@BadBoyEmbryCall -

Opening the bag of ice, I half filled the two bags. Stopping for a second before continuing.

“Southpaw…” There was a word I hadn’t heard since the Cullen’s had left. “Hmm… It was something Emmett pushed me on. He said it was up to us to strengthen our weaknesses. And for a right hander, it’s always the left. Make the left as strong or better, the other guy won’t know what hit him.” I turned to look at him for the first time, and my stomach did that twisting thing. -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

What was that about?

“I wouldn’t expect anything less. It’s a little telling that you need more training time. Two punches and I had you hit the ground without a stop. You need to work on that.” My eyes searched his face, looking for marks I must have left. The swelling was still visible, and I felt something in my chest knowing that I was the one to do it. ( Which was a new feeling too. )

@HotHeadSheWolf

I would have teased her any other night by asking her did she really come that often with swollen knuckles, but Seattle had been on my mind tonight and I wonder if the same was true for her. "Thanks." I took the glass.

I tilted my head at her observation... "Do I?" I asked and it wasn't rhetorical. "The reason I didn't hit back wasn't because I was off guard or too slow, Leah." I took one of the bags of ice from her and pressed it to the side on my face that was probably >

@HotHeadSheWolf
< @HotHeadSheWolf
a little swollen and bruised... but not for long. "It was because I didn't need to. You weren't going to hurt me... at least not anything to would last more than an hour. and I did knock you off your feet." I added.

She had to know that... "I don't need to defend myself from you, Leah."

@BadBoyEmbryCall

Once he took that bag from my hand, I walked back to close the door of the freezer and then went to pour myself a double, but this time it was the bourbon. He was talking to me as I worked around the kitchen.

“You did…” I agreed.

I wasn’t in the habit of lying, and he had taken me off my feet. But I wasn’t in the mood to tell him that it wouldn’t have been as easy if my mind wasn’t reeling with the action I’d just taken. And the reason for that action… -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

It had nothing to do with him. “It doesn’t mean that you give up on training yourself to be better.” It was a given, the better you became the more you needed to do to keep it up.

“Why are you always so certain that I won’t hurt you?” Picking the bag of ice up, with my glass I was walking back towards the living room to sit back down on my couch. We had some how ended up right where we started. -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

On my couch with something to cool down the swelling. Spirits. How had tonight even come to pass?

@HotHeadSheWolf

My brow raised again... That question had to be rhetorical, right? “Well, first of all... We weren’t training. Second, sometimes choosing not to fight back 𝕚𝕤 the better option. And third... I don't really understand the question.”

I pulled the ice pack away to take a sip from the glass. “There is no 𝕨𝕙𝕪 I just know you were not... The same way you know I wouldn't hurt you. You might have forgotten that for a split second once or twice tonight... But most of the time, you >

@HotHeadSheWolf
< know.”

She did know, didn't she?

I followed her to the living room and say on the couch. I didn't need a reason to trust her. I just did... I mean if she wanted reasons I could list plenty, but none of them would be 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕠𝕟 the was no singular or collective reason... It was just the way I felt.

My eyes only left her as we walked in here.

“Unless I was... For whatever reason endanger the tribe or a human... You wouldn't hurt me. It any of us... And even then, only >

@BadBoyEmbryCall

Taking a sip from the glass I set it down on the table before me. My elbows in my knees as I lent over placing the bag of ice over my knuckles. A sense of ease washed over my hand, and I took a beat before turning my head to look back at him as he joined me again on the crouch.

I took a few deep breaths, thinking of his answer. It was a round about way of saying that it was trust. Trust of knowing at the end of the day, his Beta wouldn’t harm him of the others in the pack. -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

I slipped the ice bag around looking back at it. Allowing my mind the time to adjust to everything.

I could still feel his hands on me, and how they were the same temperature as my skin. His lips on mine… Spirits that was real!

“So.. it’s about trusting your Beta right? Knowing that she would do right by you and all the pack?”

Where was I going with this? For once I didn’t know. The words were coming because this was a curve ball I didn’t see coming. I was trying to -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

Understand how I didn’t know, how I don’t see it.

“Why did you kiss me?” There.. it was said.. the elephant in the room was being addressed.

@HotHeadSheWolf
There it was again... the one thing that she kept coming back to. That she was the Beta. "Of course, I know that." I watched her ice her knuckles. the way she slipped in and out of deep thoughts.

"But that's not what I meant. I trust the girl I grew up with... that called us in our bullshit... let us get into all sorts of trouble and stopped us getting into too much trouble... And the woman she grew up to be wouldn't hurt me."

