bittersweet green apples, rejection, and the mediocre life of a human

Chapter 4

I woke up feeling significantly less like I was going to die young. The pull had subsided from the initial calling, leaving me with just the beginning of a weak bond, something that was more easily manageable than the San Francisco D-Line. I had a slightly sour, heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, but mostly, I felt fine. I knew it wouldn't last though - a bond will ramp up to full mental entanglement by the next full moon, bringing me back to my mate, no, giving me just sixteen days to figure out how to escape. I made for the kitchen, but my packmates heard me coming and cleared out of there, leaving me with the tantalizing scent of pack just departed... and doughnuts, pancakes, bacon, and some other stuff I knew I shouldn't have been eating, but it was post-season so I didn't really give much of a shit. I kind of needed a little bit of a cheat day after yesterday.

I decided that my second pack might understand my plight a little better than my old-school parents had, so I opened up my phone to text the O-Line group chat. "Any of u kno anything about rejection?"

I waited for someone's facebubble to bungee past my message, showing me who read it, and quicker than nearly anything had been answered since Ibiza, Brett pinged a reply, "Funny?"

Fuck, I really hoped they'd get it once I explained. Brett's mated to that elven piece of ass, surely he would understand not wanting some male human - but instantly I thought about his face and how fucking ethereal it had been, despite not being what I expected. His beauty was different but it still made my belly warm and my heartbeat - but I couldn't let myself think like that. Everyone would talk, everyone would laugh, and my reputation would end up as shattered as my life. I can't be the first O-Liner to mate some human fag; I'm gonna be the best Offensive Lineman in the world someday. My heart could take one for the team, my head couldn't deal with my teammates laughing at me. Shaking off the unwanted thoughts invading my head like the goddamn British Empire, I tried to convince myself that it wasn't me - it was some shitty psychic voodoo bond bullshit putting these thoughts in my head. I had to grit my teeth and slam my fingers against my phone to manage typing a response, "u dont get it. i want a hot chik not some human fag bro"

Tyler's bubble began typing but Ryan got his response in first, "shit dude. i dont exactly have a stick up my ass 4 pack etiquette n stuff, u remember ibiza lol, but thats pretty bad"

Tyler's popped up nearly a second after, before I could even react to Ryan's, "im showing ur mate this convo & what a douchebag u r. im not a saint or nythin god knows ive done my shit with yall but jesus fuck bro... hes ur mate"

Ryan messaged again, "btw if i had a human male mate id make sure 1st thing he knew wuz that i didnt give a fuk about what any1 thought of us coz im not a pussy", souring my face into a scowl.

Finally, Hunter messaged, "i always thot u were so concerned with bein alpha man n shit it was weird. just sayin every wolf thinks their mates hot as fuk. its not rly alpha of u 2 leave a human mate alone nd defenseles tbh" and it all began to click together like a puzzle in my mind. That look my poor mate had given me, click. My mom telling me she didn't recognize me, click. Dalton actually slapping me, click. My dad telling me I wasn't ready to lead, click.

Another message came in from outside the group chat, surprising me. I wasn't sure why, but Dalton had sent me something. "You probably don't understand why humans are so special. Lily never felt the pull or understood my scent or any of that shit, but she trusted me anyway - from day one, she smiled at me when I introduced myself and told me she believed me when I told her she was my mate. She chose to be with me without any pull - when a human accepts you before the full moon, they are CHOOSING you in a way we can't even understand. You're just another date with some big claims until the bond opens fully, humans can't feel it before then. With a human, it's just how you fit together, how you make each other feel, and the magic of love itself tying you together without a bond." I grimaced, and nearly dropped my phone as I tried to swallow his words, trying not to think about how I wouldn't trust me in the shoes of my mate.

Click. Those poems I used to write to my mate when I was just a pup that addressed the mate as he, click. The way I had to force myself to stop daydreaming about romance, click. Forcing myself to talk about chicks with the guys, even though I wasn't into it, click. How much I worried about whether the pack, my teammates, or the world would see me as the alpha male I so desperately wanted to be, click. All the inconvenient facts of my life that I'd tackled one at a time over the years banded together and rushed me head on, like a defensive line that was about to flatten me as if I was just as small as I was feeling.

I'd held down a part of myself like I wanted to drown in an ocean of unfeeling. I wasn't gonna reject him - I've been rejecting a part of me that I know public opinion wouldn't be kind to. I wanted to reject who I was, just so some smarmy, well-dressed vamp caster on a weresports channel wouldn't make a couple cracks about me that they'd probably fire him for anyway. An alpha's primary responsibility was protecting and providing for his mate, even before his pack. What kind of alpha was I if I was too scared to fight my own battles, let alone the pack's? I finally understood what my dad meant - if I couldn't be trusted to fight my own battles with my own demons, I couldn't be trusted not to turn tail and run from the pack's real-world problems for sure - let alone protecting one small, fragile human. I was scared shitless of confronting the people who cared about me, like my pack and my team; could I face down an ambush in a dark alley and protect my mate, or would I pussy out? Was I that weak and cowardly? I not only could be a great alpha, the best O-Liner ever, and a good mate at the same time, I probably couldn't even be a mediocre alpha if I wasn't ready to face a fight as easy as accepting my other half. Even if the rest of the entire world wouldn't see my little human as anything but an embarrassment, I wanted to be man enough to see him for who he really was.

I fucked up.