Chapter 13: {12}

Brody skipped breakfast the next morning, unable to face the fact that Nate would be there. He didn’t want a reminder of what happened the night before. He wanted to focus on the fact that it was a mistake, that they couldn’t possibly be mates. It wasn’t possible, it just wasn’t.

He decided that it was all in his head the night before, that today he would see Nate and those feelings and that connection would all be gone. He hoped that he would look at him and just see the friend that had been kind to him, just see another Alpha.

Something deep in his stomach told him that he was wrong.

Yet, he pushed away that thought and left his room, emerging into the hallway with his history note book tucked under one arm and a blue pen lightly grasped in the other. He passed a couple of other last years as he walked along the narrow corridor, most of them looking like they were running on less than an hours sleep with the way that their hair was dishevelled and the deep, dark circles under their dull eyes. Brody doubted that he looked much different to them, seeing as he also had minimal sleep the night before.

The grounds were as crowded as usual, and every dark haired boy that past would send Brody’s heart pounding in his chest until he realised that the strangers were not Nate.

Brody shared this class with Nate, and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to face him today, but, he knew the odds of that were unlikely. He walked up to the classroom somewhat apprehensively, the pen in-between his fingers was being twisted around with every nervous step that he took. Brody kept telling himself that it would be fine, that the connection would be gone when he saw Nate.

The classroom door was open when he reached it, and it seemed that the class was already in. Brody walked into the room and looked around, seeing the rows of mostly filled desks and the teacher who was looking at him from the front of the room.

‘Take a seat Mr Lewis,’ the teacher said, gesturing to the couple of spare seats at the back. She was a short, petite woman who was very obviously an omega. Brody would have known it just from looking at her. She had bright blonde hair and a hard smile which seemed to quiet even the rowdiest of students.

Brody took her advice, sitting in one of the chairs in the very back row.

He had just sat down when the person in front of him turned around, and Brody was surprised to see that it was Lucy. He had forgotten that she also shared this class with them. Her fiery red hair was in a high pony tail today, and it seemed to whip around her as she moved her head.

‘Hey Brody,’ Lucy smiled at him.

‘Hey,’ Brody replied.

‘Have you spoken to Nate this morning?’ Lucy asked, twirling one of her red ringlets around her slender finger.

Brody shook his head quickly, his eyes flickering down to his fidgeting hands, ‘No, no I haven’t. Why?’

‘No reason,’ Lucy said warily, ‘Are you alright?’

‘Me? I’m fine,’ Brody told her, but he wasn’t quite sure.

Lucy looked apprehensive but nodded anyway, turning around in her chair.

The class started, their teacher making her way to the front of the room to start writing on the board. Brody looked around the room and wondered where Nate was.

His mind seemed to wonder without permission, and thoughts jumped around his mind. Was Nate hurt? Was that why he wasn’t in class?

Anxiety flooded his veins as he pictured his mate somewhere, all alone and in danger.

Brody pushed back the panic.

Nate is not my mate. Nate can make his own choices. Nate is just being himself and not caring about classes, this isn’t exactly new behaviour. Nate is fine.

Brody focussed on his class, but as the teacher told him of the formation of the werewolf government his mind kept drifting. He would listen and take notes but then Nate’s face would pop into the forefront of his mind. He thought about Nate’s dark hair and the way that it fell in front of his eyes in the wind, and the way that Nate looked at him like he had value, like they were equals. No one had ever looked at Brody like that.

Then Nate’s teary eyes were all that Brody could see, and he angrily slammed his hand down on the desk, frustrated. The sound echoed throughout the room and seemed to bounce back towards Brody and his eyes widened in shock as he realised the scene he had just inadvertently caused.

‘Is there a problem Mr Lewis?’ The short, blonde teacher asked with an accusing glance.

Blood rushed to Brody’s cheeks for a moment and he bit at his lip. Brody then tentatively looked up to see that almost the entire class had their eyes on him, ‘Uh, no.’

