Page 115 of Knot All is Forgiven

My knees are weak as I stumble towards the door, my vision blurry with hot tears, when a strong, tattooed hand wraps around my upper arm.

"Rafe."

My name has never sounded so tortured on someone's lips.

"I'm just going to get a coffee or something. You be with Jordan."

He doesn't let go of me, his hand still tightly grasping my upper arm. I can't speak. If I let myself talk, I'll embarrass myself further and be unable to look him in the eye.

We're packmates. We have to get through this. We have to hold this together for Jordan.

I wrench my arm from his grip and start to leave the room when he grabs me again, spinning me around and pinning me against the wall.

"You can't just walk away from me," he growls. "You can't just leave."

"I have to, Simon. Please let me go." My words are rough as they squeeze past everything I long to say to him. "It's clear we were never on the same page."

His eyes flare with an emotion I'm terrified to identify. "You can't just leave," he repeats. "We have to work through this."

"There's nothing to work through. I thought, naively, that I could have you both. That's on me." I scrub my hand across my face, hoping to disguise the red that has no doubt risen to the surface. "I should not have pushed the issue when you made it very clear before that this wasn't something you wanted."

He slaps the wall beside my head in frustration. "It's not that simple!"

"It is, though, isn't it?" My voice sounds so small for an Alpha of my size. "It is simple. You care about me in that way, or you don't. Jordan has made it clear to me she's okay with this." His eyes flash with heat that he quickly smothers.

"Well, what about Cyrus?"

"Quit hiding behind the specter of a maybe. Maybe he'll be furious. Maybe he'll be uncomfortable. We cannot possibly know until we talk to him. Cyrus can't be your excuse." I drop my voice to barely a whisper. "Not again."

He shoves away from me and begins to pace, pulling on his green hair. "I don't know what I'm feeling, Rafe. You're my best friend, and it has been fucking miserable being away from you all these years. I don't want to mess this up. Mess us up. That's all I care about. Jordan deserves a functional pack."

We look across the sterile hospital room to where our Omega rests on the oversized bed. The monitor on her pulse is slow and steady, and we breathe a collective sigh of relief that our argument hasn't woken her.

I drop my voice to a low hiss. "And you don't think ignoring what happened between us will mess up the pack? You don't think it's going to kill me every time I see her kiss you in the way I fucking dream of? Seeing her lay her head on your chest and wishing I was right there beside her?"

The tears I have been holding back make good on their threat and rush down my face. "After all these years, Simon, can youreally, truly, say that what happened between us back then was just two guys fucking around?"

I watch as his Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. The silence stretches between us for so long that every second feels like an hour. Eventually, he shakes his head and turns his back to me, staring out the small window that lets in the early evening sun.

"I don't know what it was, but I wasn't using you. It's important to me that you know that you weren't just somewhere warm to rest at night."

It's so close to what I want to hear him say.

So close.

But not it.

"I love Jordan, Simon. I think you know that." I pull a scratchy paper towel from the dispenser above the sink and scrub my face with it. "I think you've always known how much I love her." He looks at me strangely, his hands hanging loose by his sides. "But you should know I love you too. I won't make this any weirder than it already is, so this is the only time I'll say it, but I wanted you to know."

"Rafe, I-"

"You don't have to say anything, Simon. I know a rejection when I receive one. It was stupid of me to try again."

A frustrated noise rips from his throat, and he grabs me roughly by the arm again. "Rafe." An Alpha bark slips through his lips. "Shut the fuck up for two seconds, please."

He stares at me, eyes searching for something I can't identify. His rigid body relaxes, and he drops my arm and steps back. "I … I felt something between us," he whispers. "In our pack bond. Back then."

My heart seizes with hope, but my brain tells it to chill the fuck out before it breaks into pieces.

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