Page 48 of Someone Else's Wolf

I watched him go, feeling cold inside, a churned-up hurricane of indignation and delight, hope and fear coming to life again all at once. Peter wasn't the asshole I'd thought he was. It was worse than that, more mixed up and miserable.

And because he hadn't known I loved him, and now he did. Or at least that I once had.

Did I still? The way my heart was beating with anger and defensiveness on his behalf, the way it felt when I touched him — yeah, it was probably fair to say I still loved him.

Fat lot of good that does either of us!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I was used to the smell of the hospital by now, but sometimes I wondered why Kirk didn't cover his face and run away at the first scent of it. I glanced at him, but his face was stoic, as usual; probably, he'd smelled it far sooner than I had. And he was definitely tougher than I was.

He worked in a room as nearly scent-free as the hospital could provide. Clients weren't to wear perfume, the room wasn't cleansed with any scented chemicals, and so on. That was all to prevent his diagnosis tool — his nose — from being hampered in any way.

But we still had the rest of our time to get through the hospital, the bureaucracy, and such. He wouldn't eat at the cafeteria if he could help it, and I tried to let everyone think he was just too picky, too strict a vegan. But since I'd once seen him pick the chicken off a salad so he could eat the rest, I didn't think that was the case. He just hated being inside the hospital any longer than necessary — and he definitely didn't want to eat their food.

We either ate packed lunches, sitting at a picnic table or on a bench or the grass of a nearby park, or we went to a small restaurant. Since he hated crowds, and the good places to eat around here were very crowded, that left the shitty restaurants. We usually didn't go to a restaurant.

"You're distracted today," said Kirk. "Keep your head in the game."

"I will," I promised. Then I added, "Sorry."

Kirk made a rough sound in his throat, scolding me without a word. He knew what was up. Damn it. "You need to get over that guy or do what it takes to get him back in your life." He didn't look at me as he said it, and his words were annoyed (and annoying).

But he had a point.

"I know." I sighed. What could I possibly do about it, though? I'd told Peter how I felt. I still hadn't met the man who didn't love him but had some hold on him that he might never be free from.

Most of me wanted to hate and demonize the guy, and it would be pretty easy to do so. But there was a point somewhere in all that mates stuff where Peter had chosen him, and continued to choose him by staying with him.

Yes, I wanted to stalk the bastard and take him down in some clever way, freeing Peter, who would then fall into my arms with a "My hero!" and lots of kissing, and then our lives would evolve into endless happiness and lots of amazing sex. But the fact was, I couldn't choose for Peter. He'd picked; he'd chosen his "mate." And unless he un-chose him, I had to stay away.

Peter knew how I felt; he knew I cared about him. The fact that he hadn't realized it before made me wonder just how screwed up he was. But he wasn't a child, he was an adult, and he needed to make his own choices. My further horning my way into this messed-up relationship wouldn't help. It wouldn't make me happy, and it wouldn't get him away from the guy who was apparently allowed to waltz into his life and take control any time he could get out of jail.

That was a mess. It was enough of a mess to make me wonder if Peter wasn't actually compromised as a police officer. The S&P must've thought the guy would never get out, or they hadn't realized just how much of a hold he had on Peter. No way they'd have let Peter join if they'd realized.

But again, it wasn't my business. I had no say in the matter, and I wasn't going to be Peter's FWB on the side, now that I knew that was what I'd been.

When had I gotten such a strong moral stance? Who the fuck knows. Maybe when I fell in love. You'd think that would give me less dignity and more willingness to bend to please Peter. But this was something I just couldn't budge on.

Maybe if I hadn't actually loved him so much, maybe if it had been casual for me, I wouldn't have blinked. His having a mate wouldn't have mattered. I'd have found a way to keep seeing him, and shoved down any guilty prickles of conscience about being with a more or less married man. But because I did care so much, I couldn't do that.

And I couldn't do what Kirk said I should, either: fight for my man, or let him go. I was always going to care about him, and I wasn't going to fight for him. I had to step back and let Peter have his life. Maybe I thought his mate was an abusive bastard, but I had a good reason to think that, didn't I? The fact was, Peter could get away from him if he wanted to.

He could probably break the bond, but whether he could do that or not, he could still refuse to let the guy stay in his home, his life, and boss him around when he was out of jail and able to do so. He could man up and say, "Nope, no open relationships here. You're my mate, and that's final," and a lot less miserable.

Yes, emotional abuse and manipulation were real things. And yes, Peter could easily have been brainwashed by someone who'd gotten his claws into him at such a young age. But his pack hadn't intervened, his workplace hadn't intervened, and as much as his partner Sue wanted to change things, she couldn't intervene, either.

The fact was, he wasn't doing anything wrong or evil by staying with the guy out of loyalty, even if I thought he was misguided and wasting his life. It wasn't my call, and interfering any more at this point — let alone stalking or threatening his partner, or begging Peter to leave him — weren't going to change anything except to help me make more of a fool of myself than ever.

So, yes, Kirk had a point. And I was staying away. Fighting for his love? Nope. I was walking away after letting him know how I felt. No matter how I felt about him, he had to make his own choices, and I had to let him.

But this wasn't something that was going to just slide off my radar. It wasn't something I could just get over. I'd probably always care about Peter, damn it, even when time had passed and I'd managed to move on. I wasn't totally pathetic; I would eventually find someone who wanted all of me and only me, someone I could feel the same way about.

But in some sense, Peter was my first love. It was weird, but true. I'd never felt about anyone else the way I felt about him. Never as deep, never as real. I'd fought it at first, frightened by those feelings, especially since they weren't returned. It hadn't been something I'd sought out.

But I wasn't ashamed now. It hadn't been wrong to love Peter, even if he couldn't love me back, even if I hadn't known the whole messed-up story, even if I couldn't be with him now that I did.

It wasn't wrong of me to care; it wasn't wrong of me to want what I'd wanted.