She Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 2)

Chapter 28: Ronnie

Of Aly’s triplets, Garrett is the one most drawn to me. Gabe likes my glasses, and Stirling seems to like to play with my hair, but Garrett follows me around, toddling after me everywhere I go, and when I sit down, he wants on my lap.

My no touching rules have never extended to children, even though my brain and body don’t seem to care. Stirling playing with my hair is the worst part because of how gently she does it, which is a good thing, but it makes my scalp itch and crawl and sends these weird, creeping sensations down my spine. I let her do it anyway, but there’s only so much I can take.

But Garrett is different. I’m sure he has no idea about anything going on inside me, but he handles me differently than his siblings do anyway. Instead of the light pats and touches of his siblings, he’ll press himself firmly against me, almost as if he needs to feel grounded as much as I do. He doesn’t mess with my hair, although sometimes he will wrap it over his face and then quietly cuddle against me enjoying his makeshift privacy curtain, and he doesn’t seem to feel the need to poke literally every inch of my face and smudge my glasses.

Which is why by Sunday, it’s kind of become a routine of ours to take designated cuddle breaks away from the others. I think he might need the sensory breaks from his siblings as much as I do. We go to the nursery, which is in the bedroom just off the master suite. It’s all set up for the twins now, and the triplets sleep in another room, but we only go there for the rocking chairs anyway.

That’s what we’re doing when I hear someone knocking at the front door downstairs, but knowing that there are other people down there who can answer, it doesn’t inspire me to move an inch. I just keep rocking with Garrett, enjoying his warmth and that sweet smell that all small children fresh from a bath seem to have.

I hear people talking faintly, but this room is specifically designed to be isolated from a lot of the sounds through the rest of the house, so I know there’s no point in trying to figure out any details of who it is or what they’re saying.

“Jay Jay,” Garrett says quietly against my chest.

“Oh?” I respond to him, same as I would have if he had said pretty much anything else.

It doesn’t click what he means by it until I hear a soft knock at the doorway and look up to see Jason standing there. The kids must call him Jay Jay, and Garrett must have heard him talking.

“Is it alright if I join you?” Jason asks uncertainly, almost timidly. “It hit me after I was already here that I should have texted you a heads up, but it was an impulse decision to come here from my office.”

“It’s fine,” I assure him. “You can come in and pull up a rocker.”

“Thanks,” he chuckles. “I think I will.”

And he does, sitting in the one right next to me. If I put my arm on the arm rest of my chair, it might touch the side of his arm that is resting against the arm of his own chair.

“Is Jay Jay what they call you?” I feel compelled to ask, now curious. It also could have been just a strange coincidence.

“Uh, sometimes. The boys do, mostly. Stirling just calls me Jason, and with Gabe it varies. Sometimes it’s Jay Jay, sometimes just Jay, and if he’s annoyed with me, he’ll call me ‘hey you’ or ‘boy’ or whatever his stubborn brain comes up with.”

“What could you possibly do to annoy a two-year-old enough to lose your name?” I laugh.

“Tell him no,” he shrugs. “That one’s definitely the Alpha.”

“Do you think Aly used to be like that?” I can’t help wondering now that he mentions it.

The way she is now, I can’t picture her ever being that way, but that’s not to say that I haven’t seen her stubborn and bossy potential. The fact that I am where I am now is proof of that.

“She was in school by the time I came along, so I couldn’t say from experience,” he tells me, giving me a coy smile, “but I also wouldn’t say even if I could because she’s my Alpha.”

I know he’s just teasing though. They’re good friends, and I know he doesn’t fear for his job the way he’s pretending. So, I just shake my head and smile back at him, still rocking my little buddy who seems to just be quietly listening to us talk.

“You’re different now,” Jason says after a few seconds of studying me and watching me blush under the scrutiny of his gaze. “I liked you before, but I have to say that this more comfortable, confident version of you is nice too.”

“It’s deceptive also,” I tell him. “And by that I don’t mean I’m deceiving you. I just mean you’re not seeing the whole story. The discomfort is still there, but I’ve learned to fight through it some. But if you look closely, you’ll see the signs.”

I hold up my hand that is nearest to him to show him how much it is shaking.

