Jeff, Zach, and Grey all looked varying degrees of surprised, and...something else. Angry? Upset? Jeff and Zach were definitely upset. Grey's expression was much more subtle, but it seemed similar somehow.
Alethia had the same kind, compassionate look. Teri, though, smiled ruefully and said, "I wish I'd had that solution a little while back. I could've used it for sure."
"Me too," said Leah, startling Nina a bit. "That's smart, knowing how to keep yourself safe and have somewhere to sleep even if you can't pay rent."
Nina had been expecting shock or pity. "Did you—not have somewhere to stay?" she asked them, surprise making her bolder than she would've been otherwise.
Leah nodded. "Kicked out of my apartment, alone with my daughter. Almost froze to death in the snow." She cast a fond look at Jeff. He must be her mate, Nina thought. "Would have, if not for him."
Teri nodded. "For me it wasn't so bad; I had a roof over my head. But it was a pretty awful roof. If I could've slept out in the mountains, I would have, believe me."
"Same, for a while there," added Alethia.
"But now I live in this nice house," Teri continued, "and it has this nice guest room. Would you like to come check it out? You don't have to stay the night if you don't want to, but we could at least feed you lunch or something."
"Joel might show up," Zach added, "since it's technically his home." His expression darkened. "I don't know if that's a pro or a con for you, but it's true."
See Joel's house. Have lunch with his family.
His family, who was welcoming Nina in, and saying that it didn't matter if Joel wanted her or not. They wanted her.
So even though she had a deep hollow in her chest where Joel should be, even though her leopard was snarling at her to run back into the woods, find their mate, and make him come with her, Nina nodded. "All right. Yes. I would be very happy to have lunch with you."
To her own ears, she sounded stilted and strange, like an alien who'd never learned human customs. What did you say when accepting a friendly lunch invitation? And what did you say when accepting an invitation to join someone's family? She couldn’t make it sound natural, even to herself.
The next hour or so was even more surreal. Nina was packed into the car with Zach and Teri. Teri insisted on sitting in the back, and offered her the front seat. On the drive back to town, the two of them chatted about little, inconsequential things, like their respective shifts working at Glacier Park, the work Zach was doing around the house, the schools Teri was thinking of applying to so she could become a park ranger too.
"I want to go somewhere local," she told Nina, "because I don't want to be too far from Zach. But I still want a good education. There are a couple of different options, but I'm not sure what's best yet."
"For the millionth time, you should do whatever gets you the best education," Zach said. "We'll be okay even if we have to be apart for a bit. That's why Skype was invented. Also phones."
"He doesn't want to admit he's going to be lonely without me, because he thinks it'll hold me back from being my best self," Teri told Nina. "I know he's going to be lonely without me. I'm going to be lonely without him, too. It’s with him that I’m my best self."
Zach reached his hand back, resting it on the top of the driver's seat, and Teri leaned forward and gripped it for a long moment. "We'll figure it out," she told Nina. “It’s not forever, no matter what happens.”
Nina took all of this in with a kind of a surprised hunger. They seemed so happy. Even in the face of separation, of hard decisions, they were both loving and kind, and they wanted the best for each other.
Could she ever have that with Joel? Right now, it didn’t look like it at all.
But it seemed to prove that Joel’s theory about the bond being some kind of awful compulsion was wrong. Teri and Zach were happy together. Alethia had said that Grey was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Leah had looked at Jeff with more love and affection than Nina was used to seeing between couples.
If that was what the mate-bond did, then it wasn’t wrong. Nina knew that.
And even more than that, it wasn’t a compulsion. Because having someone look at her with love, having a partner who wanted the best for her, was something she’d wanted for years and years.
And Joel was it. The way he’d rescued her without asking for a thing in return, the way he’d made himself vulnerable to her by telling her about how much he’d been hurt—and the way he’d comforted her when she did the same. Because they were the same, two semi-broken people who wanted to be better.
Teri said that Zach made her better.
Nina suddenly wished she hadn’t run away from Joel earlier. She wanted to hash this out with him. She was afraid of what he’d say, yes—but they needed to talk about it and decide together.
Soon. She’d make sure it happened soon.
They pulled into the driveway to a comfortable-looking house, and Nina got out of the car with a sense of unreality. It had been a long time since she’d even been inside someone’s house.
She followed Teri up the steps, took her shoes off inside the front door because Teri did it first, and then followed her into the kitchen. Teri said, “Have a seat, I’ll get something started.”
“No,” Zach said, coming up behind her, “I’ll cook. You can talk to Nina.”