Double Penetration

Understanding Mistakes

Ace:

This is not how I thought today was gonna go.

This morning, I woke up ready for good things to come my way at school. I thought Cole and I had finally made a breakthrough with the adorable enigma that was Evan Fischer. 

But it was starting to feel like every step forward came with three steps backward. 

When Cole and I walked into homeroom this morning, we were a bit surprised to see that our mate had not arrived before us. 

"That's odd, he's normally already here," Cole noted through our mind link.

"Yeah. Isn't he the one who tells us that we need to get to class?" 

Before he could respond, Evan walked into the classroom. When he saw us amongst the students and keeping a spot between us open for him, he quickly looked away. He instead chose a seat on the other side of the room, closer to the door. Strange, Evan couldn't stand door seats–he preferred seats closer to the windows if the classroom he was in had them. 

"Is he okay?" I wondered. 

"How would I know? I've been with you this whole time. He hasn't spoken to either of us since Saturday, though." Cole responded, rolling his eyes. 

We tried to get up to talk to him, but the bell rang and the teacher gave us a stern warning look. Normally, we'd just get up anyways but this was one of the few classes we had a human teacher. She knew nothing of what we were, so our rank did nothing for us here. We spent the next hour waiting for the damn class to be over. Not once taking our eyes off him. Yet when the bell did ring, he was out of the class before we even got our stuff. 

During the next two periods, every once in a while, I or Cole would feel our mates' presence come and go. Probably due to him seeing us and running away before we saw him. Ouch. That did not feel good in the bond. Kinda stung in a way neither of us could describe, honestly. How did our father stand this constant stinging feeling whenever Ma ran off? Or was that just because our bond was special?

In PE, we did laps and I tried to get him to tell me what was troubling him. Whatever was going on, I seemed to have only made it worse. He yelled at me about needing space. Space for what?

Oh, my goddess! Sometimes I think you were dropped on your head as a pup! My wolf groaned. Even I understood and I'm normally not even able to interact with people that aren't you or your brother!

What the hell are you talking about?

Maybe Cole should explain….after all, he'd probably understand something this fucking clear.

Someone is salty today, and unfortunately, it's the asshole in my head! I retorted, fighting the urge to sneer and cross my arms. I could just feel the wolf rolling his eyes. Jerk. 

§~•~§~•~§

After school, Cole and I headed home to undoubtedly be swamped with pack training. Which, I might add, lasted an hour longer than planned because Travis was late. So we had to have him run at least a couple of laps around the pack house property by himself. Because of that, the rest of the day was thrown off, which made everyone pissy and snappy. Believe me, a bunch of irritated wolves devoted to training together is not a fun experience. If he had just fucked with Cole and I's schedule, we could have let it go. But, he took up the time of everyone, and this wasn't the first time, so he had to eat the scraps of tonight's kill, alone after everyone else was done.  

He still got to sleep with the group though, we weren't heartless. Thankfully, our father approved of the punishment, so we won brownie points for the next time we needed to ask him for something(which we rarely did bc he usually said no for reasons he never explained other than "Because I said so"). He'd been like that since we lost our mother, so we tried not to take it too personally, but it really sucked sometimes. We hadn't been allowed to go to a single school dance. 

Nonetheless, when we did get to homework, there wasn't much of it. Thinking back to the conversation I had with my wolf earlier, I looked to my brother. "Hey Cole, can I ask you something?"

"What's up?"

"What do you think Evan would need time to think about?"

"I'm going to need more details….is this about earlier when he was avoiding us?"

As I told him what happened in Gym class, he stared at me with an unreadable expression before pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

"What?!" I asked defensively, already knowing that he was thinking I was an idiot without him telling me over the bond. 

"Ace, if I didn't know you as well as I did, I'd hit you." He deadpanned, ignoring my offended noise. "So I'm gonna explain to you what he means."

I sat forward to listen. 

"Ace, you and I are a lot." Cole started. "He has to build up a tolerance. Just because he's out mate doesn't mean he's automatically able to deal with us. Even mated werewolf pairs aren't like that, and that's when both sides can feel the bond. It's a process, just like a normal relationship. The meaning of the bond comes later when you're both, or all used to each other and actually in love. Get it?" At least he had the decency not to talk to me like I was a five-year-old, which was what Phil and everyone else did when they explained things to me.

I made an understanding noise. Cole nodded, smiling in satisfaction that he was able to get the point across after only one explanation. 

This was one of the many reasons I was glad to have Cole as my twin. Sometimes it takes me a few times to understand things and it seems like Cole is the only one with the patience or willingness to actually explain things until I get it, and without treating me like I was a dumb five-year-old. 

"So, how exactly would we fix it?" I asked. "I mean, he said it's not just me, it's both of us, and you're apparently the expert on wooing difficult people." 

Cole thought. "Well, it's not a problem to fix, it just turns out that getting Evan to love us is a longer process than we thought." He shrugged. "So, we take our time just like he is. Don't go too fast. Remember, he does like you, Ace. He just likes it when you're not being so overbearing and fake." 

I made a face. "Wow. You really just gave me the 'Be yourself' advice, huh? And you said you couldn't stand Hallmark." I shook my head. 

Cole cracked a smile, snickering. "I guess I did, huh?"

We finished our homework in comfortable silence. 

Perfect. Now we just have to find a less aggressive way to gain our mates' favor, if posturing doesn't work with him. I'm telling you right now I'm not gonna be all gentle and mushy, though. 

You say that now, but just wait until he's ours. You're gonna spoil the shit out of him and if he wants to be babied, he's gonna get babied. By you.