“And in my head, it’s a whole other story than what you see on the outside. It’s still noisy like before, but I guess you could say it’s more of an organized chaos.”

He smiles, glancing at my head as if he can somehow see what’s going on inside it, though that might just be my self-consciousness getting to me.

“That actually makes a lot of sense, or as much as it’s going to make to someone who hasn’t lived it,” he says thoughtfully. “But still, there are times like last night when we were talking, and almost every word out of your mouth was surprising the hell out of me from how bold it was. You were large and in charge.”

From the way he’s smiling and looking at me, his eyes shining with appreciation and maybe even pride, I know he’s not complaining. I still can’t fight back the blush I feel rising to my cheeks though, or resist the urge to chew my lip, a nervous tic of mine that I’ve been trying to get rid of.

“Yeah, that was something. I don’t know what got into me,” I tell him, feeling almost embarrassed even though he was obviously pleased by it. “I think you texted me at just the right time because I’d just been lying in my bed going over everything in my head and feeling all kinds of emotions about it all. Not just the stuff with you, but everything. School, my family, my roommates, everything. And when you texted was right about when I was feeling so frustrated and angry with myself, just absolutely fed up with how I am, how I was, how I wish things were. Then we started talking and it felt like we were spinning the same old wheels as before, and I just. I don’t know. A bunch of stuff I used to talk about with my old therapist started coming out of my mouth, and it felt kind of good, so I just went with it.”

He’s giving me a look I can’t quite read. A thoughtful one, possibly deciding how to respond.

“You should have seen how my hands were shaking then,” I laugh, blushing again and feeling uncomfortable from how he’s still looking at me. “It’s a good thing I had the privacy of the phone to hide behind. I don’t think I ever would have said all that in person.”

I cuddle Garrett to me a little closer and feel him sigh and mumble against me as if he’s asleep. I think he might be.

“I’m pretty glad you went with it,” he says at last. “It did feel pretty good, and I think it was the right thing to do and exactly what we needed. We covered a lot of ground with just that one conversation. It might even have taken us a whole year to get through that much the way things were going before, so don’t feel sorry or try to take it back now. You did good, and I really hope you can dig in and be that comfortable with me more often.”

Then he smiles sheepishly as if he’s caught himself saying the wrong thing and adds, “By comfortable, of course I mean the outward appearance of comfort. Doing whatever it is you do to fight through and say what’s on your mind. I loved that, Ronnie. And it felt really good to finally be able to put a lot of what’s been on my mind out there too, so I should be thanking you.”

He laughs, turning himself in his chair slightly so he can look at me more directly.

“Actually, I will thank you for that. Thank you, Ronnie, for being the brave one and taking that giant step forward for both of us.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, laughing off the awkward discomfort I feel.

“Speaking of brave, I kind of just did a thing that I suppose you could say is brave, considering that it might result in my death or dismemberment,” he tells me, and I’m getting the sense that though he’s joking, whatever it is kind of stresses him out.

I automatically hold my breath a little, nervously waiting for him to explain.

“So, I guess let me go back a little because I also feel like I need to say a bit more about that girl you saw with me last night, which is related to the other thing.”

Just mentioning her makes me tense a bit. I’ve been trying to put that image out of my mind all night and day.

“Did you want to put him to bed or something? I think he’s asleep,” Jason points out.

Maybe he’s even a little bit concerned that I’m going to over-squeeze Garrett from how stressed out this conversation is about to make me, which doesn’t bode well. I won’t though.

“No, I think I’m going to need him for this. It already sounds like it’s going to be intense.”

“You’re going to need him?”

“To hold onto. He’s kind of like my comfort object at the moment,” I explain.

I know how ridiculous it sounds, but it’s true. I feel better just in general about talking to Jason with Garrett pushed up against me and keeping my body both busy and blocked off, but especially if we’re about to delve into anything more emotional than we already have.

“Your comfort child?” he teases, and I can’t help smiling because that is a cute way to put it.

“Sure, we’ll go with that. He’s my comfort child,” I agree, adjusting the weight of said child ever so slightly.

