Inevitably Yours

QUINN

I continually had to stop myself from humming the song stuck in my head. I had listened to the song Michael sent more times than I wanted to admit since he sent it on Christmas. I was blown away at how good he sounded in the recording. Every time I listened to it, it made my heart beat a little faster. Some selfish part of me hoped it wouldn’t be the only time I heard him play guitar and sing.

“Isn’t it against the rules for school stuff to go on during the winter break?” Jaxx complained next to me.

“They give us two and half weeks off. Plus, I’m not going to practice, just a tournament,” I told him.

“One so far away you have to stay overnight,” he pointed out. I sat in the passenger seat of his truck on the way to my school. After the fiasco of the last tournament, Mr. Ganbar insisted that I earned a spot on the overnight one after Christmas. I had already agreed to be an alternate, but apparently, this tournament was a big deal. Tay had called me earlier that morning to tell me that two of the older girls had quit because Mr. Ganbar was changing the list of girls going on the trip.

Jaxx picked me up before it was time to go, and we went to lunch together since I wouldn’t get to see him until after I got back. I knew he was hoping something would change, and I wouldn’t have to go at all.

“I should be able to text you the whole time, and I can call you before bed. I am sure I can step out of the room at the hotel or something. Plus, there are four of us, so we will only be responsible for a couple of people. I bet I won’t even have anyone in the finals,” I reasoned. He pouted as he turned into the driveway for the high school. He came to a stop behind the bus where the coaches were checking people in, and everyone was loading in their bags.

“This whole nerdy girl thing is cute until it makes it so I can’t see you,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

“I guess I can’t be too upset when I get to ring in the new year with you,” he smiled softly.

“I’m still nervous about meeting your family,” I told him.

He looked over my shoulder. “You already are well acquainted with my annoying cousin,” he frowned. Someone knocked on the window, and I guessed who it was. Jaxx reached around me and rolled down the window.

“Hey, lover boy,” Ricky said. “I need that stat girl.”

“f**k off,” Jaxx said. “I’m saying goodbye to my girlfriend.”

Ricky laughed. “You can’t fight me, so don’t try,” he taunted.

“Hey, Ricky,” I said, turning to face him. “Can you give me like two more minutes?” He turned his attention to me.

“Fine,” he said. “Maddison is the only one here so far. Don’t take too long, and don’t do anything to soil that sparkling reputation,” he laughed. I rolled the window back up as he walked away.

“He annoys the s**t out of me,” Jaxx grumbled.

“Just forget him,” I told him. I grabbed his hand and squeezed, bringing his attention back to me. “I thought you were telling your girlfriend goodbye?”

He smiled again, Ricky pushed out of his mind. He leaned forward and kissed me sweetly, his tongue pushing to part my lips. I pulled back, not letting him. “Save it for New Year,” I laughed.

“You’re a tease sometimes,” he said, his voice a little husky as he reached forward and kissed me again.

“I really gotta go,” I told him as we parted.

“I’ll come get your door,” he said, opening his. I pulled my backpack off the floor, remembering I had brought his hoodie to return. When he opened the door, I climbed out and tried to hand it to him. He looked at me, confused. “Why are you giving me that?” he asked.

“Because it’s yours,” I said.

“I want you to hold onto it, though. I like when you wear it. It makes you smell like me,” he said.

“Oh,” I answered. I felt a little dumb; wolves liked to mark their territory.

“If you don’t want to, I guess you don’t have to,” he frowned.

“No, I do!” I said quickly. “Thanks.”

He smiled triumphantly as he reached into the truck to grab my small overnight bag. He handed it to me and kissed me on the cheek one more time. “Have fun,” he said, heading back to the driver’s side.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I called, heading toward the bus. When I finally got on, Ricky was waiting in the front.

“I didn’t think my cousin could steal the Alpha’s girl,” he said so that no one could hear us.

“I’m not the Alpha’s girl. Michael and I are friends, and he isn’t around,” I said, lowering myself into my seat. I wasn’t going to justify myself when I had wanted to be the Alpha’s girl previously.

