by Jade White
But beyond that, the man wasn’t a romantic in any sense of the word. Oksana had put her faith in a couple of men on the far side of the planet and threw away her old life in hopes that she would find out that they were her soul mate or that she could be their mate. The fact that she had come all this way meant that she was a romantic at heart and no matter what she enjoyed, she wanted to be swooned and she wanted to feel like she was at least being courted in the slightest sense of the word. She didn’t want to be a booty call.
Mike hadn’t made her feel that way. In fact, Mike had more than once shown that he was more selfish than he was selfless and though he showed the potential to be concerned about her and worried about how she felt, he really let it slide and let it slip when it came to the date. She wanted more from him and she wanted him to at least try a little harder. She wanted him to feel the necessity of being romantic and kissing her softly, showing her a good time and making sure she was having fun. He hadn’t done any of that. She felt like a vending machine where he was putting in coins and waiting for the right number to be hit before he could get his goodie out of it.
But when he finally did hit that right number, God, it had been incredible. While Mike had lacked the finesse that was needed to meet the romantic side of her mind, he had made up for it in the adventurous and exciting date that he had taken her on. Going to a concert and dancing while getting drinks and flirting with each other was exactly what she called a fun date, if not a romantic one. Besides, if he couldn’t be romantic, at least he could be fun and that was exactly what he’d delivered for her. She had been grateful for that and she wouldn’t forget it.
That, of course, had only been half of the night and when they got home, that was when Mike really started to excel. He was a man who knew what he wanted and he was aggressive about it. That was hot to her and it was a huge turn on. She liked that he was exciting when it came to sex and that he was adventurous, even a little dangerous to her. It was hard for someone to really get her like that, but he’d done an excellent job at it. She smiled at the thought of how he’d cuffed her and teased her with the ice cube. She wanted more of that. That was the kind of wild sex that she wanted in her life all the time. Sure, it might stagnate, but it was always under there, waiting to be reborn and brought back into the relationship. She would be more than willing to go through a dry period if that kind if exciting, electric sex was waiting for her on the other side.
In the end, it was his experience that saved Mike and while she thought about his flaws, she couldn’t help but feel like there was a lot of real potential there. She wanted to know more about him. His mysterious exterior was doing the trick. The more she saw him, the more she wanted to know what was deeper inside. Heck, she hadn’t even seen him naked yet and that was the treat she really wanted to have before all of this was over. If she never got a chance to see him naked, it would be the cruelest trick on the planet. She would cry herself to sleep.
But then, there was always the reality that there was another figure here that needed just as much attention and even more scrutiny as Mike did and that was the beloved friend and roommate of Mike, Will. There was so much she wanted to say about Will that she didn’t even know where to begin. It was hard with Will, because the good and the bad was saturated and it was all mixed together in such a way that she found it hard to separate them, but she was going to do the best that she could. She looked at herself in the mirror as she thought about Will and already hated herself for thinking these thoughts.
He was so sweet, but that was a good thing and a very bad thing to her. The fact was that Will was the kind of man who thought nice guys were deserving of things and regardless of the fact that he’d never said that before. She could tell. It was the source of his optimism that was so bubbly and so enduring that he believed he was going to succeed at everything just because he was nice to people, which was not only wrong, but dangerous. He was going to set himself up for so many hurts and so many disappointments in the future that she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to ride that ride. One day, nice guys snapped and when they snapped, they snapped hard. They either went rogue or they went into depression. She didn’t want to be Will’s reason to snap, but she also didn’t want to feed the fantasy he’d built up.
Sure, it was great he’d been kind enough to buy her a bike and he had clearly thought about the idea of going on a date way more than Mike had, but she didn’t know where his designs went beyond that. In fact, for the entire day, he didn’t really flirt with her at all. She had fallen for him and she was completely smitten by his personality, but it was hard to tell where he actually stood because not only would he fail to vocalize it, but he wouldn’t even hint it to her. Whether it was because he was scared, chivalrous, or just polite, didn’t matter to Oksana. It was frustrating and she wanted it to end.
Where Mike was silent, Will was evasive. Neither was beneficial to her or something she wanted to encourage or enjoy.
There was also the wonderful fact that before last night, Will had been a virgin. The thing about Will was he wasn’t the idealistic virgin who believed in God and thought that God wanted him to keep it in his pants, or that he’d go to hell if he had sex. In fact, he was a victim of his own kindness, his own generosity and his own foolish hindrance of everything. He was the guy that got in his own way and screwed up everything on his own. It was the fact that he had never had the decent opportunity or the chance to have sex with someone and that made her feel bad for him. But, that did mean he had tons of potential and opportunity for her to show him everything that she loved and everything that they could do to each other and they would totally be able to enjoy each other. Again, that also came with a negative that was pretty hard to avoid.