“Okay,” he chuckles softly. “Well, if you and your comfort child are ready, I just want to explain who she is. I find it upsetting, but I promise you she’s nothing for you to worry about. She’s the niece of one of my mom’s friends, and my mom invited her to our family dinner last week. Jamie, that’s her name, she got it in her head that there was some potential between us that if she could just convince me to get on board with, could be ‘a lot of fun,’ in her words.”

He sighs, leaning forward in his chair so that his forearms are resting on his knees.

“But I’m not interested, and each time she came at me, I made that clear to her. But each time, she got more persistent about it,” he explains. “Last night, she showed up out of nowhere and forced herself on me. I don’t know how much you saw, but I hope you saw the part where I told her to back off and my brother had to drag her away by the arm because she wouldn’t leave. Finn was already fighting to take over, so I was afraid that he’d seriously hurt her if I tried to remove her myself.”

“I didn’t,” I admit regretfully because I wish I had seen that part. “I was looking over when she came up to you and kissed you, and I got the wrong idea. I couldn’t bear watching after that. But Aly told me she’s someone who just keeps harassing you and you’re not interested, and then when I saw Finn come charging out all upset and ticked off, I couldn’t deny the proof right in front of me. I know you control him pretty well, so for him to come out like that means it’s bad.”

“It was, and I didn’t like it any better than him. She’s been ruining my week, and then that,” he sighs, sitting up and turning to look at me again. “Honestly, I’m beyond just mad. I feel violated. I wanted you to be the first and only person to ever kiss me.”

That strikes a chord in me. A few, actually, and I kind of wish I had taken his advice and put Garrett in his bed. Because now, I wish I could touch him. He’s obviously upset and hurting, and I’m angry too. I didn’t know he was so untouched, but now that I do, I kind of want to wring that Jamie girl’s neck. She stole from me.

And then there’s the part about him being that untouched. It’s something I’ve wondered a long time, how experienced he is and what other kinds of girls he’s been interested in, but now I have my answer. I like that answer. It’s both comforting and thrilling that he’s no more experienced than I am, which means that someday, we might be able to explore it all together.

But since I stubbornly decided to hold onto Garrett and keep a physical boundary between Jason and I, I have to shift in the chair a little bit and rest Garrett more to my right side so that I can free up my left arm. Jason watches me, I think trying to get a read on what’s going through my head, which is understandable. He just dropped a bomb, and I have a lot of feelings about it.

He’s surprised when I suddenly reach for his hand, though. He actually flinches, his mouth gaping open, though he quickly recovers and clutches it tightly in his own.

“Thank you,” he tells me a bit breathlessly, sincere gratefulness and relief written all over his face. “Ugh, Goddess how I’ve missed this.”

“I’m pretty ticked off about Jamie stealing that kiss from me,” I admit to him what is probably the most important feeling I’m having about it all. “And mad at myself that we’ve known each other for so many years and she still had that available to take from me.”

He lifts our joined hands up to his face and kisses the back of mine, almost immediately freezing and panicking when he realizes what he just did.

“It’s okay,” I assure him, and watch him visibly relax.

It kind of makes my heart hurt to see how much he restrains himself on my behalf, and how worried he gets when instinct and automatic behavior win the war within him. I feel like I owe him, especially after all my talk last night about speaking our minds and not holding anything back, which is why I decide to give him more than just a simple reassurance.

“That felt good,” I reveal to him what I was just realizing myself. “When our hands touch, all those bothersome sensations that are just passively there for me, they quiet down. I don’t feel the tingles and the electricity that I’ve read you’re supposed to feel from touching your mate, but it still feels better than usual. But when you kissed my hand, it tingled. A pleasant tingle, not an annoying buzzing tingle.”

“That’s amazing,” he smiles, squeezing my hand a little extra. “Thank you for telling me that. I was actually feeling bad for not asking you first.”

“It’s okay. I know you meant it to be comforting, and it turns out it was.”

I smile back at him, watching as he leans his head back against the cushion and exhales, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Alright, so. The ‘brave’ thing I did,” he continues his story from before. “I called my mom just before I came here because I wanted to tell her to stop inviting random she-wolves to dinner, especially not Jamie. And there was this whole back-and-forth thing we did, but she eventually relented about Jamie, but only her. She immediately moved on to trying to come up with somebody else to invite, and I ended up blurting out that you’re here, which by the way, was not the brave thing. She immediately pounced on it though, insisting that I bring you to dinner with me tonight, and then she hung up. There will be no further discussion about it. In her mind, we’re coming.”

