lash out later. I would look into these people. I would burn the world down if it meant she would live the rest of her life without harm.
I placed my hands on her upper arms again with a gentle touch and stepped up close to her, leaving just a small bit of space, trying to ignore the electricity crackling between us. I wanted to turn her around and wrap her up tight, hold her to me, and never let her go.
But I also wanted it to be her decision. I wanted her to come to me. I wanted her to need me. Need me the way I realized I needed her.
“That’s what you meant. When you said you thought you’d never see them again.” She nodded, and I caressed her arms with slow movements.
I took a small step closer to her, and at the same time, she spun towards me, closing the distance between us and burying her face in my chest. Her hands clutched at my shirt, gripping the fabric in her fists.
For the second time that day, I found myself wrapping my arms around her, holding her against my body, keeping her safe and close. I hadn’t gotten to hold her as long as I wanted earlier, since she stepped away from me before I had a chance to drink in the feel of her in my arms.
This time, though, the reason for me holding her was different, and I had to shift my focus to consoling her, to being her strength as opposed to enjoying our closeness. Not that I minded. My lycan, while upset someone had hurt her, was pleased she was turning to us for comfort.
I held her tightly and let her cry, let her release her withheld grief, frustration, confusion, and pain. My body swayed from side to side in a gentle, soothing motion as her cries quieted to soft sighs, whimpers, and sniffles.
“Why would they do that?” she whispered, her hands pulling me even closer to her. “Why would they lie to me?”
“Maybe they were jealous?” I asked, not voicing my true suspicions or thoughts.
There was no way that was the real reason. There had to be something else going on, some other reason for them to do that.
“That’s a pretty awful reason to lie to a child,” she spat.
“I know,” I murmured, my hands caressing her back. “I know.” My nose pressed into the top of her head, burying into her hair. “Maybe they thought he would? Maybe they thought they were protecting you? Or maybe they didn’t know?” I suggested, her fiery strands tickling my lips.
“That’s not the only thing they lied about,” she continued. “They lied to me about the letter I sent you.”
“Maybe not? Maybe she did send it, and it got lost.”
“But then why tell me that you intentionally didn’t write me back? Why work so hard to convince me you didn’t really care? Why not just say it might have been lost and have me send another? And it wasn’t just one letter. It was a lot. There is no way all of them were lost.”
I swallowed and squeezed her tighter. I had no response to that, no logical explanation to give her. “I don’t know, Haven,” I murmured.
I’m not sure how long we stood there. I lost track of time as the sun disappeared behind the treetops. She kept herself pressed against me, clinging to me, and I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted to stay like this with her for as long as she’d let me.
When she pulled away, her eyes scanned my face before looking down at my chest.
“Oh. Oh no. Shit, I’m sorry! I got tears and snot all over your clothes!” she exclaimed, her hands tucking into her sleeves and rubbing at my shirt.
I tilted my head down to look at the spot she was wiping at, and, sure enough, there was a big wet splotch on my chest from where she’d been resting her head.
I removed one hand from her back and took both of hers in mine to stop her unsuccessful attempts to clean my shirt. “It’s fine,” I told her. “I don’t mind.”
“It’s gross,” she said, scrunching her nose. “And embarrassing.”
“It’s fine,” I reiterated, shaking my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
Inside, my lycan was happy I stopped her, excited her scent would be on us until we returned home. I held back an exasperated sigh and an eye roll from his antics in my head. He was ridiculous.
“It’s not, though,” she continued. “I totally ruined our date.”
I tilted my head and quirked an eyebrow at her as she looked up at me. “I thought this wasn’t a date?”
She blushed and then sighed. “Maybe it’s a little like a date,” she conceded.
I smirked and pulled her closer with her hands. “Well, how about I take you on something that is a lot like a date on Friday?” I asked her, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her face and letting my fingers linger on her skin.
“There you go, being presumptuous again,” she teased, tilting her face up towards mine.
“So I’ll pick you up around six?”
“… Fine,” she muttered, but her smile betrayed her.
Our eyes stayed locked together, our faces close enough that if I wanted to, I could count the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. The flowery, fruity scent of her mixed with that of the cool evening air and the trees and the stream nearby, forcing all of my senses to focus on her and her alone.
I thought about closing the distance and giving in to the magnetic pull towards her that grew stronger the longer I was with her. It would be easy to lower my mouth to hers and give her a gentle kiss. Human, human, human, I chanted in my head, reminding myself that they didn’t move as fast as we did in relationships.
Her eyes flitted down to my mouth and then back up, and then she was out of my arms and back at the railing, fidgeting with her coffee cup.
“I should head home,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “Maya is probably getting worried.”
I held in my laugh. Maya wouldn’t be worried. She knew Haven was safe with me. She knew I was more than capable of protecting her, of taking care of her. And even if she did start to worry, she would just mindlink me to ask me what was going on. But Haven didn’t know that. Not yet, anyway.
I almost stumbled in my tracks as we walked. Fuck. I hadn’t thought about how or when I would tell her about that. About what I—what we all—really were.
I would have to make a plan for that. Maybe ask someone for advice. I racked my brain, trying to think who in our pack had a human mate, but I came up blank. I’d have to ask my mom. Which meant telling her about Haven. Which meant my dad would find out.
I nearly groaned as I grabbed her bag out of my truck for her. My dad. He wouldn’t care about her being human or me wanting her as my mate, but he would be mad that I didn’t tell him she was here. It had been almost a week that I had known, and I’d not said one word to them about it.
But I was going to need his help, anyway. I wanted to look into her parents. Find out if there was more to them than met the eye.
Haven stopped in front of her apartment building, and I pulled myself out of my panic so I could say goodbye to her.
“Don’t forget,” I said as I handed the bag to her. “Six o’clock.”
“I’m sure you’ll send me excessive reminder texts,” she joked.
“I won’t have to if you actually show up this time,” I teased back, crossing my arms.
“Well, it will be hard to not show since you’re picking me up,” she reminded me.
I chuckled and stepped into her personal space, my body only centimeters from hers, my hand cupping her jaw. “Just be ready,” I commanded. “Wear something nice.”
“Bossy,” she said in a breathy voice, the hairs on her skin standing on edge and her heart stuttering in her chest.
“You like it,” I replied.
“Do I?” Her eyes flashed with a challenge.
I inhaled through my nose, picking up a hint of her arousal from my proximity, my touch, and my aura. I leaned even closer so my lips brushed her ear. “Yes. You do.”
She swallowed, and I moved backwards, watching her as she turned to go into her building.
“Friday!” I called out to her as she stepped through the doorway, and she shook her head and laughed as the door shut behind her.