Inevitably Yours

MICHAEL

I opened my eyes, and the brilliant sun coming through one of Austin’s large paned windows in his living room blinded me. I looked down to see I wasn’t wearing the shorts I’d come in, and I had a girl sleeping soundly with her head in my lap, on her knees next to the couch I was lying on. I couldn’t quite remember last night, but the ruined lipstick and eyeliner streaked down her face gave me a solid clue. Eros helped push flashes of last night to the forefront, and I felt terrible. I’d drank so much after we were done that I couldn’t remember most of it. Hopefully, no one had been around to watch. I didn’t necessarily care, but I’m sure she would.

It happened too many times to count now; involuntary thoughts of having Quinn here instead of the girl passed out in my lap intruded my brain, scenarios of strangers at the party overhearing or watching me make her mine. The little sounds that escaped her mouth when we kissed became a much louder moaning in my mind, and for a moment, I imagined what could have been. I’d had dirtier thoughts about this; images of her pretty mouth wrapped around someone else as she rode me. I wasn’t sure how those fantasies would hold out against a mate bond if she really were my fated mate.

Those pictures took my slowly rising morning wood to full mast in my boxers, threatening to brush the girl’s lips and wake her up. I quickly extricated myself from our awkward embrace and gently lifted her onto the couch. She wasn’t wearing much, so I covered her with a blanket. I didn’t want to see Austin, so I grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge and ducked out quietly. Luckily, my shorts were lying across the table. I scolded myself; I couldn’t even stop thinking about her when I was with someone else.

Unfortunately, my mom was waiting for me when I got home.

“Where in the hell have you been?” she asked. To be fair, it was somewhere around ten, and I hadn’t told her I wasn’t coming home last night.

“I was just out, mom,” I lied. I was at a house party pretty much every night since graduation. If I had a superpower, it was that I didn’t get a hangover no matter how much or what I drank. As a result, I’d been using parties to keep my mind off my assumed mate with someone I once thought of as a friend. I still didn’t get how it happened in the first place. I asked Ricky to watch her, so he should have killed it right away when they started talking. The only thing that made logical sense was that he helped them get together. Either way, he was dead to me. Telling Jaxx that she was talking to me should have been enough.

Usually, it was girls first and alcohol second. That way, I didn’t violate my no-drunk-girls rule, and then I’d forget what I’d come to do. Unfortunately, it was becoming less effective at subduing my revulsion. I’d thought about trying to find a chosen mate, but the thought made my heart ache for Quinn. So, here I was, trying to forget. The only reprieve I got was when she would text or call me. I’d feel marginally better until the thought of talking to her about where I’d been the night before crossed my mind.

“You smell like a Goddess-damned bar, Michael! Who are you out drinking with? I don’t even know you anymore!”

“It is what it is, Mom.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” she demanded, poking her cigarette towards me. Of course, she was smoking as she waited. “First, the s**t with beating the hell out of that chubby kid in a wrestling match, then you get kicked off the team and won’t tell us why, and you skip graduation? Do I need to have you see a shrink? What the hell?”

“What exactly do you want from me?” I asked, my anger growing. “All I wanted and planned for my entire life was being Alpha of Stary Pack. I have no f*****g clue what to do with my life, and now I’m down here, alone with nothing. Dad won’t train me, and I have to do that my f*****g self. What is the point? I’m never going back, and I’ve lost….”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“What have you lost, Michael?” she demanded. “You’re 17. You haven’t found your mate yet, not that you haven’t tried sticking your d**k into any she-wolf that looks at you, and you have your whole life ahead of you. The Goddess has plans-”

“Yea, like she planned what he did to us?” I asked quietly. She didn’t have an answer for that, as usual. “I have to shower before I go to the gym.”

I stepped around her and pushed through the door. I could hear her clearing her throat, probably holding back tears, but that was on her. I was tired of being told the Goddess would fix all my problems. She put us with Lawrence. She gave my mate away to some f*****g loser and stuck her with parents who mostly ignored her. I wasn’t going to pretend to be nice about Her.

–

I needed to go through town, so shifting wasn’t an option. As usual, I threw my small bag with my gi on my back and jumped on my bike to head to the gym. When we first found my dad, he tried to give me his old truck. My mom was adamant that I was too young to be driving, though. Before I could drive it, she took it out and blew the engine. So, still no license or car. Ricky taught me how to drive when I lived in Stary; I was waiting on my birthday to take the test without the required class beforehand.

