'Would you calm down?' Are the first few words I get in between my mate just rambling while pacing while giving me the evil eye every once in a while. As if this is my fault.
'Have you seen me?!' he screeches, his hands wildly gesturing to his stomach. I can't help but laugh. I tried not to. Promise.
'Don't laugh! This is serious!' Of course I don't listen to him at all and pay for it a second later with a fist to my nose.
'Ow, what was that for?' My fingers are holding onto my nose gently, as if that would help. And this time, only an exhausted sigh follows.
'I'm sorry, I'm just ... confused.' He kneels down in front of me and removes my hands from my face to gently dab at my slightly bleeding nose. Is it weird that I get excited by the fact that my mate is strong enough to give a man a bloody nose? Although I could have probably done without being on the receiving end of that.
I reach up and hug him to me with a sigh of my own. 'I know love. I laughed because you are most definitely not showing. Apart from some very delicious abs.' And just to make my point, I playfully bite his ear. To my delight, he actually chuckles at that and proceeds to properly straddle me.
'Why is this so aggravating for you?' I ask quietly. His head is still lost somewhere in my neck, but he does slightly shift when he hears me.
'Why isn't it for you?'
I stay silent for a minute, humming in thought and I can't actually come up with a satisfying answer, I just know I'm not.
'Because I'm happy about it?' I try.
'Hmm, me too.' he then quietly admits.
'So where's the problem?'
'Have you seen me? I'm not exactly careful when it comes to this body.' He finally sits up a bit to look at me with stern eyes.
'Oh but I am.' I grin back. He only rolls his eyes.
'Let's not pretend you are.'
'Hey!' I say playfully, pushing him gently.
'Yo, no hurting the pregnant person!'
'So you think being pregnant gives you a free pass?' I mock, one eyebrow rising challengingly.
'Maybe' His eyes leave mine to trail down my upper body suggestively, only to then meet them again with a new glint.
Immediately I pull him up to my body, my hands on his butt and my mouth on his throat.
But before I can even do anything, there's a crash outside, loud enough to have both of us on our feet in seconds.
We run outside, only to be greeted by the sight of a screeching baby circus monkey, having to be restrained by two pack members.
'Let me go! I'm telling you I have a reason to be here! What the- let go of the merchandise you creep! Where's your decency, I'm a guest! Would you just-'
'Okay!' I say with a sigh, 'It's fine, I got it. He's a friend.' I let the two wolves know and they take the chance and flee. Not that I blame them, I would too if I could.
'Finally, you'd think they didn't know who I- AAAHHH' His screech hurts my ears, but I don't let go of him at all, keeping him in locked in my death hug until I'm being pried off by my mate.
'He can't breath Don.'
'Well, hi, I guess' Zach says, suddenly sheepish. I haven't seen him in all those years, yet he still came to find me, however he even knew where I'm staying.
'We're pregnant!' I scream and hug him again, out of pure happiness. I can feel Raph's annoyance and see him slap his own face out of the corner of my eye. Everyone that was walking by stops and just stares for a second, before whispering with one another. Some of them come up to Raph briefly to issue out congratulations, a slap on the shoulder and a hug even, but my mate just tightly smiles, really uncomfortable with the situation. I, on the other hand, am still hugging my best friend, who is now demanding a time out by tapping my back.
'You're pancaking what?', he finally screams, 'Who?!'
While I point over my shoulder at Raph, he just rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. Moody. How cute.
Zach whistles with his eye brows almost touching his hair line.
'Well, congratulations I guess.'
'Thanks!' I laugh while giving Raph a giant smooch on his check and then proceeding to hug him to me. He pretends to hate it, pouting while I repeatedly gave him butterfly kisses all over his face, until he eventually cracks and laughs before briefly kissing me back.
'Wow, you guys sure did grow close' Zach has a small smile on his face and he looks almost sad.
'What's up?' I say, walking back over to him.
He looks up into the sky, his hands on his hips and a strangely serious look on his face.
'it's just, we had no idea what happened to you for so long and then all of a sudden I get a phone call from your mum, telling me about this place. She didn't tell me you were this happy here.'
I smile back at him before reaching for Raph's hand behind me and it's there as if he knew I wanted to hold it before I did.
