Page 92 of Sugar Rush
“I… Nothing. I mean, everything!” I corrected myself. “We’ve never even talked about that anyway!”
Talk about it? I couldn’t even let myselfthinkabout it for more than a second, or my insides started going crazy like a fucking hornet’s nest that had been smacked with a baseball bat.
I couldn’t be his mate. I just couldn’t.
It didn’t matter that I loved him more than I’d loved anything in my entire life. Or that I’d be perfectly thrilled to spend my life letting him deliberately, and somewhat sadistically, seduce me at the worst possible moments, and purposely get on my nerves because he thought my reactions were funny. And listen to his stupid, silly, too-cheerful pop music and watch his gooey, sparkly romance shows.
I was never lucky. Good things didn’t happen to me.
“Gee, I wonder why.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Well, you’re not exactly the most cool, calm, and collected person to talk about deep stuff with, Kieran. I’m sure he’s well aware of that fact.”
“He… No,” I said, shaking my head. “He doesn’t hold shit back from me, okay? He’s the one who started this whole… thing, anyway! When he wants something, he lets me know.”
Did he want me to bite him? Did he actually think we could be mates? If he did, it was only because he was so naively optimistic to think that anything in life could be so fucking easy and convenient.
She raised her eyebrows, nodding slowly and in a very condescending fashion.
“So you don’t think you’re his mate,” she determined.
Those words were worse, so much worse than the others that had sent my blood pressure through the roof. These just caused a sharp desolation to bloom and spread in my veins, like a venom of depression and bitterness that would slowly kill me.
But if I wasn’t his mate, then that meant… There was some other alpha out there that he really belonged to. I didn’t think I could live through it.
“I don’t know. I… I don’t know!” I repeated, frustrated. “I can’t think about it. It freaks me out.”
“It freaks you out because youdothink you are,” she pointed out.
“I don’t know,” I repeated. I sounded small and whiny and acutely pathetic, even in my own ears. But that was nothing new for me when talking to Barbie. She always somehow managed to force the dumbest, most embarrassing shit out of me like no one else could.
“Alright, well at least tell me what has you upset this time,” she said. “Forget the mate thing. Are you guys in a fight?”
“No. We don’t really fight,” I said, running a hand through my dark hair, relieved by the subject change. Whenever we did have issues, it was usually just because of me being an inconsiderate moron. But fighting just didn’t feel like the right word for anything we’d done together.
“So what is it? You better not still be giving him the hot and cold routine,” she warned me. “The boy got a tattoo for you.”
“It’s not that,” I assured her quickly and with a bit of guilt. “It’s just… He… He’s going on a date. With somebody else.”
“What!?” Her eyes widened, and she sat up straight in the chair, looking shocked. “Why would he do that to you?”
Groaning, I dragged my palms over my eyes. “I don’t know, it’s this stupid fucking charity auction thing for the youth center he volunteers at. They needed another guy for it, and he was too nice to say no.”
As she stared at me, I watched the genuine shock and indignation fade, until she snorted, and then threw her head back, letting a full belly laugh roll out. Completely and totally affronted by her reaction, I snarled, my lips pulling back to show my teeth for a second.
“You think that’s funny!?”
It took a few more moments for her laughing fit to ebb off so she could answer me.
“Oh my god, baby alphas are so cute. You precious thing.”
“Shut up!”
“That’s not a real date, Kieran! It’s forcharity.” I remembered how he’d kept saying that to me back at home
“I… I know that!” I snapped. “I’m not stupid, okay? I just… I…”
