Oh Good 465

Chapter 57 

“I tried to back out.” 

“Yeah, that was surprising. I mean, I know it’s not about me, excelling at the Academy is your dream, right?” 

I shrug. “I almost left.” 

“WHAT? When?” he asks sharply. 

but 

“I meant it when I told you I care about you, Shane. I told Christian that I didn’t think I could go six months with you looking at me like I betrayed you.” I shrug. “I tried to withdraw from the sex class too, but Alpha Jackson denied my withdrawal form.” 

He stares at me. “Goddess, I’m a fucking idiot. 

I frown. “What do you mean?” 

” 

“Here I’ve been trying to convince myself that you weren’t using me and all this time, you’ve been doing just about everything you can to make achieving your goal impossible because I hurt you.” 

I look at him, hoping he can see the truth of my words in my eyes. “I care about you more than I care about being on the leaderboard, Shane.” 

He stares at me a moment, then leans forward to gently presses his lips to mine. Then he leans his forehead against mine. 

“I have an idea.” 

288 Vouchers 

“What’s that?” I ask. 

“How about, as we rebuild ourselves over this semester, we work to rebuild our friendship from the ground up. We’ll be Shane and Tiana 2.0.” 

I smile “2.0?” 

“Yeah, you know, like the revised, upgraded version of us. We’ll come back stronger than ever.” 

“As long as we’re still together, I’ll be happy.” 

“Good.” 

We spend the rest of the evening talking and catching up. It feels so good to have my friend back. 

Shane 

Goddess, it feels good to be with Tiana again. The cold that had begun to seep into my bones and into my soul is gone and it feels like I can breathe again. 

When she walked into breakfast the next morning, after I was already sitting, she came and sat at the same table with me. Cole looked between her and me, a smile flashing onto his face. 

“YES! They’re back!” he said. 

“Thanks to you,” I told him. 

He tried to shrug it off, but T reached over and gave him a side hug. “You gave us both insight that we needed to see what was really going on. Thanks, Cole. I mean it.” 

“What do you mean I gave you both insight?” he asked, looking 

between us. 

“I couldn’t see past my own hurt to see that Shane’s lack of trust wasn’t about me. I had to hear it from you to really see what was going on.” 

She came to sit beside me and I leaned over, bumping shoulders with her. It honestly feels like we’re starting over again. I feel like I did in the beginning when I started taking her on little dates. It’s almost like, as we change individually, we have to change the relationship that we had before. Something deep in my core, deep in my wolf’s instinctual need, really wants that. 

“Finally!” Justin says, walking over to join our group. Cassie is just as excited when she arrives, and breakfast is a relaxed, fun affair. It feels good to have our group of friends back together again. Even though we’ re all still dealing with our issues, we’ve recovered enough to be able to enjoy being together. 

Dealing with Crisis is one of the classes that we have over the 

weekend. On Saturday, I watched Alpha Ryan talk Nicholas through his break. So far, Cole is the only one who has been willing to sit in as Alpha. On Sunday, however, they called Tiana to the front. I instantly raised my hand to be in the Alpha role.