Page 12 of That's the Way Rejection Goes

“I did it too,” I repeated. “When he was taking me to the bakery.”

Erick just stared at me.

“It was like you said… my wolf was going nuts, and I couldn’t stop myself. We didn’t do anything either, but he told me to go fuck myself and that I was a terrible mate to you. It wasn’t until he started getting upset that I even realized what was going on.”

“That… must be why he asked if we were in an open relationship.”

“I’m sorry, Erick,” I said, my emotionsbarelycontained. “I don’t know what happened and I should've told you, but I thought… I thought you’d hate me. I was starting to think he told you and you were just waiting for me to admit it. You deserve so much better than that.”

To my surprise, Erick didn’t pull away from me. In fact, his arms wrapped tighter around my waist. We didn’t say anything though. Instead, we just sat there, staring at the far wall, our hearts pounding side by side. I didn’t know what he was thinking but my brain was mostly full of self-loathing. The reason I didn’t have a mother at home was because my father cheated on her so many times she left the pack. A Luna leaving her Alpha mate was almost unheard of, but she’d done it. I’d vowed to myself long ago that I’d never be the kind of man my father was. And until Shifter Grove, I’d kept that promise. But now I felt horrible, like the biggest bastard on the face of the planet.

“What does this mean?” Erick finally asked, breaking my thought spiral. “About us? About Sam?” He glanced up at me. “Are we still mates?”

I leaned down, burying my face in his hair and inhaling deeply. His rich earthy scent filled me with love and affection, my stomach full of butterflies. I felt the electric spark between us and the tingle down my spine.

“Yes,” I replied. “We’re definitely still mates.”

“Why are we both so crazy about Sam then?”

“Honestly… I have no idea.”

Silence again.

“What if we…exploredthis pull?” Erick offered, sitting up beside me. He spoke quickly, like he had to get it out before his nerves gave in. “Only if you want to. I’m happy to drop it and never talk about him again if that’s what you want.”

I stared at him long and hard. “Are you sure we won’t hate one another when this is all over with?”

“There are three outcomes the way I see it,” he replied. “One, we have a threesome, it turns out to just be sex, and we go home together. Two, we explore this, and our entire lives fall apart, and we lose our free hotel room.”

“Oh god… What’s the third?”

Erick winced. “All three of us end up together?”

“Is such a thing even possible?”

“Honestly… I don’t know what this urge is and neither do you. My brain tells me it’s just sex and nothing more. But my gut is saying that there might be… somethingmore.” He reached out, taking my hand. “But I want us to make a pact right now that no matter what happens, we won’t let our relationship fall apart because of this, okay? If you or I start feeling weird, we call it off and that’s the end of it, deal?”

I thought about it for a long moment, trying to see the situation from every angle. However much confusion Sam presented, I knew there was one person I could always count on and that was Erick. No matter what happened between us, we were always going to be mates, and I would always want to spend the rest of my life with him. And with that knowledge firmly wedged in my heart, I answered him.

“Deal.”

Chapter Seven: Erick

“Alright,” I said, looking over at Calum as we rode the elevator down to the first floor. “Are we super sure we want to do this? There’s no going back from this if we all end up in bed together.”

“I like the confidence,” Calum replied, shooting me a nervous smile. “And I think I’m sure. But either of us can call it quits at any moment. No hurt feelings, right?”

I nodded. “Right.”

“What’s the approach?”

I furrowed my brows. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s already pissed at us. How are we gonna make him less pissed?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Tell him the truth?”

“Oh yeah. That always goes over well.”

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