Lost Bird

13

13

By the time James had made her way back to her apartment, she wasn't sure what to feel. She had felt crushed when she saw Axel with that girl. She sat down on her couch and tried to breath through her hurt. She knew, logically, that she shouldn't be upset. She was the one who had been telling herself he was just another professor. Maybe this was a good thing. Now she knew that there was no interest on his end, she could give herself a real wake up call, and get over this schoolgirl crush.

Fuck, who am I kidding? I know it doesn't make sense, but it hurts and I am jealous. It doesn't help if I keep lying to myself. James took another deep breath. He has done absolutely nothing wrong. No matter how much I was living in a fantasy world, where I would actually make real connections with someone. It was all on me. I am responsible for my own feelings. It would take a while, but James knew she would be comfortable with everything eventually. She needed that elective to get her doctorate. She would treat him with the respect he deserved as her professor and leave it at that. She had already resolved to putting more distance between him and his family. Now to stick to it. This is going to suck.

Axel walked into his teams temporary home more dejected than he had ever been. He had walked around campus looking for James until he had had to head back to his office. He kept hoping she would turn up so he could explain everything, but he knew she wouldn't. He wasn't sure if he could recover from this. He had lost her before they had even had a chance to be with her.

He walked into the living room and saw all his team was home. Marc and Raven were sitting on the couch talking about some new gun Raven had ordered. And Corey and Brandon were sitting at the dining room table whispering about something as Corey was furiously tapping away at his keyboard. Axel and Marc had agreed to wait until the team was all together before brining up their encounter with James. They wanted to be all together before they tried to explain how they had met and determined that she was the one for them.

Axel wasn't sure how he was going to explain how he had fucked everything up before they had even had a chance. He made eye contact with Marc and watched as his brothers eyes went from alive with happiness and excitement to scared and worried as soon as he saw Axel's face. Guess I'm not hiding my emotions as well as I thought.

Marc stood up and made his way slowly over to Axel. Almost afraid of what his brother was going to say. He knew he had his last class with James. Axel should be on cloud nine, not looking devastated. What the fuck happened from this morning to now? Marc worried.

"Axe, what is it?"

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked over at their leader. Their eyes ping ponged back and forth between the two. Trying to figure out why their ever stoic leader looked so crushed and Marc looked so panicked by it.

"What is it?" Corey asked.

"I need to talk to you guys. Marc it has to do with what we were going to tell the guys tonight." Axe dropped his bag and slumped down onto the couch across from Raven.

Raven looked between the two. He was beyond confused. Marc had been bouncing around all afternoon excited about a new development, he and Axel had found that morning. Raven was just happy to see his brother so excited about something. He knew that when Corey and Brandon had made it home hat afternoon they were just as excited about something. No matter how much he pushed Corey to let him know what was going on, he just kept saying he would tell him at the family meeting later.

This was not like his lyubovnik (lover), he did not keep secrets from him. Ever since he had met and fallen in love with Corey, they had been honest about everything in their lives. He was the only one Raven had told about his malenkiy voin (little warrior). He was the only one who knew how hard Raven had been looking for her.