Inevitably Yours

“Hello,” I answered, my heart fluttering just a bit.

“Hey,” Michael answered. A sleepy smile stretched across my face. I couldn’t imagine why a guy was making me so giddy so easily. I hadn’t been this excited since the last JKR book was released. “Sorry I couldn’t talk last night.”

“It’s alright,” I said. I didn’t want to let on that I had been a little disappointed. Clingy girls weren’t cool.

“I won’t make a habit of it,” he assured. “What are you up to?”

“Hanging out on the couch,” I told him. “I put a movie on.”

“I love movies,” he said. I could hear his smile across the phone. “One of my favorite things to do.”

“You didn’t tell me that yesterday,” I said, furrowing my eyebrows.

“I couldn’t give away everything on the first date, now could I?” he laughed. My eyes went a little wide. Did he say date?

“That wasn’t a date!” I said quickly.

“That’s fine. I can do much better for a first date anyway,” he said smoothly. I could feel my face getting warmer. I was quiet, feeling shy now. “Would you like some company for your movie?” he finally asked.

My eyes went toward the stairs. Kent hadn’t gotten up yet, so there was still a chance I could sneak Michael down to the rec room in the basement without being taunted.

“Sure,” I said. “But I will warn you; I’m not lively company today.”

“Is something wrong?” he asked, no with concern in his voice.

“I just didn’t sleep well,” I half-lied.

“Well, I can do a whole marathon of movies. Nothing but laziness,” he said. I laughed a little.

“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll make snacks.”

“Yes!” he gasped. That made me laugh harder. He was a guy who liked food.

We hung up the phone, and I got up to head to the kitchen. I got a variety of snacks from the pantry and took them downstairs, depositing them on the old coffee table. My parents set up half the basement as a ‘rec room’ a couple of years ago for my friends and me to use. We had an old lumpy sectional couch, a decent enough TV with old game consoles and a DVD player, a speaker that shorted out on occasion, plus the coffee table and some bean bag chair. My aunt worked at the movie theater in the next city for a while and got us some old movie posters to spruce up the dark grey brick walls.

I jogged back up to the main floor and took some bottled drinks downstairs before heading upstairs to see if Kent was awake. Our grandmother got him a new game console for his birthday a couple of months ago, and since school let out, he spent half his nights playing video games. As I thought, he was passed out on his bed, his controller discarded on the floor. I closed his bedroom door with relief when I heard a knock at the front door.

I raced down the stairs and threw the front door open. Michael stood on the porch with his hands in the pockets of his athletic shorts. He had a cute smile.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I replied.

“Can I come in?” he laughed, and I realized I was just staring at him.

“Oh, yea,” I said, quickly stepping back. Michael shuffled past me, and I closed the door behind us. “We can go downstairs,” I told him. He nodded, and I led the way. I stopped in the hall before we got to the basement door.

“Uh, pick a movie,” I said, pointing to the shelves. There were four books cases with six shelves on each. The top four of each one were reserved for my dad’s movie collection, while the bottom two were my mom and my books.

“You guys like movies,” he whistled.

“My dad likes movies,” I said.

“What kind of movie do you want to watch?” he asked. I shrugged. It didn’t matter to me; I was just hoping I could stay awake.

Michael stepped up and scanned the shelves. “Alphabetized?” he asked.

“And by genre loosely,” I answered. Eventually, he picked a movie and turned around to me. Without a word, I turned and headed down the basement steps with him following. When we got downstairs, I turned to grab the movie from him.

I busied myself loading it into the DVD player, watching him look around from the corner of my eye. I didn’t even look at the movie I just put in. “This is cool,” he said as I moved over to the couch. Suddenly, I felt awkward. Where did I sit? Where would he want to sit?

“In the middle of the long side,” Sapphire said.

“Why there?” I asked.

“He can sit next to you or across from you,” she explained. I swallowed but followed her direction with no other idea. Michael came over and sat right in the corner of the couch, close enough that we could easily touch each other. I swallowed the lump in my throat and hit the button on the remote.

I trained my eyes on the TV, ignoring the butterflies in my stomach. After the movie opened, I looked over at him, confused. “Romantic comedy?”

He smiled. “It’ll ruin my reputation. I swear you to secrecy,” he whispered, making me laugh. I settled into the couch, feeling a little more relaxed. Michael liked girl movies.

“He’s a romantic,” Sapphire said.

“Or it’s a show,” I reasoned.

“No,” she said confidently.

We watched the movie in comfortable silence. At some point, my eyes started to droop, and Sapphire couldn’t keep me awake. The heaviness of fatigue crept back into my limbs, and I felt myself losing the battle with consciousness.

MICHAEL

Quinn slowly relaxed into the couch. Soon she began to slump and fall back. Quinn leaned against me, and I stilled. I listened to her even breathing; she’d fallen asleep. I didn’t move, letting her sleep against me. I hadn’t been watching the movie, more watching her. She was clearly tired when I arrived, but I hadn’t expected her to fall asleep.

Eros was content in my head, enjoying Quinn being so close. After last night, it was a welcome change. I wanted to stay like that as long as possible. I knew I couldn’t stay all day, but this was comfortable for now.

I carefully grabbed the remote from her lap and replayed the movie when it finished. If she was tired, I wanted to let her sleep, and I didn’t want this unanticipated moment with her to end. My phone vibrated in my pocket, but I ignored it at first.