The petite lady gave him a condemning look before turning back to the whiteboard where she had been writing up some main points. Most of the student’s eyes turned back to their books, all but Lucy’s green eyes, who were looking at Brody with a curious expression.

‘Are you alright Brody?’ Lucy asked in a whisper.

No, I’m not alright because my entire world is turning upside down, was what Brody wished to say, but he held his tongue.

‘I’m fine,’ he muttered, turning his eyes back down to his almost blank notebook. He could feel Lucy’s eyes on him for the first few moments but eventually she turned back to her book also and Brody let out a breath. He needed to figure all of this out before all of this started interfering with his learning. There was only three and a half weeks of this left, and all of this confusing mate stuff was getting in the way.

‘Okay class, make sure that you keep up with the readings and I’ll see you all next week,’ the petite woman dismissed them.

Brody gathered up his books in a hurry and practically ran out of the classroom, deciding that he had to find Nate. He fortunately didn’t have to look too hard to find him, as the second that he entered the hallway he could feel Nate. It was the connection, no doubt about it. It was like a pull that promised safety at its destination.

Brody looked around and locked eyes with Nate. The other boy was standing against the wall of the corridor. He was leaning against the white wall casually, but his fingers were fidgeting and his coffee coloured eyes looked dull and tired, like he hadn’t slept at all last night. The dark circles under his eyes attested to that, the darkness of the skin causing his face to look ghostly in comparison.

Nate walked over to Brody the second that their gazes met, and Brody walked towards him too. They met in the middle, surrounded by a sea of Alpha’s who were running off to their next classes.

Brody could feel it, the tangible connection between them. He could smell Nate, even amongst the sea of scents in the packed corridor, he could still pick out the light musky scent that was uniquely Nate. He felt this need to go to him, to have Nate wrap him up in his muscular arms and tell him that it was all going to be okay. It was like there was this underlying trust to the connection and apart of him knew that he didn’t just trust Nate because his mind was screaming at him that Nate was his mate, that he was supposed to trust him. He trusted Nate because it was Nate, because Nate was the guy who covered for him when they had only just met, because Nate had never done anything to intentionally hurt him, Nate told him that he was worth something. Brody’s trust in Nate went deeper than this connection that had formed overnight, and that’s when the realisation struck him.

He realised then that he was wrong, they were mates, no doubt about it.

‘Hey,’ Brody was the first to speak, and Nate looked relieved at the greeting.

‘Hey,’ Nate said almost gently. ‘We should talk.’

‘Uh, yeah,’ Brody agreed. He then realised that they were standing next to the door of an empty classroom, and he stepped over to it and placed his hand on the metal handle, twisting it. He looked back to Nate, ‘In here?’

Nate nodded and they walked into the room, Nate shutting the wooden door behind them. The classroom which they stood in was quite small, a couple of rows of small desks lined up on their right and a whiteboard against the orange painted wall on their left.

Brody moved so that they couldn’t be seen through the small glass window in the door and looked up at Nate, but Nate spoke first.

‘Still think that we aren’t mates?’ Nate asked and the pain in his voice broke a little piece of Brody. Nate leant back against a desk, his hands pressed to the wooden surface. Brody supposed that he was trying to look casual, but Brody could not only see past that, but he could feel it. When he concentrated he could feel the worry and anxiety at what his answer would be flowing through their connection.

‘We are mates,’ Brody told him, ‘And I am sorry for how I acted last night.’

Nate looked shocked and he stood up, wrapping his arms around Brody suddenly. Brody melted into the hug, holding Nate close and burying his face into his mate’s chest. They stayed like that for a few moments, wrapped in each other, and Nate was the one to pull away, but he kept one hand wrapped around Brody’s wrist gently. The touch felt stabilising and Brody felt calm and secure at the simple touch.

Brody met Nate’s watery gaze and was surprised by how much emotion was on Nate’s face. For someone who outwardly looked so strong and put together, it was strange to see how much emotion the boy actually had inside of him.