Will was scared of sex and though he was eager last night, she realized he wasn’t assertive in what he wanted and that was one of the hottest things to her. She was sexy and she had crafted her body so that she didn’t have a doubt in her mind that she was sexy, but it was useless if someone she was with didn’t know how they wanted to play with her. She wanted them to go for her and to do all the things that they fantasized and dreamed of. It had been what was so hot about Mike and what had been fun, but kind of frustrating about Will. Sure, one day, Will would probably know what it was that he wanted to do to her, but she didn’t want to have to instruct him and coach him all the way through everything. No, she wanted him to wake up and decide that he wanted to explore her on his own.
Finally, there was the fact that both of these issues came from the fact that Will was the person in this house who had made sure she came here and that she was comfortable when she arrived. He had taken care of her the most and he had made it his plan to see to it that she was in the best of hands. Mike had done none of that and it was something that she couldn’t really hold against Mike, but something that she could really hold in favor of Will.
Sure, Mike was a little skeptical about all of this, but Will had jumped in without even hesitating and that hit her deep. She could have showed up and they could've chained her to a wall and fucked her as a slave and treated her like a dog, but Will had made certain she was happy and comfortable. Heck, it was probably going to be Will who drove her to interviews and made sure that she got the best driving instructor. He was a selfless man who actually cared about her and she knew Mike probably was deep down inside, but he just hadn’t shown it yet.
So there it was, the biggest dilemma of her life.
They were both incomplete and in an ideal world, the perfect man would come complete with all of these positive traits and cancel out all of the negative traits, but she knew this wasn’t the perfect world but the real world. Things were messy, people were complex and faults were a part of life. She was just going to have to think over these and see whom it was that she saw herself actually spending the rest of her life with. It was the hardest thing she could think of and going through them like this had been absolutely no help to her.
She decided it was time t
o see what they thought about all of this.
She needed their input.
By the time she made it to the bottom of the stairs, she was seriously questioning whether she had made the right decision by ever coming out of her room or if it might have been better suited for the survival of all of them that she just lock herself away and never be seen again. She felt the nerves inside of her stomach coiling and constricting with each step that she took. Listening to the sound of pacing and feeling the thick tension that was in the room, so thick and so potent that it could grab a hold of her and strangle her, she realized that she might have overestimated their ability to remain calm.
At the bottom of the stairs, she saw that the one who was pacing back and forth was Mike and he was clearly not doing well with the twenty four hours away from home. She could see the look in his eye was not good. It was the look that told her he was regretting how he had planned his time and how he had decided that only the evening was what he wanted for them to do something. She knew if he could go back in time or be given a second chance, they would probably end up with a very different date and that made her feel both a little pity and sadness for him.
You couldn’t go back. You couldn’t just pick up and go do things over. He had his chance and he had been overly cocky and reckless with his chances. Sure, she hadn’t decided to go with anyone yet, but she could see that this was the biggest fault in all of Mike’s plans. He was too sure of himself and that was going to inevitably bite him in the ass one day. Maybe that day was a lot sooner than he’d like it to be.
As he paced back and forth, she could practically see the storm cloud hanging over him and so could Will, who was making a sandwich in the kitchen, trying his hardest not to incur the wrath of Mike who was shaking his head and muttering to himself. She knew there was something clearly bothering him and it was the same thing she knew was going to bother all of the Shifters she ever went out on a date with or decided to spend her life with.
Jealousy.
It was hanging over him like a thick fog and he could hardly see out of it. She was surprised that the room didn’t feel like a boiler room because when Shifters got jealous, they got hot. Thankfully, Mike was clearly fighting the urge to blow up and that was something she was both very grateful for and proud of him for doing. But, she knew she was going to have to step lightly here. She was on shaky ground and she knew one wrong word could send Mike transforming into a dragon and destroying this house.
When Mike saw her, he stopped pacing and stood as still as a statue and she thought this was even worse than the angry pacing. It was kind of like he was in pain, using all of his strength to keep his body from walking around and grumbling. He was donning that armor again that she knew she hated so much, but was also drawing her in at the same time. It was a shame she couldn’t just get a peek at what was underneath. Even if that peek was the vocalization that he was jealous and worried about his chances. At least that would make him seem a little more human. It would give him some color and some life that she hadn’t seen in him yet.
“Hey,” he said with a nod of his head, trying to act nonchalant about the whole thing when she clearly saw him freaking out a few seconds ago. It was actually ridiculous to see him acting like this. Why couldn’t he just be normal for one second in his life?
“Hi,” she said with a smile that was both excited and genuinely happy to see him again.
That was the hardest part about all of this. Why couldn’t one of them have totally screwed it up and been terrible. If either of them had sucked at dating or not had sex with her, or even worse, had really terrible sex with her, then this would be an open and closed case. But it wasn’t and she knew there was going to be some emotional connection to whatever it was that she decided. Pain was on the horizon and she was the one holding the scalpel.
