I was on standby. 

I knew I was on standby, yet I had hoped that either the guy would’ve forced it himself, or that he’d have called me to celebrate. Hell, I was even ready for being asked to help him beat someone up. And, despite me being a responsible adult, I probably would have. 

This outcome was just sad. Another loss in the fight against nature.

To me, it was an important one. I had hoped our respective relationships could be fixed with us staying on as friends and both getting the lover we wanted. But apparently the fucker Matt wasn’t playing ball. I had really wished he would. It would’ve made everything so much easier. And better for David too.

Yet it wasn’t like that, and I was going to have to deal with it. I told Patrick about what had happened and that I was off to see David. He didn’t like it, but he understood why I really had to, so he agreed.

Then there was me, driving up in front of David’s house, seeing the decorations across the street. I felt so much pain seeing them. 

I knew it was David’s pain, but I felt it all the same. I wanted to rip them down and crash the wedding, murdering every last one of them.

The second I got out of my car, David ran up to me. His parents were standing in the doorway, so I gave them a friendly wave as David crashed into me, crying like he just got diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

I cried too. I don’t know why. I never cry, but seeing him like that broke my heart a thousand times. My body was on full alert, focussed like in a kickbox match. I was ready to kill someone.

“Can we go somewhere?” he said in a meek voice, leaving everything up to me.

“Yes.” I said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“Ok, get in.” I said, waving to his parents in a way that signalled caring and confidence.

I drove him to a theme park. It was 40 minutes away and I gave him my hand to hold, I could drive one-handed, this was a Tesla, it could practically drive itself. David didn’t say anything the entire drive. Just held my hand and cried. I didn’t say anything either.

I got the tickets, and we went inside. He still hadn’t said a word, but he was squeezing my hand and leaning on my arm heavily.

When we were in, I asked him: “OK, what do you want to do first?” 

He said nothing.

“Do you want to talk?”

Nothing again. He just kept squeezing my hand.

I thought: fuck it, let’s get something going here. And I chose the most exciting attraction: a divecoaster. 

We waited in line for twenty minutes, still nothing from David. He was still just squeezing my hand, and no matter what I said, related to the issue at hand or not, he wouldn’t say anything in return.

So, when we reached the end of the line, we went. It was a terrific ride. I hadn’t been in a theme park for years and I had almost forgotten my love of rollercoasters, but there it was. 

YAY! I laughed, squeezing his hand as we plunged down, and finally a sound came from David. “HELL YEAH!” he screamed.

When we got out of the ride, he was laughing, which was a good sign. I asked him if he wanted to go again, but he said he was ready to talk now, so I picked up two icecreams and we sat down at a bench.

“Do you think I’m a kid?” he said, when I brought him his icecream.

I raised mine to the sky and said: “Well if you think I’m a kid too, then yeah.”

He scoffed at that, but took his candy and licked it. It was extremely sexy too look at, so I turned my head and ignored that little fact. I was here for comfort, not to get turned on by a nineteen-year-old twink.

“Why did you bring me to a theme-park? Did you google how to cheer up a kid?”

“No. It was either this or skydiving, but I figured your mum would kill me if I chose the latter.”

He scoffed. “Yeah she would. But why?”

“You needed to feel something else. Adrenaline is a good way to make sure of that.”

“Thank you. It did help a bit. But now what?”

“Well, I can drag you into another rollercoaster or you can tell me about Matt.”

“OK, I’ll talk. You know about fated mates?”

“Yeah, I heard stories, but I never believed in them.”

“Well I did. I thought me and Matt were fated. That we couldn’t go wrong…”

“Tell me about him.”

David sighed. “I don’t know anything anymore. I mean, since I can remember there was me and Matt. I made other friends, but Matt had been special from the start. There wasn’t like one moment that I fell in love with him. I just… I don’t know. I think I always loved him. My parents knew it too. They were rooting for us, you know.”

I nodded and wrapped an arm around him. It was automatic and he snuggled up to me as he continued his story.

“I’ve only ever been with Matt. I couldn’t even conceive being with someone else. I still can’t… I was so sure…” He started crying again.

I was pondering what to do, when he suddenly turned his head up and looked me straight in the eye. 

“How could this happen? If the bonding process just turns your life around like that. That Matt can just stop loving me in a fucking instant, because he bonded with Adam. Then why are we like this? You didn’t stop loving your husband, right? So why?”

I didn’t know the right answer to this. I had one, but I wasn’t going to say it. I settled for something stupid, but something I hoped made sense. “I think it’s because Adam got pregnant.”

I paused, but he was still looking at me with so much pain in his eyes, I couldn’t bear it. I tried some more words. “They completed the bond. And besides that, Adam is carrying Matt’s baby. I think he might still love you, but his alpha instinct tells him to be with Adam and the baby. I think that feeling trumps what he feels for you.”

“You think he still loves me?” the perfect blue teared up eyes looked at me expectantly.

“Yeah, I do. But you need to let him go all the same.”

“If we still love each other, why would I?”

“David, you need to move on. He’s marrying Adam today. He made his choice.”