All of that was the answer to her next question >

@HotHeadSheWolf
< too... and none of it was at the same time.

"Because... things have been changing Leah, between the two of us. That has been clear for a very long time but I really didn't know why." I took a breath... i was norally prett good with words.. but finding the right words for this were. "When I was leaving here... I just..." I set the glass down and dragged my hand through my hair. "It all seemed really clear, i knew that i would regret it if I didn't turn back. Then when I >

@BadBoyEmbryCall

My lips worked, biting the cheek Maude of my cheeks as I let what he was telling me settle, letting it breath and sink in.

I didn’t speak right away, because there was so much there to unpacked. Because he did it again, he made a point to clarify the difference between the Beta who was born to protect them all, and the woman who sat here with swollen knuckles.

Turning my attention to him again, the ice bag some how grounding me in the now.

But the words weren’t there. -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

“Spirits…” I closed my eyes before looking over to him. That weight on my chest had lifted. There were so many questions. The first… why had I gone to him? Why had I kissed him?

‘Because you know it felt right?’ The voice wasn’t of my wolf, this was a voice of wisdom, I knew if she were here she would smack me up the side of my head.

“So much has changed… I just… I didn’t know how… or why…”

Nodding towards his face. “And I’m not apologising for that one. You deserved it.”

@HotHeadSheWolf
I wanted to ask her questions too... Why did she tell me to go? Why did it hurt her to watch me leave?

I nodded. "I hate to admit it but you're not wrong... I just caught up with all those thoughts in my head... I have a habit of leaping without thinking."

And wasn't that why I had come hear in the first place? Because that was a weakness of mine an i was worried I might act without thinking and regret losing something important to me? "I think I used my quota of sensible >

@HotHeadSheWolf < decisions asking you to hold onto the for me. But at the same time... If I'd let you know what i was thinking you nevr would have let me get close enough... and then you never would have felt..." I remebered the kiss.

The heat, and the stillness and the way my entire body woke up.

"What happened to you?" I asked quitely. I dropped my eys from hers, it was hard to picture that look on her face. "In the door way... What was that?" >

@BadBoyEmbryCall

My head tilted in agreement; we all knew this about Embry. It wasn’t a bad thing, well not always. But sometimes I wished he slowed down, took the time to think through the repercussions of his actions. Then again, most people knew that when it came to him, nothing was done in malice. He only ever wanted the best for people.

Lifting the glass from the table I took two hard sips. Letting the liquor work it’s way down into my stomach. Now some part of -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

me wishing I’d taken out the bottle of moonshine. But I hadn’t touched that stuff since Seattle.

Setting the glass down on the table again, I turned the bag of now melting ice once again. “That’s a loaded question.” I whispered right back, dropped my head back into the couch I closed my eyes thinking how or if I wanted to tell him.

“I was disobeying the Spirits… I wasn’t taking the path they were trying to show me… And that was them showing me how the -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

lost of the path would play out. What it would do to me… to you… That… was then making me feel what you were feeling.” Which was why I knew, why I had to find out for myself.

@HotHeadSheWolf I wasn't sure what to think about word 𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕠𝕓𝕖𝕪𝕚𝕟𝕘. Did that mean she hadn't chosen to follow me?

“That seems like an extreme to get a message across...” I watched her lean back. It couldn't be that. The way she’d light on she’d kissed me outside. Her hand on the back of neck pulling me down to her and kissing my without any hesitation. She was searching too... For that feeling, my heart skipped again remembering it. Even now... When I was pretty sure that she was as confused >

@HotHeadSheWolf
< and thrown as I was there was a spatk of excitement that only dimmed when I thought about her standing in the doorway.

“You choose your own path Leah... They can lay them out for us, they can guide us. But ultimately we choose. Otherwise I never would have wounld up in that parking lot...” I remembered the story I told her is Seattle. “You never would have thought wound up in that ring. We both taken paths that felt wrong. I could have kept walking... I decided not to... >

@HotHeadSheWolf
< That whatever this pull is that keeps bringing me to you was too good to walk away from. When we’re to--” I stopped before I said together because it intoned expectations that I didn't have. It also implied that it was only true when we were alone... But that wasn't it either.

“Lately, when we're both is the same place I feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Like at the bar tonight... Or, when you walked in when was playing the piano; it was something I kept to >

@HotHeadSheWolf
< myself. But I was relieved... Like I had wanted to tell you all along. Just you... But I didn't even it until it happened.” The same was true about the bills.

