“Look, ah… this is me. I’m a mess. I came here today to tell you I want to try to be what you want me to be. I’ll move in, give you everything that I am, but you have to know… that I’m not perfect. Nowhere near it. I’m totally broken… a mess… with a shit past. But if you still want me after all that.” I spread my arms wide out in front of me. “Then I’m all yours.”
Grayson stepped around me and called to Aaron.
“Sit. We’re going to sort this out.”
I felt awkward, but I stayed standing in front of them like I was giving a sermon.
Or a confession.
Or both.
“Ah…” How did I even start?
Grayson grunted. “Now, tell me what all this crap is about?”
I looked up at him, and sighed, letting the tension of the last few days build up so I felt how they wanted me to feel. Uncomfortable, nervous, scared.
“I told you already.”
“Yeah, you said that you’re a mess. Explain that to us.”
God… where did I begin?
“Well, for starters, I can’t cook. I grew up with nothing, so I have trailer park parents and an obsession for trinkets, so I collect everything. I’m a major hoarder. You may need to extend the house just for those issues.” I took a shaky breath. “I’m a girl, so there will be makeup and bras and tampons all over the house and bathroom. I am not a neat person.”
My chest was heaving with the stress of revealing everything.
Brad and Aaron looked at each other but Grayson was staring at me.
“And? You think we’ll be scared of your feminine products? Are you serious right now?”
He sounded offended, and that wasn’t what I was meaning to do at all.
“It’s not just that. I’m bad news! Look what happened yesterday with the bears. That asshole came after me because I’m your mate and deliberately baited you! If I wasn’t around, he would never have hurt you guys.”
Grayson held a hand up. “Hold up. What did you just say?”
“Um… Which part?”
“About the bears. Did they say something to you, about you being our mate?”
I nodded. Hadn’t I told them this part yet? Probably not, because I hadn’t seen them since we’d dropped Brad at the hospital.
“Yeah. Sorry—I meant to tell you that part, but so much happened. Anyway, T
revor told me that he didn’t really want to date me all those years ago, but he could tell from the smell of me that I was a wolf shifter’s mate. And the bears believe you guys are meant to die out… or something like that. So, they figured that if they held me away from you, then your line would expire.”
The room was so quiet you could have heard the proverbial pin drop.
Aaron sat forward on the couch. “Are you telling us that the bears can tell who our mates are, and are deliberately keeping them from us?”
They were horrified, that was clear.
I nodded. “Yes. That’s what Trevor said.”
Brad groaned. “Oh, that’s fucked up. Here we are, like, dying of loneliness, and they’re… what….”
The mood in the room had shifted. They were angry and upset, but it wasn’t directed at me, and that gave me a nice break.