Page 31 of Love, Clumsily
“But you didn’t,” I insisted, stepping closer to him. “You’ve never hurt me before, not in months of being together. One tiny scratch doesn’t change that.”
“It changes everything,” he argued. “It proves what I’ve always feared—that I can’t control my wolf around you. That I’m not safe.”
I threw up my hands in frustration. “God, you’re so dramatic! You’re not some monster, Mason. You’re just a guy who happens to turn furry sometimes. A guy I love, who I chose to be with knowing exactly what he is.”
“You don’t know,” he said, his voice dropping. “You’ve only seen the surface. You haven’t seen what I’m capable of when the wolf takes over completely.”
“Then show me,” I challenged. “Stop hiding parts of yourself from me. Let me see all of you, even the parts you’re afraid of.”
He shook his head, taking a step back. “No. That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”
I realized then that this wasn’t just about the scratch. This was about Mason’s deep-seated fear of his own nature, a fear that had been temporarily buried by our happiness but had never truly gone away.
My anger deflated, replaced by a profound sadness. “Mason,” I said gently, “if you don’t trust yourself with me, how can we build a life together?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and the despair in his voice broke my heart. “I don’t know if we can.”
We stood in silence for a long moment, the gap between us feeling wider than the few feet that physically separated us.
“I think I should sleep in the guest room tonight,” he finally said. “Give us both some space to think.”
I wanted to argue, to demand he face this with me instead of retreating, but I was tired—emotionally and physically. “If that’s what you need,” I said, unable to keep the hurt from my voice.
He reached for me, then stopped himself, hand falling back to his side. “I’m sorry, Julian. I love you. That’s why I can’t risk your safety.”
“If you really love me,” I said quietly, “you’ll stop making decisions for both of us and start trusting me to know what risks I’m willing to take.”
Without waiting for his response, I turned and went inside, leaving him standing alone on the porch. It was petty, perhaps, but I needed him to feel a fraction of the rejection I was experiencing.
That night, I lay awake in our bed—a bed that felt too large, too empty without Mason’s solid warmth beside me. Down the hall, I could hear him moving restlessly in the guest room, unable to settle. Neither of us was sleeping, both trapped in our separate miseries.
This is ridiculous,I thought, staring at the ceiling.We’re both miserable because he scratched me during sex. There has to be a better solution than this.
But I knew it wasn’t really about the scratch. It was about Mason’s fear of himself, his wolf, and the intensity of our connection. Somehow, I needed to show him that I wasn’t afraid—not of his strength, not of his wolf, not of the wildness in him that he tried so hard to suppress.
I just wasn’t sure how.
Chapter 12
The next few days were tense and awkward. Mason went through the motions of cohabitation—making coffee, asking about my work, maintaining polite conversation—but emotionally, he was distant, carefully maintaining physical space between us. He slept in the guest room each night, claiming it was “safer” that way.
I was torn between anger at his stubbornness and heartbreak at the pain I could see he was inflicting on himself. This self-imposed isolation was clearly making him miserable, yet he persisted, convinced he was protecting me.
On the fourth night, I’d had enough. I waited until he’d retreated to the guest room, then gave him about thirty minutes to settle—though I doubted he was sleeping any better than I was. Then I marched down the hall and opened his door without knocking.
He sat up immediately, enhanced senses having alerted him to my approach. “Julian? What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong,” I said, leaning against the doorframe, “is that my boyfriend is being an idiot, and I’m tired of it.”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not being an idiot. I’m being cautious.”
“You’re being a coward,” I corrected, stepping into the room. “And it stops tonight.”
His eyes widened at my tone. I rarely spoke to him this way—firm, almost challenging. Something flickered in his expression—surprise, certainly, but also a hint of something else. Interest. Respect.
“I’m not going to argue with you about this again,” he said, though with less conviction than before.
“Good, because I didn’t come here to argue.” I moved closer to the bed, holding his gaze. “I came to tell you how this is going to work. You’re going to stop punishing both of us for one tiny incident. You’re going to come back to our bed, where you belong. And you’re going to trust me to know my own mind and make my own choices.”