“Hey, it’s fine by me. Whatever makes you happy. Not like you can get into trouble with Jaxx,” he laughed.

“I cannot even begin to imagine what you mean,” I sighed. Thankfully, Tay got on the bus just then.

“Hey,” she said. I gave Ricky a pointed look, hoping he got the hint to leave me alone. He shrugged and headed further back on the bus.

“Hey,” I smiled at her. “Ready for this?”

–

Ricky continued to turn the key in the ignition, garnering the same stammering of the engine with no turnover. “s**t,” he hissed. I rubbed my arms as my cold breath fogged in front of me. “It’s too cold. It isn’t going to start.”

“Wonderful. It’s too late, and my parents are already asleep. No one is answering the phone,” I said through chattering teeth. Thanks to a blizzard blowing through, we got back from the tournament far later than intended. The bus had to slow down significantly to travel on the roads safely. Ricky said he could take me home so my parents wouldn’t have to wait or drive out in the snow.

Ricky held his phone to his ear, and I watched him impatiently. He frowned after a minute. “My dad isn’t answering either,” he said. “We could just shift and run home. I could see you home.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not shifting here with you.” He rolled his eyes. “What?”

“You’re pretty sensitive about the dumbest things,” he said. “Anyway, if we can’t get my car started, we are walking.” My phone vibrated in my hand. It was Jaxx.

JAXX

| you never told me if you got home ok or not

ME

| not yet

JAXX

| did something happen

ME

| rickys car wont start and everyone left

JAXX

| im coming

“I think I solved our problem. We just have to avoid freezing to death,” I told Ricky, smiling.

“How? Not that mousy-looking girl you’re always with. Christy, I think?” he said.

“No. My boyfriend. The one with a truck who texts late at night when his girlfriend hasn’t told him she is safely back home in a blizzard,” I said.

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm,” he said.

“Well, then shift and run home. I’m waiting,” I told him. I pulled the hood of Jaxx’s sweatshirt up over my head, tucking my hair inside. Ricky just looked at me for a moment.

“I’m a little surprised you two are dating, honestly,” he admitted.

“Why?” I asked.

“You seem like the girl who doesn’t date around or move on quickly. Jaxx hasn’t dated anyone longer than a few weeks,” he said.

My insides grew heavy at his words. “Well, we’ve been dating for over a month now,” I said. Ricky nodded. “Are you trying to tell me something?” Worry gnawed at me, and I hoped he wasn’t trying to warn me.

“No,” he shrugged. “Just not his usual. He dates popular, hot girls. Not the nerdy, nice ones.”

I just blinked at him, confusion dominating. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

Ricky didn’t have much else to say after that. We sat in silence, watching the snow slowly cover the windshield of his car completely. It took forever, but we finally saw headlights slowly pulling through the parking lot. We got out and waved to Jaxx. He stopped his truck and got out, coming over to me quickly.

“You’re almost a popsicle,” he said, immediately pulling me close. He was radiating heat, and I buried my face into his chest, my nose painfully cold.

“You can take her home, right?” Ricky asked.

“Yea,” Jaxx said.

“Cool. I’ll get my car when the storm lets up,” he said. I heard a bag unzipping and then the cracking of bones. Ricky shifted, picked up his bag, and left us in the parking lot.

“Let’s get in the truck. It’s cold even for a wolf,” he said. He grabbed my bag, shut Ricky’s car, and then held my hand across the icy parking lot. When we were finally in the luxurious heat of his truck, I relaxed a little. “Scoot closer,” Jaxx said, pulling at me. His truck had a bench seat so three people could sit inside the cab. I scooted into the middle right next to him. “Are your parents waiting up for you?” he asked as he started to head out of the parking lot.

“No, they went to bed a while ago. They called when we were on the bus, but Ricky said he could take me home, so they didn’t have to wait,” I told him, my teeth still chattering slightly as the heat slowly penetrated my outer layers.

“Want to go somewhere with me?” he asked.