When the vibrating continued, I carefully fished it out of my pocket, careful not to move Quinn. I had multiple text messages from my friends. Looking at the time, I realized training started in fifteen minutes. My dad wasn’t supposed to be there, so I didn’t care about being late.

My phone rang before I could put it back in my pocket and cement my decision to skip training in favor of cuddling Quinn while she napped.

“What?” I answered.

“Where are you?” Tommy hissed.

“Busy,” I said.

“Well, you better be a whole lot less busy because Alpha just showed up,” he said whispered furiously.

“What?” I asked, worried.

“Yea, so you should probably actually come to training,” he said.

“Stall,” I said. “I need a couple of minutes to get there.”

“Hurry,” he managed to get out before I hung up. I looked down at Quinn. I didn’t want to move her, but I had to go. If my dad knew I skipped training, let alone one he was running, my a*s was grass.

“Hey, Quinn,” I said, shaking her softly. She stirred a little. “Hey.”

Her eyes slowly blinked open. She looked around confused, then sat straight up, away from me. “I am so sorry!” she exclaimed.

“It’s okay,” I laughed softly. “I have to go, though. I have something that I can’t miss this afternoon.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she apologized again.

“It’s okay. I had fun,” I told her. She just nodded, her eyes still foggy with sleep. “How about I call you tonight?”

She nodded her head. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I am really sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. Just cuddle me awake next time,” I told her with a wink. She fell asleep on me; how could I be upset about that?

“I’ll walk you out,” she said, pushing herself up from the couch as her cheeks reddened. She led us upstairs and through her house to the front door. She opened it, and I stepped past her. “Bye,” she said softly.

I paused, wanting to hug her, or k**s her, or anything just to have another moment with her. “Call you later,” I said, opting for a smile. She nodded and closed the door.

When it was shut, I counted to five as I walked, then took off at a sprint for the packhouse. I couldn’t risk shifting and ripping up my clothes as my father most often had us training in human form.

I got to the training ground with two minutes to spare, but my dad already had an irritated look on his face. I joined my friends who were stretching.

“Where have you been?” Tommy asked.

“Nowhere,” I said.

“You have been radio silent for days,” Ricky pointed out. “That isn’t like you.”

“I’ve had something keeping me busy,” I told them.

“We don’t need to know what you do with Andi; she’s gross, man,” Nate shuddered.

“f**k off,” I g*****d.

QUINN

After Michael left, I texted Hannah and Emily to see if they wanted to work out. I was more awake after my little nap. I felt so embarrassed waking up and realizing I was lying on Michael. I hoped a good run would clear my head and tire my body and mind out enough for a real night’s sleep.

An hour later, I was stretching at the head of the running trails on the far side of the pack waiting for my friends.

“Hey!” I heard someone call and turned to find Hannah, Emily, and Morgan heading my way. “We found another,” Hannah called.

“More the merrier,” I smiled. Morgan was a really nice girl on the cross-country team with us, although she was older than us.

“Practice starts in only a few weeks,” Emily said. “Are you guys ready at all?”

“Nope,” Hannah and Morgan said together.

“A little,” I said.

Morgan laughed. “The one who couldn’t care less is the only one that’s been running,” she said. I shrugged.

“Let’s get moving,” I said. Everyone nodded, and we took off, heading to the four-mile trail.

We took off, quickly falling into a comfortable rhythm. We ran in a square, so everyone had enough space to move. The first half-mile, we all focused on running, not bothering to talk. Finally, once we were all in a groove, Emily spoke up.

“So what have you been up to, Q?” she asked.

“Just the normal,” I huffed. My lungs began to burn a bit. We all took the turn that led to the loop we wanted.

“What is normal?” Hannah laughed.

“She is squirreled away in her room reading a book and practicing the music for marching band,” Emily joked.

“You gotta stop with the overachieving,” Morgan huffed, very out of breath. “You make the rest of us look like slackers.”

“Get on my level,” I smiled. Everyone laughed.

“How’s Austin?” I asked Morgan. Her eyes went soft for a second.

“He’s taking me on a date tomorrow night,” she gushed. “Goddess, if we aren’t mates, something is wrong with that woman. He is my perfect complement in every way.”Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

“You turn 17 first, right?” I asked.

“Yea,” she breathed. “Couple more months.”

“We need to do something,” Hannah said.

“That does not include school or practice,” Emily clarified before I could point out we see each other six days a week during the school year.

“We will,” Morgan smiled. “We need to get you all boyfriends too.”

“Well, you can take Emily off that list,” Hannah teased.

“No way! Who?” Morgan questioned.

“Just a guy in our grade,” she said. I looked next to me to see her blushing. “Quinn is the one that is in band. Those kids are freaks.”

“Just a stereotype,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ve got too much on my plate anyway.” My mind went to Brandon and Michael, the contrasting feelings making my stomach cramp.

“What happened to that one guy?” Hannah asked. I never told her more than the fact that I liked someone.

“He, uh, didn’t feel the same,” I said. I could see the halfway point up ahead and internally g*****d. I hated when the gossip was turned back at me.

“His loss,” Emily said supportively. “I’m sure someone better will come along.”

“Did you guys hear about the Alpha’s son?” Morgan interjected excitedly. I rolled my eyes but felt relieved that they were onto a different topic. I tuned them out and focused on the pounding of my feet against the hard dirt. Who cares what the Alpha’s son did? I had Michael’s phone call and hopefully a good night’s sleep to look forward to tonight.