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Mila
“You’re nothing like I imagined you to be, you know,” Alexander commented as he walked a few steps in front of me. He had insisted on leading the way, which was fine with me. He lived here, so he knew his way around. The last thing I wanted was to end up lost in the middle of the woods.
“How did you imagine me?” I asked him.
“Truthfully, I imagined you to be nonexistent,” Alexander admitted. “Elias always used to talk about you, but every time I asked if I could meet you, it never happened.”
“I’m a busy girl,” I replied with a shrug, even though that wasn’t why I hadn’t been there to meet him when he wanted to before he’d disappeared seventeen years ago. The truth was that I had no interest in meeting another one of my brother’s friends. They were always weird and usually jerks, so I made it a habit to busy myself whenever they were around in order to avoid them.
From what I could tell so far, though, Alexander was nothing like the rest of them. If we had met in the real world – in a world in which he was able to leave Devil’s Falls – I was pretty sure that we actually might have hit it off.
“Yeah, well. I did imagine what you would be like if you were real,” Alexander admitted, glancing over at me. His hazel eyes locked on mine.
“And what did you imagine?” I asked curiously.
“I imagined Elias with long hair,” he admitted.
I snorted. “That would be, um, interesting.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he replied with a chuckle. “You look nothing like him.” He paused. “I meant what I said, Mila. You truly are the most beautiful girl who I’ve ever met.”
“Thank you,” I replied with a smile. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Really?” His eyebrows shot up.
“Really,” I admitted.
“I’m not sure why I’m so surprised that someone as stunning as you could say something like that about me.” Alexander glanced over at me. “If I ever get out of Devil’s Falls, I’m going to make it my life’s mission to marry you.”
My heart skipped a beat. I wished that I could say that I didn’t find his comment flattering, but I did. The fact that he felt this thing between us, too – even if talking about marriage at this point sounded completely insane – made my heart smile.
“I’ve made you go completely silent,” Alexander noted when I didn’t say anything back right away.
“I-I don’t know what to say.” That was half-true; it was half the reason I had gone quiet.
“Well, you could say I do,” he replied with a sly grin.
I do. It sounded crazy because we had only just met, but I could actually picture myself saying those words to him in front of an altar someday.
Except, I couldn’t allow myself to feel this way. There was a good chance that Alexander Petit would never live a day outside of Devil’s Falls. And under those conditions, there was no way I could allow myself to love him.
The thing was, I had always been a bit of a wanderer. I didn’t like staying in one place for too long. When things got rough, I had a tendency to run. But if I let myself love a guy who would never be able to leave one area, that would have meant that I had to stay there, too. And that would just never work.
“I do?” I asked, pulling myself out of my thoughts and glancing over at him then. “Who says that I even want to get married? Some girls can’t be tied down. Maybe I’m one of them.”
“Oh, is that how it is?” Alexander sounded amused.
“Maybe,” I replied with a shrug.
When he glanced back over at me, I could have sworn there was a disappointed look in his eyes. But he said, “Well, Mila, take your time. Just know that if your mind ever changes – if you ever do decide you wish to settle down with someone – then I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
As my eyes locked on his, I swallowed hard. Every ounce of my being believed that what he was saying was true – that what he felt for me was strong enough to withstand the time he might spend waiting, that the connection we had was enough to withstand forever.
But I knew that it was naïve for me to believe that anything he was saying could have possibly been true. We had only just met. There was no way that he could have felt so strongly about me after such little time. What he was saying couldn’t have been true. It had to have just been words. Words that a player would use. Words that he probably thought would help him get inside my pants. Words that clearly were having the effect that he intended for them to have on me, since my heart swooned every time he spoke.
But what if they weren’t just words? What if he actually meant what he was saying?
A thought entered my mind then, a thought that I hadn’t actually considered until now. What if there was a reason the two of us had this magnetic connection, this undeniable chemistry?
There was only one wolf who I could think of who even remotely resembled Alexander in terms of thoughts and that was Jax. Jax had waited for Camryn. What he felt for her was strong enough to withstand the time he had spent waiting; their connection was obviously enough to withstand forever.
What if Alexander Petit was my mate?