Fated Mates: The Beta

Josh: Chapter Three

Josh

My heart slams against my ribcage and I close my eyes. Tears sting my eyes and I feel my hands shake as I make my way towards her still form laying in bed.

I touch her arm and I squeeze my eyes shut. I grit my teeth and I feel my chest heave.

"F*ck!" The song starts over. It's playing from her phone, sitting on the nightstand next to a few cans of beer. I grab her arm and stare at her face. It looks like she's sleeping. I place my fingers to her throat and close my eyes.

I leaned down slowly and placed my head on her chest, where her heart should be. Relief floods me as she groans and I grit my teeth and stand back up, staring down at her.

I place a hand over my chest and rub it as a sob rips through me. I wiped my nose and walked to the other side of the bed. I sit down next to her and lean back against the head board. The song restarts again and even though it grates on my nerves, I let it play.

"You haven't been answering phone calls."

I take her hand and hold it in mine. She gives it a small squeeze and picks her head up to look at me, her eyes bloodshot and her breath reeking of alcohol.

"I-I just needed some time. I'm sorry." She sobs and I take a deep breath and pull her towards me. She settles her head on my shoulder and I wrap my arm around her and rub her back. "How's Wyatt?"

I close my eyes and rub them with my free hand. " You should have called me." I tell her gently. "I could have helped you."

She snorts and looks up at me with her swollen, blue eyes. "You can't help me with what I'm going through."

"I can try. And Wyatt's good. He's with Mom and Wes."

"I've tried talking to you. No one wants to hear about him."

I rub her back gently and shake my head. "I just don't want you to hurt."

"It hurts no matter what. Whether I talk about him or not, it hurts."

I sigh. "You scared me."

She lifts her head to look at me and I could see the tears brimming in her eyes. She looked away and stared straight ahead at the flat screen tv, reflecting us.

"I thought about it." She whispered. "I dropped him off with full intentions of going through with it." She gasped and then coughed out a sob. She shook her head and I felt my shirt begin to soak up her tears.

My chest aches at the thought and I close my eyes.

"I couldn't go through with it. I-I took some pills and right after I took them, I ran to the bathroom and threw them up because I promised Wes. And I thought of Wyatt growing up without both of his parents and I started feeling guilty, so I wanted to drown everything out."

"You should have called me." I whispered again.

"I know."

"Mom's worried and Wes is too."

"I know. I've been ignoring her calls all day, but I just couldn't face talking to her with how I was feeling today."

"You could have texted her to make her feel at ease."

"Yeah."

I squeezed Jocelyn's shoulder and pressed my lips to her forehead.

"For the record, how much did you drink tonight?"

"I don't know. I lost count."

"You don't sound too drunk."

She snorted and shook her head. "I didn't want to have a hangover when I went to pick up Wyatt."

I nod slowly. "I can bring him home if you want."

She takes a shaky breath and shrugs. "I guess."

I'm a swirl of emotions and I don't know what else to say. I know she's been aching about talking about him, so I take a deep breath and look back down at her.

"What was he like?"

She whips her head up and her glassy eyes narrow on me. "Y-Why?"

"You want to talk about him. I'm here. I'm listening."

Her lips quiver as she attempts a smile and then she takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. It reeks of alcohol and I have to refrain from making a face, so I don't hurt her feelings.

"He was amazing. He..." She takes another breath and swallows hard. "He was so confused when I broke him out. I was confused when I broke him out. He had an amazing smile."

I smile and lean my head back against her headboard. I stroked her unruly curls and nod. "Wyatt doesn't have your smile. I'm assuming it's his?"

"Yes." she beams up at me and nods fervently. I could see the life spark back into her eyes and I feel like a weight is lifted off of my chest slightly. Not a lot, but enough. "He's also got his eyes. His beautiful, brown eyes."

She swallows hard again and blows it out slowly

"He was sarcastic as hell. We had sort of the same humor, so in the beginning, we would get under eachother's skin with it. I swear he hated me at first. I don't think I liked him much either."

I laughed and she joined in a little. More weight crumbled off of my chest hearing it.

"Mom said he was joking around with you on the day of." I remember mom telling me about how they clicked and played around with eachother and how beautiful it was.

"He was. He said I looked like sh*t on top of more sh*t."

I raised my eyebrows and chuckled. "And what did you say back."

"That he was romantic." She smiled and then closed her eyes. "Before we moved to Salem, we lived out in the mountains and sometimes I think about going back there just to relive those days with him."

"You can have a picnic."

"Yeah, and come across a rogue that can kill me in two seconds. F*ck that. I couldn't even open a damn pickle jar the other day. Its still in the pantry."

I shake my head, feeling guilty as hell. Losing your wolf makes you lose all of the strength and agility and unless you had muscles before, your body would be just the strength of a normal human.

"I can open it for you."

"I'm good. I'll get it myself. Some day. When I'm craving pickles again."