He takes one look at my face and what must seem like panic written all across it, and hurries to explain, “We’re not going though, don’t worry. That’s the brave thing. We’re skipping. Or actually, I should say I’m skipping. It’s mandatory for me, and I never meant to obligate you to have to go. But I am skipping, and I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me instead. For anything. Ice cream, books, movie, dinner, walking around, I don’t care. We could even not go anywhere at all and just hang out. All I know for sure is I’m not going to dinner.”

All of that came out so jumbled and fast that I’m still processing it once he finishes. But there are a few key points that I picked up on. His mom invites random women like Jamie to dinner, and he made it seem like it happens often. Why? And why didn’t he mention that before when he was telling me about Jamie? Why did he feel a need to ‘blurt out’ the part about me, and why did he immediately assume I wouldn’t want to go?

Wait, no. That last part is a bogus question, and I know it. I know why he assumed that, and he’s right. It’s too soon. That doesn’t mean I won’t eventually be able to go, though. It sounds important. It might be another thing on the list of what I owe him, because it kind of sounds like another thing he’s been suffering through because I’ve been absent from his life.

“Why is your mom so insistent on setting you up with these women?” I ask, because I’ve concluded that’s what he’s alluding to happening here.

He scoffs, rolls his eyes, and then lets out a heavy sigh before he finally answers that.

“Because my parents know I found my mate years ago. They also know the bare bones of our history, mostly that you’ve been away at school and that’s why we’re not together yet, and they think I’m being silly waiting around for you. They didn’t think you’d ever come back for me, and …”

He kind of trails off, struggling with whatever he was about to say there.

“I don’t know how much you know about ranked wolves and the sort of hierarchy we have within the pack,” he continues after a few seconds, “but there are traditions to it all, and both official and unofficial duties for all the ranked wolves. One of the things you might not realize about me, as the Gamma, and about my family in general is that the Levitts have a long history of providing the next Gamma for every Bentley Alpha. Not only am I the current Gamma, but I’m also the only one of my father’s sons with any chance of having biological heirs, which means that’s on me. And the next Alpha has already been born.”

He watches me intently as I mull over what he’s saying. I get it. I’m not so slow as to miss the point he’s driving at. His parents want him mated, like now, so he can get started on making the next Gamma, and they don’t seem to care how he feels about any of it. And this is a burden he’s been carrying alone since the day we met.

“I wish I really was the brave, confident version of me you think I am so that I could be bold enough to say, ‘hey, we’re going to that dinner and we’re going to show those parents of yours once and for all,’ but I’m not,” I finally respond.

He sighs, squeezing my hand gently and bringing it to his face again, watching to see if I’ll stop him before he kisses it again. I don’t. I like those tingles.

“That’s not even what I want, Ronnie. In my mind, not going is how we show them once and for all that we have our own thing going, and we’re going to do it in our own way.”

That makes me feel warm in a way I can't entirely explain because I don't entirely know what it means. I like what he just said, though. That much I'm sure of.

“I don’t disagree, and I also like that plan way better,” I tell him. “But I just wish that we didn’t have to create a rift between you and your family in the process.”

He shakes his head, giving me a determined look as he says, “My parents, especially my mother, are the ones who did that. Not you. And frankly, I’m glad for the excuse to skip and hang out with you instead.”

“Honestly, me too,” I agree, glancing down at our linked hands.

Especially if it means more of this, which seems to feel even better now than I remember from before. But I really don’t feel like going out, not even for something simple like walking around, even if it means I get to hold his hand.

“You said a night in is an option?”

“Absolutely,” he grins his assurance.

“Then I suppose I should take my comfort child to his bed now, so we can go and find something good to watch.”

“Sounds perfect, Ronnie,” he tells me, smiling at me affectionately as he stands and reaches down to take Garrett from me so I can get up.

It takes a second for it to register, but I realize after he’s already turned away and carrying Garrett off to his bed that I recognize the smile he was just giving me. He liked seeing me holding someone’s baby, and I bet he’s now adding our pups to that fantasy life he was describing to me last night. That was a baby fever kind of smile.