“I don't want them to make you feel bad because of me... And the worst thing I was feeling when I left was that I didn't want you to think that it didn't mean anything. “

@BadBoyEmbryCall

I knew that I wasn’t explaining it right. I wasn’t able to use my words the way he did. Images my mind had created about the day in the parking lot from the story he told me came flowing in my head, and then the ring and me standing in it. The look on his face and the men that were holding him back. It was making my chest heavy again.

I was speechless looking over at him. “How do you do that? Just say what you are feeling and thinking?” -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

It wasn’t trait I learnt in my life time walking on this earth. He had rattled it all off, things I had no idea about, or I hadn’t understood. But some of it, it sang true. The day I’d stepped into Ms C’s home with the extra key wasn’t normal. It wasn’t something I did. I wasn’t meant to be there, but the spirits had set that path to bring me to Embry at the right time for me to see him in a new light.

The night in Seattle when he was in the ballroom alone playing. -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

Once again, I wasn’t meant to be there, and yet I saw him in a moment where he was lost in himself. Every image and memory the Spirits had shown me when I wouldn’t stop him from leaving this morning… out of… I wasn’t even sure why… But they all were times where our paths were brought together.

“I’ve always made my own choices and decisions Call… They have never pushed me to do anything I didn’t want…” Spirits I was the one that had always made it hard on them. -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

“But… that…” I pointed to the door. How was I explaining this so wrong? “The only thing they asked me to do… was to stop you…”

And the light bulb in my mind went on. “Because they know me… If I had closed that door… I’d find a reason not to answer… what… this…” I placed my hand on my chest. “is…” Swallowing as it dawned on me. If I closed that door, I’d have never stepped on this path. My eyes found his. “I don’t feel bad because of you… It’s me trying to protect you.”

@HotHeadSheWolf
I gave her a long honest look. "There were a lot of things I had to hide for a long time... I hated it. It felt so wrong... so I just started laying out everything else and I tried to convince myself that it made for the rest." I never had managed to convince myself it was true.

"It's easy for some people... and hard or impossible others. But one isn't better or worse than the other... it's just how the world works."

Relief flooded in when she said it had all been her >

@HotHeadSheWolf
< I had already swooped in and kiss without so much as a hint that things were headed that way...

"I know..." I couldn't help but smile. "That was why I didn't close it when I left. I knew if I did... that it would stop there and we might never know that all of this was meant to be." I took the ice away from my jaw. "I really wasn't ready to walk away." It was an insane thing for me to say... but there it was, unfiltered truth. And it wasn't even difficult to say.

"But it >

@HotHeadSheWolf
< would have been okay... I can't things would be same... but I wouldn't hold anything against you. Just because it felt right to me doesn't mean that you had to feel the same way. I don't need to be protected from you Leah... I definitely don't want to be protected from this.”

I took in a long breath and shifted up the couch towards her. My eyes dropping to the hand she'd struck me with twice. I almost reached out and just took her but I stopped. I held out my hand, >

@HotHeadSheWolf <

palm up to her. "Come on, then." I smiled at her. "Let's see the damage?"

@BadBoyEmbryCall

Once again there it was, he believed in laying it all out for people to see. Whereas I believed in a private life. The world came to their own conclusions time and time again, it wasn’t my responsibility to correct them or bring them into my life. And yet it was his way to do what I had been doing all along. Keeping them out of the things he didn’t want them to see. “A game of mirrors.” I muttered to myself. -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

Make someone feel like they are witnessing something, while all along you are hiding what is really happening.

“You… knew?” Confusion dancing in my eyes, until his smile was back. The one that touched his eyes, and showed the purest side of him. But he knew? He knew if I closed that door, that was it.

“When are you ever ready to walk away?” I wasn’t mocking him, it was a fact. Embry Call didn’t walk away from the pa— From the people he cared for. -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

I shook my head, because this was something we both should know about the other. “I know this Call. I may have kicked your arse, I may have made you pay for it. But I wouldn’t have held it over your head. And I know you wouldn’t too.” Which is why I’d asked him to go.

“You… even after everything you’ve managed to see these last few weeks doesn’t show you that you need to be protected from me?” Had he not understood it all? -

@BadBoyEmbryCall -

“I needed to know… to understand. Were we just swept up in something and confused by everything? Or…” I may have thought it before, but that had been the reason I had to stop my mind, stop the thinking ahead, and see what it was. “I’m not saying I have all the answers. Far from it.”

He slipped up the couch towards me and I stilled, reminding myself not to react, to push the past back and to listen to him. -