"And you're sure you're going to try to be here for some day to happen?" I stare down at her and she nods slowly.

"I am."

"Good."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Everyone needs a day to be human. All I want is an advanced warning. Like 'Hey, feeling sh*ttier than usual. Need a human day.'."

"You made me sound like a valley girl."

"Well, that's my best girl voice, don't judge."

"Work on it."

I laugh and she smiles a little.

"Tell me one memory of him that you think of all of the time."

"My first kiss with Danny. It was on a ledge and it was a little chilly, but it was amazing."

"Yuck. Pass."

She pressed her lips together and then sat up. "When you find your girl, you'll understand."

"Honestly, I was looking for a bit, but I'm over it. I don't think I need the drama of trying to get to know anyone new."

Jocelyn made a face and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I think you just like screwing around."

I laugh and shrug. "Maybe. It's easier to do that for sure. I don't think I've ever been in a committed relationship. I don't even know what that looks like."

Jocelyn turned her head to look at me, her eyes a tad bit judgemental. "What about Meredith?"

"What about her?"

"Weren't you two tight in highschool?"

I snorted. "Yeah, I guess. We f*cked a lot but that's it. She's got two mates now though."

Jocelyn's eyebrows raised and she nodded. "Good for her. Twin d*cks. Identical or fraternal?"

"Neither. Not twins. Two separate dudes. It's a whole story." I waved her away and Jocelyn's eyes lit up as she thought about it.

"That's...strange. I don't envy her."

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, a lot of drama there."

"Thank you." She whispered to me after a while.

"For what?"

She chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds before looking away from me. "For talking to me like a normal person. For not looking at me with pity. For being here tonight instead of just running as soon as you saw that I was okay."

I placed a hand on her back, feeling the bones of her spine poke my hand. I rubbed her back and nodded.

"I realize I probably should have done this sooner. I was...I don't know how to deal with this hard sh*t, you know?"

She smiles against her knees and nods. "One day at a time." she says quietly.

I sigh. "You've thinned out a little bit. Have you been eating?"

She turns her large blue eyes on me and sighs. "One day at a time, Josh. I'm trying."

"I know, just...maybe before I go home tomorrow morning, we can go out and have breakfast or something? On me."

"On me. Matt's paying for everything, make that f*cker pay for it."

I laugh and nod. In all actuality, my dad was covering all of Jocelyn's expenses. Everything she had was because of him. Matt agreed to help him with the apartment, but everything else was all dad. Jocelyn hated him right now, but I hopes soon she would hear him out. Not that I thought he was right or anything. He just lost his head when Jocelyn left and didn't get it back again until it was too late.

Now, because mom despised having him home, he kept himself busy. But I think I needed to make a call to him and tell him about what almost happened to Jocelyn. If we were going to help her through this, we needed to come visit more and make her feel like she has us.

It's one regret I'm having now. Not seeing that I was hurting her by not talking to her. Yeah, we had our trivial 'how's the weather?' type talk, but I should have known she needed more.

"Or maybe I should go home and pick Wes and Wyatt up and bring them too?"

She beamed at that and nodded. "Yeah. Wes texts me, but he won't answer my phone calls. He says he's doing okay, but..."

"He's not. He stays in his bedroom almost all day and only comes out for his tutoring lessons and training. The Omegas take him his food to his room and it's full of dishes and stinks. I don't think he's showering either."

Jocelyn scowled at me and sat up straight. "Why haven't you forced him? Josh, you need to do more with him. You can't just let him wallow!"

I sigh because I have dropped the ball on that too. "I know. Maybe he can come stay with you a few days each week?"

She raised her eyebrows and then shrugged. "If he wants to, but I don't have a bed for him."

"I can bring him one if he agrees. Maybe it will help him out of his funk."

She nodded. Despite having drunk about six...seven beers, she seemed to have sobered up with our conversation.

"Alright, so I'll grab them and we can have breakfast. Are you sure you'll be okay tonight?"

She nods slowly and looks down at her comforter. "Yeah. I'm okay.

I wrap her under my arm quickly and rub my knuckle over the top of her head. At first she's surprised and tries to fight me off and then she starts laughing. Not the little pathetic laughs she was doing all night, but a giant belly laugh that ends with a couple of tears in the corner of her eyes.

She stares at me one more time as I kiss her forehead and smiles. I wiped her tears from her cheeks.

"See you tomorrow." I tell her.

She nods. "Okay."

"Fix your hair too, it's tangled as f*ck."

She blushes and nods.

I stand up and walk to her bedroom door.

"And remember, Jocelyn, if you need me, just call me."

She rolls her eyes but nods.

As I walk out of her apartment, I take a deep breath and run a hand over my face.

There was so much I had to do to make Jocelyn better again. There was so much I had to do with Wes and also be the Beta of our pack. But if I wanted to avoid the feeling I had when I walked into her bedroom today from ever happening for real, then I needed to put in the effort.