Page 22 of Not My Mate

"I don't care if a lot of people believe the moon's made of cheese. I'm not falling for it." He turned on his heel and stomped off to get cleaned up and changed.

My dad gave me a long look as I walked past. He shook his head, but he didn't say anything.

I guessed there really was nothing to say. Ashamed he'd heard me arguing with my mate, I couldn't meet his eyes.

#

Ikept quiet on the ride out of there. Charlie was driving; he liked to drive. It was a decent rental car, and I could sense his enjoyment in learning the feel of it. I wondered if he had a running commentary going in his head, test-driving, a professional car reviewer. If he did, he'd never share it with me.

I'd learned a lot on this trip. It was supposed to be about helping him connect with other wolves. That hadn't happened, had it? No, but I'd learned something, by god. I'd learned what he really thought of me and just how hopeless my feelings had been all along.

I'd learned he was probably a victim of sexual assault. It made me sick to think of someone hurting Charlie, but I knew it had happened to many people, that it wasn't confined to an unlucky few. It was hard to wrap my head around that, and I'd have stopped it all if I could have. But it had never occurred to me that it could've happened to Charlie. He always seemed so strong and capable, but he'd been younger once, and even now, he lacked confidence in dealing with people, in standing up for himself.

Except around me, of course. He could happily tell me off in the most abusive language available to him and not bat an eye.

He really did hate me, didn't he? I'd thought it was mostly friendly sparring, frustration boiling over into a quarrel sometimes, with sniping at each other, some wrestling. At least it wassomething, some interaction. At least he hadn't been ignoring me then.

But it had never been fun, not really. It had never been friendly. We weren't friends. He didn't love me. And would I ever get over that? It felt like I would be reeling from it forever.

I tried to think of something else, to not focus on my pain and how I could smell him but never have him. How close I was, and how far away. It was self-indulgent and stupid. He needed my protection, and I had to hold myself together until I was sure he was safe.

If need be, I could run off and lick my wounds for as long as it took. Singh wouldn't be happy with me for breaking up his team, but he was going to blame me for that, no matter what. And he wasn't my favorite person right now, anyway; I didn't much care what he thought of me.

I stared at the profile of the man I'd long considered to be my possible mate. How could I have gotten it so wrong? Normally, when a wolf felt that zing of attraction and rightness — well, it was mutual on at least some level. It was a hormonal thing as well as instinct, personality, intuition, many things all coming together. Was I that broken that I could have gotten it all wrong — that he felt nothing for me?

Or was it worse? Was it that he'd been so hurt by something in his past that he would never trust love again?

I knew the answer was probably both. I'd been wrong, and I was still wrong, because I couldn't give up the idea, and it clearly wasn't mutual, but Dad had been right, too. Somebody had hurt Charlie. He wasn't ready to even consider having a mate or loving anyone except Sahil Singh.

Singh was a good boss, really — tough but fair, and he truly cared about his employees. He could be extremely terse and demanding, and then he could turn around and be the sweetest guy in the world. I had secretly thought for some time that the reason Charlie liked the boss so much was that he wasn't intimidating at all with Charlie. He was a marshmallow where Charlie was concerned. The rest of the team, including me, had long ago acknowledged that Charlie was Singh's favorite. If there was bad news to be shared, we sent him. Singh wasn't an intimidating person sexually; he was small and cute, sure, and he was gentle with people he liked. He was really only fierce with people he didn't like, or when he was trying to be the tough boss. He never showed Charlie anything but devotion and kindness, and Charlie had somehow latched on to that and decided he was in love with the man.

Now, I privately wondered if it was partly because he knew Singh would never love him back. Yes, it hurt him to want a man who was always going to love somebody else. But if Singh hadn't been happily mated and married, if there had been some chance for them to actually get together, maybe Charlie wouldn't have liked him nearly so much. It was safe to love Singh because he knew deep inside that nothing was ever going to happen. Singh was never going to have sex with him; Singh was never going to do anything more than cuddle with him on cold nights.

Once, I'd have looked down on him for that. For being afraid of sex. Now, I thought about how much of an asshole I'd been to him for wanting what he could never have. Maybe he'd never wanted it at all. Maybe the safeness of Singh was the only thing that let him express love at all. Really, who was I to judge that? I hadn't lived his life.

Was Charlie really against the idea of having sex? Maybe he just wasn't wired that way. But I'd smelled the prickly need of his hormones more than once; the man couldwant. That didn't mean he'd ever want me, of course.

Once again, I found myself hating whoever had taught him not to trust sex, or himself, or love and mates. Asshole. I wished I could hurt them as badly as they'd hurt him!

But all I could do was make sure he survived this difficult time and then try to move on myself. I didn't know that I'd ever actually get over him. I really couldn't change what my wolf had decided, deep inside: that Charlie was the one for me.

But Dad was right; Charlie had a say in it, too. I didn't get to decide for both of us. I didn't feel like I even got to decide for myself. Surely it would be easier if I could step back and say "wrong call" and try to find a different mate. But, with the way I felt now, it was probably never going to come to pass. If three years of sniping and sparring with him and watching him moon after another man hadn't cured me, what could? I didn't think anything would.

I blinked back to reality as the car began to slow down. "Why are you stopping the car? Oh, no. Charlie, don't do it."

"I have to. Their car's broken down." Alongside the road was the pink car with the black stripes, its hood open and my two least favorite wolves looking at the engine. There was black smoke pouring out, and they looked a lot less full of themselves than normal.

Doug and Devin had gone to the same high school as I had. They'd been my enemies, and for more than being from a different pack. They were just all-around good old boy assholes. They'd made fun of me for being gay, and had tried every chance they had to trip me up or slam me into lockers, laughing and calling it "wolf horseplay" if anyone tried to stick up for me. Because a wolf can always handle himself, right? Bullshit. They'd been bullies, and as far as I could tell, they still were. I'd gone on to make a success of my life (more or less; at least in the job sense), while they were still joyriding around like stupid teens.

Now, Charlie was pulling the rental car up behind them on the side of the road.

He hopped out. "Let me take a look," he told them as he strode forward, confident that his help would be wanted and useful. That he was saving the day once again.

Vehicles and engines were the only area in which Charlie really seemed to have any confidence. The man was obsessed with engines, was happy working on them, and sometimes that seemed to be the only time he really felt comfortable.

It really was a good idea for him to open a car repair shop. But I would miss working with him. We were good together, on the job if nowhere else.

I sighed and followed him. Somebody had to keep Charlie out of trouble!