Page 9 of A Very Oceanport Christmas
"Don't blame yourself." I stared straight ahead, trying not to blink. I wasnotgoing to shed a tear, damn it. I'd done enough of that the day Mom passed away. God, why was I thinking aboutthatnow?
The car in front of us slowed as we approached a red light. Hell, had I been the only driver on the road I might have missed it.
I desperately needed a change of topic.
"I'm just glad you're back in town now, okay?" I said. "Whatever happened in the past is in the past."
"I don't know. Some things stay with you."
Was he talking about his baby? One of these days, I was gonna have to ask howthathad happened, but now wasn't the best time. "Things like our friendship," I said instead.
"I'm sorry things got weird between us," he apologized. "I shouldn't have dated Nigel."
"Your choice of boyfriend is yours." My voice was tighter than I'd intended it to be, betraying too much of what I thought of 'Nigel.' Honestly, I couldn't even say that name without disdain. It wasn't really Nigel's fault. I hated him for having what I wanted, never mind that he'd only had it for a short time.
"I guess it doesn't matter who I dated," Sam said. "The thing is that I shouldn't have ignored you in favor ofanyboyfriend. Or girlfriend. Whatever. You're my best friend and I didn't even realize that I was pushing you away with my relationship."
Oh. Was that what Sam thought had happened? What had come between us? That I'd distanced myself because I was jealous of all the time he spent with his new boyfriend? I licked my lips, unsure what to say. Eventually I settled on, "It's not your fault. You didn't push me away."
"Yeah, I did," Sam said in a tone of voice that told me to cut the bullshit. "We spent almost every day together before Nigel first asked me out and then I--"
"You went on dates with your boyfriend. Nothing wrong with that."
"Then what exactly went wrong?" Sam raised his voice a little bit, as if he wanted to get me to look at him.
"I..." I could not tell him that. There was just no way he would understand.Sorry, Sam, but your scent's been driving me wild ever since we entered puberty, and I was trying really hard to ignore that to protect our friendship, but then when you dated another guy I couldn't watch so I made up excuses not to hang out.I swallowed those words. They were all true, though. I couldn't clearly rememberwhenI'd first noticed my growing attraction to my best friend, but it had been building for a long time. And I really did do my best to ignore it. Even now. His scent permeated my car. Sam smelled like cut grass and the air in spring when the world rose from its winter slumber, ready for new adventure. It was a scent that would have made my list of 'favorite things in the world' if I wasn't always trying my hardest to ignore it and the low hum of arousal it sent thrumming through my body. If I'd been less experienced at functioning in spite of Sam sitting next to me and unconsciously spraying his pheromones everywhere, I might have caused a traffic accident.
But this was nothing.
Not compared to the way Sam had smelled when we were teens and he was close to one of his heats. Once or twice, I'd nearly shattered under the onslaught of pheromones that he'd send to invade my sensesthen.But I'd stayed strong, every time. Because Sam was important to me. I couldn't lose him or his friendship for one night of mindless, hormone-induced sex.
He was worth more than that.
"You're not going to tell me what went wrong?" Sam asked, and I realized that I'd been silent for too long.
"I was just really preoccupied back then," I said lamely. "And then my mother got sick and..." I trailed off.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw Sam shake his head. "I should have been there for you then. It was shitty of me not to be." He paused. "Lets' make a promise."
"A promise?"
"Yeah, from here on out, we're always going to have each other's back, no matter who we're dating."
I chuckled. Sam sounded so sincere. "As if you'd ever let me help you with anything."
"I let you help me with my homework."
"Yeah, and yesterday you claimed you needed to repay me for that. You're impossible that way."
"I'm not impossible."
Even though I didn't look at Sam, I could see the pout on his lips. Lips I had so often wanted to kiss... When I was younger, I'd spent entire nights wondering what they might taste like. What they might feel like against my own. Even when he was pouting at me, I wanted to kiss him.
Get a grip, David,I told myself.He obviously doesn't feel that way about you.After all, if he did, he wouldn't have dated Nigel, and he wouldn't be pregnant with another man's baby.
And although I respected his wishes not to talk about it, it drove me insane that I didn't know whose baby that was. It drove me insane that each time I looked at him, I was hit with both the need to take care of him, and the evidence that it was someone else’s duty. Someone else who had touched him in all the ways I'd been dreaming about touching him since I was old enough to know what it meant to be an alpha.
"You're not impossible," I made myself say. "But you do struggle with some things." My gaze flickered over to him, and, yeah, he was still pouting. "Like right now. You're having ababy.And I don't know when I would have found out about that if I hadn't spotted you out in the cold yesterday. You clearly don't want me to have your back right now."
