Ray and I finish clapping and sit back down on the bleachers. Pulling up their jackets over the team shirts and picking up their stuff on the ground, the crowd slowly starts to move towards the four exits. "Let's leave last," Ray says, propping up his feet on the seat in front of him. I lean back on my bench and adjust my baseball cap. I wore a cap today to blend in with the audience of the basketball game. The one where Joe played and his team won. 

A few days ago Joe invited me to see his game at his school. Since Khloe and Sandy weren't available, I bit my teeth and asked my annoying classmate, Ray, to come with me today. Which turned out to be a not so bad idea because unlike me, Ray knows the basketball rules, and didn't mind explaining them while the game was going on. 

I notice Jennifer climb down the steps, the bottom of her floral maxi dress flowing behind her, to meet Joe on the court. I first spotted her not too long after Ray and I took our seats. She was sitting a few rows behind with Chris and their group of friends. I stopped staring at them and turned around when it looked like Chris was going to look my way. 

Joe smiles at Jennifer and hugs her at the sideline. Even after the hug Jennifer keeps her hands on his shoulders. I bite my lower lip. 

Ray coughs. "You really have your work cut out for you," he comments, thinking out loud about the same thing as I am. 

I slide down on the bench with a sigh and continue looking at Joe, hoping he'll take his eyes off her and look at me. To my surprise, he does. He gives me a smile and a wave before joining his teammates to leave for the changing room. 

"Hmmm, not bad," Ray comments again, and I sit up straighter with a poorly concealed grin.

When most of the crowd is gone, left for their homes, Ray and I gather our things and climb up the steps towards the nearest exit. Suddenly a hand pulls me back, sending me to panicville.

"Fuck, Chris! You scared me!" I say from between his hands after he caught me from tripping and possibly tumbling down all of the steps to the court. My hand over my chest feels my racing heart as if it's beating inside my palm itself.

He smirks. "Why? Who did you think grabbed you? Ants?"

"Ants?" Ray whispers in a confusion.

"What do you want?" I ask Chris, yanking my arms from him and steadying my feet on the concrete step. When the panic was over after knowing it was Chris who pulled me, I started feeling other feelings from his hands holding me in place.

"What's with the sour mood? You looked like you were having fun a while ago," he says.

Not wanting to sound jealous or anything, I hold my tongue from asking why he cares about my mood? Shouldn't he be with his date now instead of sneaking up on me?

"I was having fun, till you almost gave me a heart attack," I say.

Chris climbs up a step, leans forward and whispers, "I can't help it though. I tend to have that effect on girls."

His hot breath freezes me in place and dries up my throat. My eyes linger on Chris' lips that are temptingly close to me before I realize Ray's presence at my side. Swiftly, I move back up a step, and glare at Chris as if he just gave me my life's most jarring insult.

In response, he just smiles, unfazed and enjoying every moment of him riling me up. "I didn't know you liked sports," he says, straightening up, "I would've asked you to come to one of my games. That's more interesting than shooting hoops," he says with a wink.

Football. Basketball. It's all same to me who's not interested in sports altogether. But his wink might make me have a preference, though, now.

"Oh, she doesn't know a thing about basketball. She just came to support and check out her mate," Ray says, swinging his hand in the air.

Instantly, Chris' carefree and playful expression changes. He glares at Ray.

Ray quickly slides behind me for cover. Ray forgot there for a second Chris is my other mate. I would be upset, too, if I was in Chris' place and someone forgot that detail about me. But Chris looks much scarier than me when he's upset. The only reason I continue to bear Chris' angry stare while standing between Chris and Ray is because I'm trapped here.

Lucky for us, Jennifer unwittingly comes to our aid on time. Chris redirects his glare away from Ray and me when Jennifer reaches us. "Hey, Belle. Didn't know you were coming. We could've come together," she says, coming and standing near Chris, and hooking her arm around his.

"It was a last minute thing," I say, avoiding looking at her arm over his at all cost.

"Really? Didn't Joe ask you a while ago to come?" she jokes. Jennifer was there when Joe casually told me about the game at home.

My eyes make a quick dash to and from Chris before I smile at Jennifer. "Well, see you at home then. Ray and I have to be somewhere next."

Ray didn't need a push as he's already climbing up, and I'm hot on his heels not far behind.

At the parking lot Ray starts to breathe again. "That was scary," he says.

I stretch my neck to loosen my stiff shoulders and wipe off the sweat drops from my forehead. I don't know if it was because Ray's distress affected me, too, but even I felt agitated when Chris got angry. It was the first time I saw someone with Alpha blood be so angry up close.

