CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
THIRD PERSON POV

The phone rang twice before she picked up.

"Hey." Athena's voice came through a little tired. The way he noticed it always sounded at the end of a long day.

Adam sat at his kitchen counter, Tom curled around his feet, and for a second, he didn't say anything at all. He'd rehearsed having a conversation with her while he was about leaving the office, before he had foolishly canceled.

Four different openings.

None of which had survived contact with the actual sound of her voice.

"Hey…" he said back. "I'm sorry for calling so late."

"I didn’t even think you’d call tonight."

He mentally face palmed himself because he knew very much what that sentence meant.

"Were you asleep?” courage found its way into his lips.

“No. its barely ten.”

“Feels later than it is." He hesitated. Using the opportunity to think of what next he could use to stall the main reason he had called.

But then decided the only way through this was straight through it. "I want to apologize for the text earlier. Saying I couldn't make it tonight and leaving it at that. That wasn't fair to you, and I don't want you sitting there wondering if it meant something it didn't."

"I did wonder. A little…" she admitted, and he could hear the honesty in it. "I thought maybe you were upset with me for saying no."

"I'm not. I want to be very clear about that, because it's the opposite of what I meant to do by staying away. I thought giving you space looked like respect. I think it might have just looked like I was sulking, and if it did, I'm sorry, because that's not what this was."

"Thank you for saying that." Her voice softened. "It helps to hear."

"Good. That's all I wanted it to do." He rubbed a hand over his face, some of the tension in his shoulders easing now that the harder part was said. "Athena, there's a second thing, and I've been putting it off since I left work, so I'm just going to say it before I lose my nerve."

"Okay?"

"I'm sorry about last night too. For pushing the coronation the way I did, for not really hearing you the first time you said no, or the second, or honestly any of the times after that. I got an idea in my head about what I wanted people to see when they looked at you, and somewhere in there I stopped thinking about what you actually wanted, and that wasn't fair to you."

There was a pause on the other end, long enough that he almost filled it, but he made himself wait. The nervousness in him almost won.

"I wasn't upset with you… not really. I know you meant well. I just…” she paused to find the right words. “I've had enough of being looked at lately. Even the good kind of looking. Does that make sense?"

"It makes complete sense."

"I didn't want to be somebody's proof of something. Even yours."

"I know. I understand that now, and I should've understood it before I ever brought it up." He exhaled. The tightness in his shoulders was finally easing. "I'm not bringing it up again."

"I appreciate that." He could hear the smile in her voice now, small but real. "You're forgiven, by the way. In case that wasn't clear."

"It's clear. Thank you."

They talked for a while after that. She told him about her day, an economics class that had nearly put her to sleep, a hallway that had felt too quiet without a friend she used to walk it with, though she didn't go into detail and he didn't push for it. He told her about the aluminum packaging, exaggerating Callix's seriousness about coating thickness until she was laughing properly, and about the kick under the table from Amber that had probably saved him from approving a decision he hadn't actually been listening to.

"She sounds like she runs that company more than you do." Athena said.

"Some days I think she does."

A tinge of jealousy webbed her heart at the thought but it quickly passes as their conversation settled into something soft.

Tom had given up on getting attention and gone to sleep by the door. The kitchen light hummed overhead. For the first time all day, his mind was exactly where his body was.

"Adam." Athena's voice shifted slightly. He could already tell that she was thinking of something. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything." For the first time in years, he meant this reply.

"The coronation. If I said I'd go with you… not because you asked again, because I know you said you wouldn't… but if I decided on my own that I wanted to. Would the offer still stand?"

He sat up a little straighter, careful to keep his voice even, because he understood without her having to say it that this mattered too much to risk sounding eager about it. "Of course it would. It'll always stand, whether you take it tomorrow or never."

"Then I'd like to go."

He let that settle for a moment before he trusted himself to respond. "You don't have to decide that tonight. You can sit with it. I meant it when I said there's no pressure attached to this."

"I know there isn't. That's actually part of why I want to go." Her voice was steady. "I spent all day thinking about what you said, and about why I kept saying no, and I think a lot of it was fear dressed up as not wanting to be looked at. I don't want to keep making decisions out of fear. Not this one, anyway."

"Athena…" he dragged the last letter of her name.

"I want to go with you. If the offer's still open."

"It's open." he said, and he meant it more than he'd meant almost anything in longer than he could remember. "It's open for as long as you want it to be."

"Okay." He could hear her smiling again. "Okay. Good."

They talked a little longer after that, and by the time the conversation wound down naturally toward goodnight, something in Adam… different.

"Goodnight, Adam."

"Goodnight, Athena. I'm glad you called back tonight.” He stuttered at his words. “I mean… I called you. But I'm glad you picked up."

She laughed and the sound of it stayed with him even after the line went quiet.

He sat there for a moment with the phone still in his hand. The kitchen’s silence was only interrupted by Tom's steady breathing.

Suddenly, his wolf muttered a word quietly; underneath his own thoughts.

Mate.

He went still.

It wasn't possible. He knew who his mate was. He’d known for years.

And yet the word sat there now. It wasn't supposed to.

Adam frowned down at the phone in his hand. He genuinely did not know what to think.