Chapter 131

Erin’s POV

“I thought of that possibility too if I were to be honest…” Gavin admitted.

This has been the first time in a long time that he’s been vulnerable to me. My heart ached knowing everything that he and his family had gone through during their lives.

I never knew that he was self-conscious about himself during our relationship. I never knew he felt inadequate about us.

I loved him very much during high school and I continued to love him every day afterwards. Long after we broke up, I thought of him daily.

Not that he knew that.

I could see the worry on his face when he spoke about his family; everything he had ever done was to protect them, and so far, it looks like it’s been doing the opposite.

“If she wants us to break up publicly. Then, we will break up during the convention,” I told him, grabbing onto his hand. “We were planning on doing so anyways. I can make you look good, so you don’t lose any respect.”

“Regardless of how we break up, if I’m unmated at the convention, I won’t gain as much traction.”

“You were fine all the other years,” I reminded him.

“Yes, but I’m at the age now where the werewolf community expects me to be mated.

“I don’t know what more we can do. I’ve been trying to find the members of the Moonshadow organization to seek their help in this matter. But I haven’t had much luck. Their organization is completely locked down.”

I felt this intense ping of guilt; I wanted to tell Gavin the truth at that moment, but I wasn’t sure if that would benefit him right now. Plus, it could ruin everything the organization is trying to do. I couldn’t make any more stupid mistakes.

Not after what happened with Jessie.

I wished I could get a hold of Henry so I could talk to him about this, but I’ve had no luck in reaching him.

The rest of the night was quiet; we decided to just go to bed. He held me for most of the night and I let him.

It felt natural being with him like this again and I was grateful to have him back in my corner, even if it wasn’t completely real.

It pained me knowing that we were forced to break up once again and it wasn’t something I wanted to think about it.

It seemed like our future was never quite in our hands.

The next morning, I was planning on returning to work and pretending that everything was normal once again. I was only gone for a week, but I was craving normalcy.

“Are you sure you want to go back there?” Gavin asked as I finished putting my uniform on. “As much as I like you in that uniform… you don’t need to return. I can buy you whatever you want and—”

“I don’t want to rely on you just like I didn’t want to rely on Henry,” I said to him, narrowing my eyes. “This is something I need to do for myself.”

He didn’t look like he liked my reasoning, but he didn’t argue either. He gave me a kiss and allowed me to go to the restaurant.

Well actually, he made Seth drive me to the restaurant. Which was incredibly awkward because I knew Seth didn’t like me.

He was suspicious of me, which I couldn’t really blame him for.

Once we were at the restaurant, I thanked Seth before leaving the car and running inside.

I was there before the opening and as soon as I walked inside, everybody fell silent. I’m sure they have seen the happenings on the news, and they knew for sure that I’ve been involved with Gavin.

“Welcome back,” one of my coworkers said with a plastered smile; it was odd that she was trying to be kind to me after everything she and everyone else had put me through while working here.

“You were missed!” Another said, cheerfully.

“I was only gone for a week,” I said, narrowing my eyes at them.

They all fell silent once again as I made my way to the back rooms. I caught a glimpse of Kelsey from the front counter and for a moment, I thought I saw resentment in her eyes.

I went into the back to put my things in my locker before returning to the front area.

Kelsey was watching me with a frown for a long while before she decided to approach me.

“I’ve been watching the news,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “I know I’m your boss, but I thought we were also friends.”

“We are friends,” I said in return with a frown. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like we aren’t.”

“It just would have been nice if I found out about you and Gavin Pierce from you and not the television,” she said, shaking her head with dismay written all over her face. “It’s kind of a big deal, don’t you think?”

“It just kind of happened,” I said, gazing over at her. “I didn’t mean to keep anything from you. But you knew how I felt about him.”

“You always told me you weren’t interested in him,” she said, furrowing her brows together. “I thought he bugged you whenever he came here to see you.”

“He’s my mate,” I said, lowering my tone.

Kelsey was the only one who really knew that information. There were too many wandering ears to speak too loudly on this subject.

“But you rejected him and married someone else,” Kelsey said, raising her brows. “Wouldn’t the mate bond go away?”

I sighed and shook my head.

“Henry never marked me.”

She gasped at my words.

“What?” She asked with wide eyes. “How did you marry him and not get marked by him?”

Technically, I didn’t marry him, but I wasn’t about to tell her that because that would open the doors to more questions.

“I never wanted him to mark me,” I told her. “Something just didn’t feel right about it. He said he would wait until I was ready. I guess I was just never ready.”

“Even after 3 years of being married?”

“Yes,” I said with a shrug. “I was never ready and now I know why. Because my heart will always belong to Gavin.”

“So, that’s why you needed all this time off?” She asked. “Because you were going through a divorce?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“I wish you would have treated me more like a friend and told me this information. I wished you trusted me enough to be honest.”

She didn’t sound angry, just sad.

“I’m so sorry, Kelsey. I wanted to tell you. I just wasn’t sure how and I didn’t know there was anything to tell until recently…” I told her with the utmost honesty.

I was trying to be honest without telling her the full truth.

Before she could say anything more, I heard the door chime sounding and I turned to see who had just entered. We weren’t fully open yet and I was about to tell them just that until I saw who it was.

“Henry?” I gasped.

I hadn’t heard from or seen Henry in what felt like days. Which was incredibly unusual because of how much he used to contact me when I first moved into Gavin’s packhouse.

I was worried about him greatly and it was a relief to see him.

“Can we talk for a minute?” He asked.

“Of course,” I said a little too quickly.

I apologized to Kelsey again before stepping outside with Henry.

“I’m glad to see you,” I said to him once were alone. “I’ve been worried. Where have you been?”

“It’s a long story,” he said, meeting my eyes.

From his demeanor, I knew something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” I asked him with a worried frown upon my lips.

He was quiet for a moment, but then he sighed.

“I came here to convince you to not go to that convention.”