When I was young, mom never let me near dad whenever he came home in a bad mood from work. Even though dad could never hurt me, I guess, his intense Alpha emotions would've terrified me as a child.

Undoing his top button, Ray says, "He looked like he was going to crush my face to the ground for saying you were there for Joe. When did you two get that close? I didn't know he was into you."

"He is not. It was just his annoying Alpha male ego in regards to one of his mates."

"I don't know about that. I've seen my fair share of Alpha egos. That looked like jealousy. Has he shown interest in you before?" Ray says.

"If you're asking if he has ever told me he likes me, then, no."

Ray smirks. "I don't think he's the talking type. Did he ever came on to you?"

"No."

Ray sighs. "I don't know. The way he reacted, he must be having feelings for you."

"Were you too distracted in being scared of him? Did you not see Jennifer holding his hand?"

"Exactly," Ray says, "She was holding his hand. He wasn't holding hers."

"What are you trying to say anyway? Even if Chris has a little interest in me, it's not like I can switch from Joe to him."

Ray laughs. "Oh sweety, if that bad boy chooses you, you don't have a choice."

I stop for a second to kick on Ray's shin. He swears at me all the way to his jeep.

I climb up at the passenger seat thinking about what Ray told me. Chris and I are too different. And by the way Jennifer keeps clinging to him, I'm guessing they are still a thing.

I shake my head. I should just focus on Joe.

A few days later Joe catches me walking to the subway with my friends. Taking off his helmet he says, "Going home? Want a lift?"

My eyes glide over his sleek leather jacket, dark jeans, boots, and then to his all-black motorbike. "Sure."

My friends and I exchange meaningful smiles before I climb behind Joe on his bike and we take off. There's just something alluringly romantic and thrilling about riding behind a guy in a motorbike. I grab his jacket at his sides, hoping he later pulls one or two hard breaks in the traffic so I could use them as an excuse to fully hug his back.

On the way, he says, "How about a detour first? I need to grab some stuff from my parents' place."

At his home, his mom looks as chic as the first couple of times I saw her. Her heels rhythmically clack against the marble as she walks to me. "Nice to see you again, Belle. How's the stay going on with the boys? Is my son being good to you?"

I open my mouth to answer everything is going great, but Joe says, "Mom, leave her alone." He looks at me. "Let's go to my room."

"Sorry about her. She's always nosy about my mate situation," he says as we enter his room. I inhale his musky scent present all over the room. Grey walls, a large single bed, racks full of comics, desks full of tech stuff — the space looks like a typical boy's room. But I'm happy to see it all. Makes me feel like we got a little closer just by doing this.

As he grabs some of his clothes from the closet and books from the shelves, I notice a photo on one of the racks. A photo from when he was a boy. He's with a group of kids around his age. Chris and Jennifer are in the group. "You guys sure go long way back," I say.

Joe comes and looks over my shoulder at the photo. "Our families went on a vacation together that time," he says.

"Joe, your iPad," I remind him. My laptop is not working and had to turn it in to the service center. Joe said he has an iPad at his home he can let me borrow. Joe leaves my side to look for that iPad.

I look back at the photo and a smile forms in my face. It reminds me of the times I went on vacations with my friends, especially when my now late friend, Leslie, was there too.

Irrespective of being all grown up, I love how we all are still basically kids in more than one way. It's nice to have friends you don't have to act like an adult to get along with.

With his stuff, including the iPad, we leave Joe's house.

Just when I was thinking things are getting better, entering our shared residence, Joe and I are greeted by a bombshell. We see Jennifer leaned over the kitchen counter. Her hand is grabbing hold of Chris' collar and they are kissing.

Chris' eyes lift towards the entrance, and he looks at Joe in an almost mocking way. Then he sees me behind Joe and quickly breaks the kiss and moves away from Jennifer.

I look away, mortified by the rude awakening, but turn back around as soon as I hear Joe's footsteps leaving. "Joe!" I run behind him to the door, till Jennifer overtakes me and rushes out towards him.

But he and his bike are gone before Jennifer reached where they were.

"Shit," she mutters, stomping down her leg on the ground. Then as if she suddenly remembered, she turns to me with wide eyes. "I'm so sorry, Belle!"

"You don't have to apologize, Jennifer. You didn't do anything wrong." Although it wasn't thrilling to catch her making out with one of my mates, both Joe and Chris are her mates, too. "I'm not upset."

Jennifer sighs in relief.

I longingly look at the road Joe disappeared in. Even though seeing Chris and Jennifer kissing was hard, I'm not running away from the reality. I'm sad at the way Joe reacted. Couldn't he bear that much the sight of Jennifer kissing someone else?