I pedaled into the parking lot, and I could see everyone gathering around for the noon class through the windows. It was No-Gi, which meant no uniform. It was the closest to wrestling I was going to get in BJJ. I was already in my shorts and a rashguard, so I jumped on the mat to warm up with everyone. It was my least favorite part, but I dutifully front rolled, karaoked, cherry picked, frog jumped, sprawled, and tons of other exercises in a circle around the room.

“Pair up for takedowns!” Ash called out. I heard a few people g***n, and I got a few side-eyes as people gravitated away from me. Takedowns weren’t necessarily their strong suit, and I generally dumped everyone on their head or back until time stopped. Clayton walked over to me, unfazed. He wanted to get better, so he was willing to be a throwing dummy during these rounds. He wrestled a little in middle school, so he was the only one other than me with experience. On the opposite end, when we worked on guard passing or submission-based drills, he beat my a*s regularly.

Class went by slowly, and I tried to pay attention to what Ash was teaching. I was sidetracked throughout the entire thing, continuously getting choked as I failed the guard passes. I was relatively dominant in the top position, but BJJ was weird compared to wrestling. The person on the bottom would pull what they called ‘guard’ where they tried to wrap their legs around the person on top. The person on top would try to get out of their legs to work for a submission.

In the gi, I was a total amateur. It slowed me down, and I wasn’t used to trying to work for grips on someone’s clothes. Luckily, No-Gi BJJ came to me relatively easily. I was able to submit all of the white belts in our class; Carson being a blue belt gave me more of a challenge. I was still able to submit him in No-Gi somewhere around half the time. Unless we were drilling submissions, I was usually able to grind him out from the top position until time stopped.

“Hey, Michael,” Ash leaned down and said gently while I was trying to trap Carson’s arm. “Great work today. Can I talk to you after class?”

Carson and I gave each other a weird look before I replied, “Yea?”

He clapped me on the back, effectively stopping what Carson and I were doing, “Sweet, see you then.”

“What could that be about?” I asked Carson. Ash had never asked to talk to me after class before.

He shrugged, “No idea. I guess we’ll find out.”

Class ended, and I walked over to find Ash cleaning up behind the pro shop counter. He split into a huge grin and handed me a flyer. The title read ‘US Grappling World Championships’ with information on a grappling tournament with different weight and skill categories.

“What’s this for?” I asked. He’d not mentioned this to the class.

“You’ve come along so much in No-Gi that I think you should compete in the beginner or intermediate division. Technically, intermediate is my class as a blue belt. I think you could do well in either,” he told me confidently.

“World championships? You want me to compete in your class?” I asked incredulously. What was he going on about? I’d just started.

“It’s a fancy title for a fairly large tournament in the northern part of the state. You wouldn’t be competing with me; we’re obviously in different weight classes.”

I looked him up and down. He was the kind of body type that was hard to tell what he weighed. He couldn’t be more than one weight class below me if we weren’t in the same one.

“I’ll talk to my parents,” I answered. I was intrigued; I missed competing already.

“I’ll be waiting to hear back,” he told me with a grin.

–

I was lying in bed with the curtains drawn, and the door closed. I was still tired from the night before, and I had too many things swimming through my head. This tournament sounded perfect, win or lose. I was sure my parents wouldn’t care, although I was only a minor for a few more months. In the pitch black, my mind wandered back to where it had been that morning. As I began to stiffen thinking of Quinn in various inappropriate situations, the specter of Jaxx deflated my growing desire. If I didn’t know who she was dating, I couldn’t imagine it, but I did know him. It worked for the best as my dad popped his head into the room and turned the light on.

“Hey, I need you outside,” he told me ambiguously.

“For?” I asked. I wasn’t in the mood for his cryptic bullshit today, even if it was a surprise.

“You’ll see,” his voice called, fading as he walked down the hallway away from me.

“Go,” Eros insisted. “You know if he’s not telling you, it’s probably important.”

I sighed heavily, throwing my legs over the side of the bed and standing to my feet. I trudged outside, but I couldn’t believe what I saw when I opened the door. There were wooden dummies, racks of training weapons, punching bags, a small training area marked out, huge round targets on a short range, and other implements I didn’t recognize. The backyard was completely transformed.

“I’ve been working out here for a few days. With you gone most of the time, you didn’t even notice,” he told me, his voice careful. He didn’t sound upset, but I’m sure he wasn’t happy with me.

“What is all of this?” I asked, my heart beating harder as I anticipated his answer.

“It’s time to train you, son,” came the words I’d been waiting on for an eternity.