Camp Alpha (BoyxBoy)

{20}

Nate wasn't worried about Brody. Surely not. Well, he wouldn't be, except dinner had started twenty minutes ago and he had seen Annie come in with her friends ten minutes ago. If Annie was here, then where was Brody?

Nate had a plate of food in front of him but he was just pushing it around his plate with his fork more than anything else.

Surely Brody was fine. Nate was just letting his mind run amuck.

'What's wrong?' Nate heard Lucy ask him in that concerned voice that she only used when she was worried.

He lifted his head to look at the only other person at the big table they were sitting at. Lucy had very clearly had a shower just before she had come to dinner as her hair was darkened with water and her face was free of makeup. She was looking at him with a slightly concerned expression.

'Oh, nothing,' Nate replied.

'Nate..' Lucy wasn't going to give up.

'Where is everyone?' he asked her, giving her a distraction while at the same time answering her question. Their absences were exactly why he was worried. He looked down at the many free chairs at their table.

Lucy's gaze followed his, 'I don't know. I haven't seen Jace and Tye since wolf combat, and I last saw Brody outside your room.'

Nate was suspicious. Tye and Jace weren't the type of people to miss meals, and neither was Kayden for that matter. Then there was Brody, who wasn't exactly the type of person to skip out on plans. What if something was wrong? He's already injured, what if something happened?

Panic started in the pit of Nate's stomach and he had to take a few deep breaths to keep it at bay. He knew that it was the mate connection making him think irratically and yet that sinking feeling stuck with him.

Brody is fine, you are overstressing, he told himself.

'Your room is next to Kayden's, did you see him before dinner?' Lucy asked him. Nate was glad for the question as it brought him out of his mind.

'Nope, I haven't seen him since breakfast,' he explained.

'Strange,' Lucy commented, but she couldn't have been too concerned as she went right back to eating only a second later.

Nate pushed the food around his plate again. He pulled out his phone and typed up a text to Brody.

                Hey, where are you? — Nate

He clicked send. He waited about three seconds before going right back into full-fledged panic mode.

'Why is Brody not here?' He muttered to himself.

'I'm sure that your mate is perfectly fine,' Lucy assured him sincerely.

Nate didn't have the spare energy to send her a disapproving look for referencing Brody as his mate in public, his mind was too focused on the puzzle that was what had happened to their friends.

'I know,' he agreed weakly, to reassure himself of the fact more than anything.

'I know what you're feeling,' Lucy told him. 'My mate is the 'king of unanswered phone calls', and every time I end up at his voicemail I feel like my heart is going to explode, but it's always nothing. Usually he is just passed out on the couch after a hard afternoon of junk food and football,' she laughed. 'I'm sure that Brody will walk in that door any moment and be perfectly fine.'  

Nate knew that he should have just taken her word for it and push these nerve-wracking feelings down but not knowing where his mate was had put his body into a state of high alert, and he felt too unsettled and anxious to think about anything else but Brody. He just needed to see his mate, to make sure that he really was alright, and then he knew that his body would relax.