'This is home now, Zach. They took us in, fixed us up, let us stay and now ... here we are. We're mated now too.' Again, I can't suppress the smile that wants to come out so badly.
'Yeah, you're not kidding. I could smell that ages away. It's kinda gross really, since you're kinda my brother and all...'
'You're staying for a while I'm assuming?' I ask, choosing to ignore him being an idiot.
'That was the plan anyway. Gonna stop by your mum's on the way back as well. Just gotta take the long way around so they won't clock onto my having been here.'
I sigh again, feeling completely fed up with this stupid feud thing going on.
'Well, follow us then.' I say and start walking towards the woods, towards our home.
'How's mum?' I ask after a while. I don't know how much he stayed in touch with her, but if there's any update on her, I want to know.
'She's fine. Getting very absorbed in the task of raising the little rascal, but I'm sure you figured that out on your own already. She's worried. Has been since you left. She knew there were wolves following you that day, but she didn't have a choice since she had Sam. It was hard on her. For a while. She went through a tough few weeks and I think if you would have been on your own she would have probably completely lost it. But she's doing better. I'm down there a lot actually, just checking up on things, teaching the young one the way, you know.'
He tries to lighten the mood, but the guilt is there. My hand around Raph's tightens and only when he squeezes back do I begin to let up a bit. He purposely comes to walk closer to me, touch his shoulder to my own every so often, making sure I know he's here.
'Thank you for being with him.' Zach then says and it takes me a second to realise he's not talking to me anymore.
'Nowhere I'd rather be.' is Raph's quiet reply and I can hear the smile in his voice.
There's a moment of silence before Raph speaks up again.
'How is he really?'
At that, Zach actually laughs.
'He's a handful. Unbelievably smart, too. Would you believe that he's the only one that managed to find you over all those years? No, honestly, he's a great kid. Keeps your mum busy. Although, sometimes I wonder whether he does it on purpose because he knows how badly she's doing. He does miss you though. Talks to himself every so often, when he thinks no one's watching. Took me a while to figure out that he was talking to you. I stayed down there for a while after you left and I was seriously worried for a while, but he's strong. You should be proud.'
I can clearly see the tears on Raph's cheeks and I'm sure so can Zach, but he just looks straight ahead with a smile, not reacting at all. I move my hand from his and lay it over his shoulders, pulling him into me for warmth.
We're quiet the rest of the way, enjoying the filled silence of the forest and when we get to our home, Zach actually stops right in his tracks.
'This is where you live?' I laugh at his incredulous tone.
'Yeah, ever since we got here. That tree stump is where we recovered. Made a few changes to it so it's liveable, but we essentially kept it the same. We needed time and space for ourselves back then and the Alpha wouldn't let us live in the pack house anyway. And now we're just used to it.'
'It's beautiful.' he says, his voice full of awe.
'Speaking of, do you still live in the same place?' I ask, suddenly realising that I have no idea what happened to him ever since we left.
'No, I quit my job, moved closer to here and I'm now an author. You know I loved writing for the paper, but your mum needed a bit of support, so I came down.'
'You.. quit your job because of me? But you loved your life!' I say, not sure how to deal with this new information.
'Yeah, I did, but as I said, your mum is family, you are family, and you guys needed help, so I helped. Don't get me wrong though, I left because of that, but I stayed because I'm genuinely happy to, so forget about it.'
I want to argue, but we arrive at our house and the moment we set foot inside, there's a fur ball in my face. When all the hair is pried off me, I look into Elif's eyes, her small body being held up by Raph. She hangs in the air, her tongue flopped out with an adorable expression on her face. Then she starts yipping excitedly, thrashing around in Raph's hand with way too much energy.
'What she means to say', adds Randy from behind her, seemingly unhappily sitting on the floor by his grinning husband, 'is that we decided to grace you with our highly sought after presence as a gift of congratulations. Fuck's sake.' he adds the last part under his breath, but the Alpha immediately gives him a slightly less than gentle slap on the back of his head. Randy then proceeds to hit him hard in the stomach, rubbing his head and cussing all sorts of profanity you can think of at him. I sigh. Because also, Zach decides to open his big mouth right there and then.
'And who are these clowns?'