The poor boy fell into my arms and cried harder. My tank top got soaked with his tears and my heart felt as if it was breaking apart. I wondered how any alpha could leave their omega at this point. I had wondered the same thing before, but that had been about walking away from responsibility. I couldn’t understand how any alpha, no, any PERSON could do that.

But in this moment, that sentiment was mixed with something else. If you FEEL your omega’s feelings like this, then how could anyone bear to leave them crying?

I cradled David in my arms, and smelling his hair made me want to kiss it. Kiss him, hold him, make it all better. But I knew I couldn’t.

We stayed like that for a while. I thought about what rollercoaster I would suggest after this emotional moment, thinking we both needed an upper. But he didn’t give me the time. After his last shaky sob, he looked up at me, face only two inches from mine and asked the question I really didn’t want to hear.

“If we complete our bond, will I stop loving Matt?”

I did the only reasonable thing I could and softly pushed him away. “No David, that won’t solve anything.” I said sternly. I wasn’t sure I believed that myself, but I needed it to be the truth. 

“Besides, you like men, so why on earth would you want to go and do that? Just to forget about Matt? Well you won’t. You won’t forget about him, so don't try. But in time your love will fade, and he'll just be a memory. You're only nineteen years old. In time, you will find someone else to love. Someone that works for you.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Fuck you!” 

It was out before I had a chance to do anything about it. It was idiotic, I never say things without thinking first. But I was getting pissed-off. I wasn’t his mom, I wasn’t OLD. I was perfectly capable to be with him in every sense of the word, and somehow I was hurt that he compared me to his mother. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t reasonable either, since I knew I was acting like his mother. But I just…

“That was exactly what I was suggesting.” He said smugly.

Goddamnit! I wanted to fuck him so bad… Those eyes, that cheeky smile, the way he bit his lip before our first kiss… 

I knew it was the bond doing most of the reasoning right now, but I couldn’t put all the blame on that. He was exactly my type. He had always been exactly my type. A bit young, but still… That was probably the reason why I couldn’t resist him in the first place. That was why he was different from the other unclaimed omegas I had successfully gotten out of trouble. The situations had been similar, but the omega hadn’t been… Well, him.

He had been staring at me since I uttered the curse. Intently. Cheeky even. He hadn’t backed off, nor looked away. Which was curious, because normally omegas backed away from me at way less. And with the fury of pheromones I had just released, most betas and alphas would be at least five feet from me by now. Instead, he had thrown that sass at me, and was now studying my face as I was gritting my teeth.

I sighed before I spoke. “David... you”

“What’s your favourite car?” he interrupted.

I was caught by surprise. What kind of question was that in a discussion like this? “My Tesla of course.” I answered, still confused.

“Why?”

“Well, its comfortable and its electric, so it’s the responsible choice since we have polluted our planet more than enough.” I said, still wondering why he was asking me this, but happy at the change of subject.

He nodded and smiled, then he put his hand on my shoulder, moved an inch closer and said something I really wasn’t expecting.

“What if you didn’t have to be so responsible all the time, what would you drive?”

“A Ducatti.” The answer came automatic. It was the truth. He had just pulled something out of me that no one else would be able to make me say, even under torture.

“Huh…” he said, and smiled as if he had uncovered the fucking philosopher’s stone. Oh god that smile…

“You know how to ride a motorcycle?”

“Yeah. I took lessons when I was still in college. I had my own bike back then too.”

“Why not now?”

“It doesn’t suit my lifestyle and it’s bad for the environment. Besides, Patrick doesn’t like me doing anything reckless like that.

He wondered at that, his blue eyes scanning upward, brow knotted. “Why is driving a motorcycle reckless?”

I had the answer ready. Pat had told me a thousand times, as had my mother before she died. “Because no matter how good you are, if some idiot hits you with his car, your life is over. You owe it to your loved ones to not take those unnecessary risks.”

“You think so?” his face was flushed, and he stared at me with those big blue eyes. Oh, crap he was taking my statement and applying that to himself. I should correct myself, I thought.

“Hey, people have to so some irresponsible things in their life when they’re young you know. It’s just… I grew up and realised that it wasn’t right to put myself in harm’s way anymore. When I was your age, I was still zigzagging traffic at 80 miles an hour…”

He smiled again. “I bet you loved it too…”

“Hell yeah, I did.” I smiled back at him. My god he was cute. He truly brought out the worst in me.

“OK, so…” he was back to serious again. “Forget my earlier remarks. What do you think I should do?”

I took a deep breath and thought about it. He averted his gaze towards some kids picking on each other, their parents trying to break up the fight and accidently getting their son to spill his icecream.

“I think you should live a little.” I said. 

“You’re nineteen years old, you’re in college. Experiment a bit with things you want to do. Have fun, party, date, enjoy being young. I don’t mean be an idiot, but just… You’ve always thought Matt would be the one. That you’d be marrying him, getting kids. Well, now’s your chance to do things you wouldn’t have done if your future had turned out the way you planned. So I say do them… Oh, but don’t tell your mother I said that, okay?”

He grinned at me with a devilish smile. It slayed me.

“OK.” He said, but there was more coming, I knew it. “But only if you can defeat me at bumper cars.”

That wasn’t so bad. “Challenge accepted.” I said.