I looked out the windshield at the snow-covered road. “Is it safe?”

I looked out the windshield at the snow-covered road. “Is it safe?”

“We’ll be fine,” he said confidently.

“Um, sure, then,” I said, holding my pink fingers up to the heater. Jaxx pulled to a stoplight and grabbed my hands in his, rubbing them together.

“I’m glad you told me you were stuck,” he said. “Sorry, it took so long to get to you.”

“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” I thanked him earnestly. “I really didn’t know what we were supposed to do.”

“Why didn’t you shift and run home?” he asked with a furrowed brow. The light turned green, and Jaxx dropped my hands to grab the wheel again.

“I don’t like shifting that much,” I told him. I had no intention of shredding my clothes or stripping around Ricky, mixed with not wanting to show him my strange wolf.

“Maybe you just need some practice,” he said.

“It’s not that,” I told him. “I just like my two legs.”

“I guess it means I got to see you tonight,” he smiled.

Jaxx headed out of Stary Pack and toward Wild Paws. I hadn’t spent much time in Wild Paws; its terrain was slightly different than Stary, with thicker forests and a bluff overlooking a lake on the far side. Jaxx didn’t seem bothered at all driving on the snowy roads, and after a while, we were headed along much less traveled ones. I sat close to him the entire ride, letting the heat from him and the car thaw my freezing body. Occasionally, he would grab one of my hands and hold it up to his mouth to blow warm air over it, then k**s it before setting it back in my lap.

When we turned onto a snow-covered dirt road, I got a little nervous. “Where are we going exactly?” I asked him.

“Wild Bluff,” he answered. “Trust me. It’s cool up here.”

“This road doesn’t look too passable,” I commented as we began to feel the rough bumps below the tires.

“I’ve been up here tons. In the snow even,” he assured me.

When the trees around the road began to thin, Jaxx pulled over to the side. He reached behind the seat and pulled out a folded-up blanket. “We might need this,” he smiled. “Come on.” He cut the engine and swung his door open. After he climbed out, he motioned for me to follow. I was hesitant to leave the warmth of the cab, but he seemed excited, so I followed.

He grabbed my hand as I stepped out of the truck, pushing our entwined fingers into his pocket. “This way,” he said, motioning with his head. I followed him through some thin trees and onto an outcropping of rocks. I stopped when the lake came into full view.

“Wow,” I gasped, looking out over the swirling snow and dark water.

“I know, right?” he smiled. “Let’s sit.”

We moved closer to the edge of the rocks at my reluctance. Jaxx sat on the ground and waved at me to join him. As I started to sit, he grabbed me by my h**s, pulling me down onto his lap. He laughed as he unfolded the blanket and pulled it around us both. “Warm, right?” he asked in my ear from behind me. It was nice with his body heat to my back and the blanket blocking out most of the wind. I nodded.

“This is beautiful,” I told him. “It’s like a real-life fairy tale setting.”

“I love coming up here in the snow. The rain too, but it’s a different kind of beautiful. The water is so dark, especially at night,” he commented.

“Thank you for bringing me,” I said. “I love it.”

Jaxx kissed my shoulder over the blanket. His arms tightened around me, pulling us closer to each other. “I haven’t brought anyone else here. I haven’t wanted to until now,” he told me.

“Really?” I asked. He nodded. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I just want to be around you all the time. I want to share stuff with you. I think my parents are really going to like you,” he admitted.

I leaned further back into him; his legs squeezed a little tighter to my sides. We watched the wind push and pull the falling snow in circular patterns until the dark waters captured it. “Did you at least have fun until you got stranded?” he asked after a while.

“Yea,” I told him. “It was fun. The team did well, and hanging out with the other girls was fun except for Maddison.”

“Good,” he said. I yawned, my fatigue finally creeping up on me. I had been awake since early that morning and was too nervous about the weather on the bus to sleep. “We probably shouldn’t stay out here all night.”

I frowned. “Five more minutes?” I asked, turning my head to try to look at him.

Jaxx laughed. “Maybe six,” he agreed.