“Good morning, Will,” she said, calling into the kitchen.
He looked up from the cutting board and smiled at her. It was a sweet, quiet little smile that didn’t give a hint away at all about what had happened last night. It was apparent right then that Mike was not the only one in this house who knew how to keep a straight face when he needed to. She smiled at the childishness of all of this, but when Will’s eyes darted to Mike, she knew he was also worried. They were both terrified about what was going to happen.
“So, I was thinking maybe we should talk about what’s happened,” she said, walking into the kitchen and sitting down at one of the stools on the island.
She looked at Will, who nodded silently and then glanced over at Mike who was starting to pace back and forth again, but begrudgingly headed over to the island and sat down, leaving a stool between himself and her. She thought this was odd. Was he really that insulted by the fact that she went on a date with Will and slept with him? Did he really think she wasn’t going to sleep with Will after she had slept with him on their first date? That was childish and she didn’t like how ugly it was, too.
“I know this isn’t going to be easy, but I think if we sit down and talk about what we think, it might be easier for me to make my decision in a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks?” Mike said, raising an eyebrow. “No, that’s not what we agreed on. You’re supposed to make your decision today, after we’ve had our dates. You’re supposed to make the decision now and we’ll know who it is without having to drag this whole thing out longer than it needs to be.”
“Will and I decided it would be better in a couple of weeks,” Oksana said, looking at Will who had clearly dropped the ball here.
She was expecting him to talk to Mike about this. She didn’t think this was really her responsibility to relay to Mike. It was their agreement after all.
“When? Last night?” Mike hopped on that one faster than they could even imagine and she shook her head.
“No, it was the first night that she was here,” Will said. “I was going to tell you when you got home, but you were out until, like, three and I went to bed. I woke up in the morning and it slipped my mind. What’s the big deal, anyway?”
“The big deal is that you two are changing the arrangement without my say,” Mike said, looking at Oksana like she’d just plunged a knife into his back and she didn’t know what to say to him. It was like he was blowing this whole thing out of proportion on purpose and she couldn’t possibly understand why. He was sabotaging this for himself. Didn’t he see that?
“I thought that a couple of weeks would help me give a better judgment and have a better chance of making the right decision,” Oksana said, trying to come between the two of them and bring some kind of civility to this whole thing.
She didn’t want them killing each other over the fact that she wasn’t making a decision today. She felt a knot in her stomach growing and was desperately trying to understand how things could've gone this wrong. They shouldn’t have come to this agreement and they shouldn’t have decided this was the course of action they were supposed to take. No. They should've come up with a different plan.
“No way,” Mike said, shaking his head. “The longer you have to think about it, the more Will is going to seem like the better guy. He’s always cleaning and fixing things. He’s going to totally end up buying your affection and you’ll think he’s the more responsible one and the right choice. No way. This is about the dates and that’s it. Dragging this out longer makes it something that it’s not and I don’t want to deal with that. Okay?”
“I’m sorry,” Oksana said to him, shaking her head. “But I don’t think I can come up with a decision at the end of the day. That’s not enough time and you’re putting way too much pressure on me to come to a conclusion for a competition that I didn’t even ask to be a part of. You realize all the other women and men on that site are purchased by one person and they don’t have to go through these twisted games like this? So, the fact that I’m playing along with you should speak volumes about how much I’m willing to help out here.”
“She’s right,” Will said, raising his v
oice. “But I think Mike also has a fair point. I don’t want there to be any resentment between us once the decision is made. Maybe it’s best that you just go on instinct and you pick the winner in a day, regardless of your analysis or your judgments.”
“Then we might as well flip a coin,” Oksana shook her head. “That’s not the way to handle this.”
“I don’t understand why you’re making this so difficult,” Mike said. “Who was the person that you had the most fun with and who met all of your qualifications for the best date? That’s all you have to do. Once you pick, the other will respectfully bow out and there won’t be a problem.”
“There won’t be a problem?” Oksana laughed. “If I chose Will right now, you’d rip off his head and if I chose you right now, Will would probably pack up his things and vanish for the rest of his life. No, we’re all invested in this and we all have something at stake here, regardless of whether you want to accept it or not. We’re all getting a little emotional and we just need to take a step back and think through all of this. We just need to understand what it is you’re asking me and until you’re both comfortable with the fact that one of you is going to walk away empty handed, I’m not making a decision.”
“That’s not the rules,” Mike said, looking at her with that fiery passion that she loved so much. That willingness to fight and to be assertive was something that she was definitely turned on by, but right now it was standing in their way and she thought that it was the biggest pain in the butt that she had ever experienced. She needed to bring him down and she needed help to do that, but if she turned to Will that would only make things worse. “Oksana, before midnight, you’re going to have to decide or we’re going to have to settle this.”
