Page 111 of Use Me Up

“Well, there you go,” says Gatlin. “It’s not the same thing.”

“But that discussion about boundaries and stuff? The one you said we should have? I don’t feel like we had it.”

Gatlin sighs again. “You’re going to leave him, aren’t you?”

I shut my eyes and open them again. “I mean, I should, shouldn’t I? What person would tell me to stay?”

“Not a single person,” he says. “No one would tell you to stay. We let him go, too. We didn’t kick him out, but when he said he wanted to go… we didn’t fight him that hard.”

“He says he was messing around with other alphas?”

“He was flirting with other alphas, I guess, but not having sex with them,” says Gatlin. “This is new for us, his leaving in the middle of the night to fuck someone else. I don’t know how I even feel about it.”

“I don’t think he knows how he feels about it,” I say. “It’s like they’re both miserable, like they make each other miserable. Like they don’t even like it with each other. If he wanted it, maybe it would be different, but I think he wants to stop.”

“I think that’s part of why he’s so alluring,” says Gatlin, thoughtful. “That way of his, where it’s like he’s out of control, like he’s swept up in a whirlwind or something? It makes me feel swept up, too, and I’m a bit of a grounded person, so I like it. It excites me.”

I nod. “Sure. Kane’s that way for you, too, I guess.”

Gatlin considers. “You’re right. Maybe I’m just attracted to people who are completely the opposite of me.”

I laugh. “Me too.”

“Of course, there’s you. You’re not like that. You’re not a daredevil or a risktaker. You seem like a pretty grounded person, too.”

“Yeah, I think I am.” I think about it, trying to determine if I’m risky in other ways, but I only seem to take weird risks when it comes to Ellis. “I think risk makes me aroused or something?”

“That’s it, exactly,” says Gatlin. “Risk is hot. Did you ever hear about that study they did, where they had people cross a shaky bridge or a sturdy bridge, and there was an attractive person at the end, and the people who crossed the shaky bridge were more attracted to that person than the people who crossed the safe bridge?”

“No, I never knew that,” I say. “Huh. Weird.”

“Yeah, got to be something to do with adrenaline.”

“Maybe,” I say. “Seems kind of crazy.”

“One of the things you start realizing about humans is that we’re not nearly as rational as we think we are,” says Gatlin. “We’re just big balls of impulse and chemicals, making sense of it later.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say, but I kind of don’t want to think that.

“I think we can tame the chaos of the world, though,” says Gatlin. “Obviously, we can. You look at all the things we’ve done as a species. The pyramids. The tarot deck. Phantom.”

I laugh. “Right, humans are pretty amazing in a lot of ways.”

“Anyway, I keep feeling like I know what kind of future I want and that I know how to get it, but that I can’t convince Kane to give it to me.”

“Ellis thinks you’re kind of traditional,” I say.

“I’m not traditional. I’m a bisexual alpha who does tai chi.”

I smirk. “Yeah, but he seems to have the impression you want to settle down and have a traditional sort of life.”

“I can’t,” says Gatlin. “I can see that now.”

“Well,” I say, “maybe it’s what I want.”

“What do you mean?” he says.

“I don’t know,” I say. “You and me, there’s something here. Maybe there’s something with me and Kane, too, I don’t know.”