Page 44 of The Cuddle Clause

Roman

I didn’t move. I stood on the bottom step, arms crossed over my chest to keep myself from unraveling. The street was unnervingly quiet.

Eric looked like a picture someone forgot to erase. Too clean, too polished. He belonged to a version of Maggie that didn’t exist anymore. The bouquet in his hand was shaking slightly, but his voice was steady.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought ending things would be merciful. But seeing you now, seeing the way you are…” He took a step closer to her. “I’ve never seen you this happy, Mags. Never seen you more… you. Not in all the time we were together.”

My spine stiffened at the nickname. Maggie flinched, almost too subtly to notice, but I caught it. Because I was watching every twitch, every breath.

Eric looked at me again, some half-hearted apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry to do this in front of you, man. I really am. But you have to understand… Maggie and I go way back. We have history.”

I didn’t answer right away. What was there to say?

I raised my hands, stepped back, gave him a small shrug like it didn’t matter. Like this didn’t matter. “Be my guest,” I said. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

I opened the apartment door and stepped inside, leaving the door ajar. I stood there, just past the frame, hand still on the handle.

And I listened.

“You don’t have to answer right away,” Eric said, voice low and soft like he was trying to thread his way back into her. “I miss you. And I want to try again. Please. Just think about it.”

The silence that followed felt like a stone dropping into water. No splash. Just the slow ripple of it spreading through my chest.

I let go of the door and walked into the kitchen, bracing both hands against the counter. My heart was thudding against my ribs in that ugly, unsteady way it did when I was trying too hard not to feel something.

Of course this was happening. Of course. I should’ve seen it coming.

You lie to your pack. You fake a bond. You pretend the girl you’ve been falling for every day for weeks is just a roommate, just a friend, just a convenient storyline.

You spend all your energy holding it all together, and then the one thing you don’t account for, the one variable you can’t control, shows up holding a goddamn bouquet of flowers and ruins everything.

Because he doesn’t have to fake it.

Because he had her first.

And for all I knew, he’d have her again.

I gripped the back of my neck. The itch was back. That feral, scraping thing under my skin that came with wanting something I couldn’t have. That I shouldn’t want. But I did. I wanted her so badly that my stomach ached.

I couldn’t stop seeing her on the dance floor: The way her dress shimmered under the lights. The way her laugh punched straight through my ribs like it belonged there.

I’d tried so hard not to hold onto that moment too tightly.

I should’ve held tighter.

Everything was unraveling. Slipping right through my hands like I’d never had a grip on any of it in the first place.

My pulse thundered in my ears. My jaw ached from how tightly I was clenching it.

I paced the length of the kitchen, each stride sharp and filled with rage.

I didn’t even know who I was mad at. Myself.

Eric. Seraphina. Lucien. The whole damn pack.

I curled my fingers into fists and released them again. Over and over. Breathing through my nose like that was supposed to help. I tried grounding myself. Scent. Sound. The faint citrus of the dish soap. The low hum of the fridge. The creak of the wood beneath my bare feet.

None of it worked.

The walls felt too close. The ceiling too low. My skin itched like it didn’t fit right. I was about three seconds away from shifting and bolting out the door when I heard the front door open, then close softly.

Maggie.

I froze, hands braced against the edge of the counter. My breath caught in my throat like it didn’t know what to do next. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t have to.

She was crying. That soft, aching sound of someone trying not to break and failing anyway cracked something in me.

I wanted to ask what happened. If he hurt her. If she was okay.

I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

Instead, I went into my bedroom and shut the door behind me. If she was crying over him… If she was crying because she’d told him yes, then I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t.

The pain knifed through my chest, sharp and fast, before settling into something dull and suffocating. My feet carried me to the center of my room like they didn’t know where else to go.

What the hell was I doing?

Why had I allowed myself to get this deep? Why had I allowed her to mean this much to me?

I pressed my palms to my eyes and breathed in hard through my nose, trying to smother the ache behind my ribs with oxygen alone.

It didn’t work.

My wolf was restless, pacing inside me like he wanted out. Wanted to tear through the woods and chase something. He wanted to let instinct take over so I didn’t have to feel.

But I didn’t shift, because what if Maggie needed me?

What if she knocked on my door, needed to talk, needed comfort, needed anything, and I wasn’t here?

The thought made me sick.

So I moved to Plan B. I dragged the old treadmill from the corner, plugged it in, and cranked it to its highest setting.

I stripped down fast and shifted, fur exploding across my skin in a rush of magic and heat. Bones cracked and rearranged. My senses sharpened. The second I landed on four paws, I jumped on the belt and ran.

Hard. Fast. Relentless.

The pounding of my paws against the rubber blurred with the sound of my own thoughts screaming in my head.

I ran like I could outrun all of it. The lies we’d told.

The way she’d looked at me before Seraphina exposed us.

The silence that had stretched between us in the car.

The ache that bloomed in my chest when I watched her crying and walked away.

I closed my eyes and imagined the forest. Pine and oak and thick underbrush. Wind in my fur. Moonlight through branches. I imagined the animals parting for me, clearing the path, letting me run without consequence.

I didn’t want to think anymore. Didn’t want to feel.

The door swung open.

My eyes snapped up, my head turning just enough to catch her standing there, framed in the doorway like a goddess of chaos and confusion and heartbreak.

“What the actual fuck is going on?” she asked, her eyes wide, her expression somewhere between horror and disbelief.

I didn’t stop running. I couldn’t. If I stopped, the feelings would catch up to me again. So I just… grunted. That was all I could give her.

She looked between me and the treadmill and my pile of clothes in the corner.

“I’m going to pretend I never saw this,” she muttered, backing out of the room slowly, “and I’m going to bed.”

The door clicked shut again.

I stared straight ahead, breath heavy, paws never slowing.

Fuck my life.