‘I was worried that you were going to reject me,’ Nate muttered, his eyes flickering down to the soft grasp he had on Brody’s wrist.

All thoughts of his pack were thrown out of Brody’s mind and he slowly wrapped his arm around Nate’s waist, pulling him close. Nate smiled and let go of Brody’s wrist, moving his hand up to cup Brody’s neck as their lips met. The kiss felt like sparks and safety and Brody felt like he could actually fall into this kiss, unlike the last one.

Nate’s lips were soft and strong all at once, and Brody allowed himself to close his eyes. Nate’s hands were warm and strong on his back and neck, keeping their bodies together.

Brody pulled away, separating the two of them and sitting down on one of the desks, ‘I’m sorry you thought that.’

Nate sat down on top of the desk next to it, shrugging. ‘I am glad that you came around,' he said. 'but I wasn’t going to give up on you.’

Brody bit at his lip as his eyes were cast downwards, ‘I wish I would have reacted better last night, I shouldn’t have just figured that it was a mistake. I am such an awful mate, and yet you weren’t going to give up on me. You should hate me for what I said last night.’

Brody suddenly felt a soft, warm hand clasping his own and he looked up at Nate, who was looking at him with sad eyes. ‘Brody, I don’t blame you for how you reacted. I mean, two Alpha’s being mates has never happened before.’

‘You didn’t doubt it,’ Brody told him, looking at their clasped hands. Brody felt terribly awful about making Nate feel like he was going to be rejected. Brody thought about it, and the more he thought, the worse he felt. To be rejected by a mate was the worst possible thing to happen to a wolf, let alone an alpha.

Nate squeezed Brody’s hand, ‘I was pretty much drunk, and I had just received a speech from Lucy about the Moon Gods never making mistakes. If I had been sober and just woken up by my drunken best friend then I would have probably reacted the same.’

‘I’m your best friend?’ Brody asked, a smile gracing his lips. He knew that Nate meant a lot to him, he had been the only person in this entire camp that saw him as an equal, and yet Nate himself always had so many friends. Brody hadn’t realised that Nate saw him as his best friend.

Nate threw his head back in a laugh, ‘That was all you got from that?’

Brody smiled, ‘I just liked hearing it.’

Nate smiled back weakly, ‘You know, just because we are mates doesn’t mean that this has to move fast. For now, we can just be friends who kiss in classrooms, if that’s what you want?’ There was a note to the edge of Nate’s voice that told Brody that he wanted much more than that.

Brody didn’t want them to be just casual hook-ups. He was looking at Nate in a new light. He had always seen Nate as just a friend, but he figured that was probably just because he never let himself fall for anyone because he needed to put his pack first. Brody could finally notice Nate’s perfect smile, the kindness in the way he spoke to people and his tall, muscular body. He wanted to explore that body with his fingertips, feeling the sparks against his skin as he pressed his warm skin to his mates.

Brody shook his head, ‘I want to be more than friends who kiss in classrooms.’

That made Nate’s eyes lit up and his plump lips turned into a smile, ‘Me too.’

Brody got caught up in Nate’s smile but after a few moments he realised that he must be quite late to his next class. ‘I am epically late to class, I’ll see you later?’

‘Of course,’ Nate smiled, leaning in to place a chaste kiss on Brody’s lips. Brody smiled into the kiss, cursing his class when he had to pull back and stand up from the desk. ‘You know,’ Nate muttered, ‘I could get used to this.’

Brody blushed, a warm feeling spreading through his chest, ‘Me too.’

Nate held his hand until they reached the door, and it felt almost painful when Brody was the one to separate their hands. Brody felt somewhat alone as he wandered down the corridor trying to find his next class room.

He and Nate might not have figured everything out, but admitting to Nate that they were mates made it real for Brody and he felt somewhat secure in this new connection to Nate. He didn’t allow himself to think about what happened once they left the camp, all he wanted to think of was the sparkle in Nate’s eyes when he had admitted to wanting to be more than ‘best friends who kiss in classrooms’ and the rest didn’t matter.

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