After Jennifer and I get back in, I leave for my room.

Restless from replaying Chris and Jennifer's kiss, and Joe's reaction, I lie awake at night, when my room door opens.

"Joe?" I quickly ask, lifting my head up.

Chris comes in.

I put my head back down on the pillow. "What?"

"You're not even going to ask me what happened?" he says.

"What's there to ask and get clarified? I can tell when two people are kissing. And I know why two people kiss each other."

I hear his mild laugh.

"And that's it?" he says, "It doesn't bother you I kissed her?"

I smirk. "I bet you did even more than that when you were dating her. You want me to cry about it all?"

"Would you cry if the one kissing her was Joe?"

I raise back my head and glare at Chris. Chris has his own scowl directed at me now.

I sit up on the bed and cross my legs over the mattress. It doesn't help that Chris' bare chest keeps fighting for my attention against my bad mood. But I pull through to confront Chris. "Why are you bringing Joe into this?"

He comes and stands in front of the footboard. "It's hard not to when I open your room door and the first thing you do is call his name."

"Well, I'm sorry you're not the one who saw his friend smooching his mate and ran away."

"And that should make you realize he is not the one for you, Belle. Stop getting close to him," he says.

My breathing gets faster with my rising anger. I get up, walk to the entrance, and close the door. I don't want Jennifer to inadvertently hear us. Turning back to Chris, I say, "Since you're in a chatty mood, why don't you grab the chair and get comfortable so we could talk this out once and for all?"

He lifts his chin, walks to his side, and sits on my bed.

Pressing my lips tighter, I take the chair instead. I'm not going to sit on the bed with him.

"I don't get you," I say. "Joe — I can understand. I can understand his indecisiveness. But you... If there's anything I learned since staying here it's that you are a stubborn jerk who knows exactly what he wants. I know you already made your decision. I don't know what that decision is. But if you chose her why are you here in my room now? And if you chose me what were you doing with her before?" 

He smiles. The same smile that makes my heart flutter every time I see it. Not a cocky smirk, but a gentle and playful beam. He lies down on his back. "I wanted to stay in this room," he says. "This room has the best view and is the largest. But I didn't take it so you could take this room when you moved in. I just knew you would want to stay here."

"Or you just wanted to be closer to Jennifer downstairs." 

He chuckles. "You're very cute when you're jealous." 

"Yeah, well, you're not. I like Joe," I say. 

Chris sits up and says through his teeth. "Don't push me, Belle." 

I feel my energy drain from the merry go round of blame and anger we seem to be riding in. "Why are you doing this, Chris? What do you want from me?" 

"I think you know what I want," he says with a serious face. 

I shake my head, wishing for my throbbing heart to slow down for a second. "Leave," is all I can manage to say. 

He gets up, comes over and kneels before me, and takes both my hands in his. His gesture stirs up my heart. His proximity warms my soul. My eyes struggle to stop the tears. "I'm sorry," he says and kisses my hand. "I'm sorry you had to see that. It won't happen again. I want to be someone better for you, Belle. Someone who deserves you. I'm not there yet. I wish we hadn't met now, when I'm at my worst in my life. But things won't stay the same. I know you've questions. But I can't answer them now. Please wait till I can. Wait for me, Belle."

He takes my hand to his chest. I feel his heartbeat through his warm skin. His heart is pounding faster than mine. His hand's grip tightens around my fingers. "I can't say out loud how I feel about you yet. But even so, I know you can hear it. You know where my heart is, Belle, and I know where yours is." 

After kissing my hand once again, he leaves.

I climb over to my bed and lie down, letting the tears come out. I'm scared my feelings are changing. I can feel the change in my mate bond, as it slowly but steady pulls away from Joe and moves towards Chris.

If Joe chooses Jennifer at the end, the worst I will feel is a heartbreak. But if my heart sets on Chris and Chris betrays me, I've a feeling it'll destroy me.

Even if I trust Chris, even if it's true he wants me, even if he has a reason behind why he hasn't accepted me yet, and he'll tell me the truth one day, what about my truth? Will he accept my truth? He's not the only one among us keeping secrets. 

Penelope climbs up on the bed and lies down at my side. Her small hand reaches out to my face but fails to touch my wet cheeks. All I feel is a tinge of coldness. "Don't cry," Penelope says, taking her hand back.

I wipe off my tears and nod at the child.

In the world of living, sometimes among the dead is where I find comfort in. 

———— 

💃 ( another-chapter-published dance ) 

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— xx, Auctorsam