Page 22 of Sparks Flying

“What?” Dean asked.

I hadn’t realized I’d made a sound.

“Nothing.”

If he was too stupid to realize what was happening between us, then I wasn’t about to explain it to him.

He drove to a clinic and dropped me off with the receptionist. My heart sank when he turned and left. The physical pain I felt watching him leave was the worst yet. It wasa sign of a bond forming between us, but how could that just be a one-way thing? How could he not feel it as clearly as I did?

Tears stung my eyes. The lady at the front desk mistook it for tears of pain from my injury and rushed me back to a room to await the doctor.

Fortunately, he didn’t find anything wrong with me. He just cleared out the road rash, put a bit of ointment on it and told me to take it easy for an hour or so and then shift to let my wolf heal.

I felt like an idiot. I could have just done that to begin with. If Dean hadn’t been there distracting me, that’s exactly what I would have done.

“Thanks,” I told him and then left.

I had no idea how long I’d been gone, and I was sure Patrick was going to kick me out of the program for going AWOL.

You’re smarter than this, Bailey. Stop acting like an idiot,I scolded myself.

My phone rang, and in a daze, I answered without looking at the screen. I was positive it was going to be Patrick, or maybe Archie, ready to yell at me, but I was wrong.

“Hey Bailey.”

“Oscar, hey.”

I hadn’t expected to hear from him, figuring he was busy settling into college. That’s where I should be right now. I should be in college, meeting new people, having the time of my life, not stuck here in Ravenden with a mate that wants nothing to do with me. How could he just leave me there like that?

“Are you okay?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“What is it? Best friend here. We tell each other everything.”

It was true. Once upon a time, I thought maybe there was something between us. It hadn’t panned out, and we both knew we were better off as just friends. Besides, he was a tiger, and I was a wolf. It never would have worked.

I froze and then snorted.

“What’s so funny, Bails?”

“Remember when we used to think maybe a tiger and a wolf could make it in this world?”

He laughed. “Yeah. I love you, just not like that.”

“I know. But then we thought if Jenna and Chase, a panther and a wolf, could make it, then surely there were others like them.”

“A tiger and a mouse,” he said.

“A wolf and kangaroo.”

“A tiger and an elephant.”

My breath caught in my throat as a choked back a hysteric sob.

“A wolf and a freaking raven,” I yelled. My voice cracked, and I began to cry.

“Bailey?”

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