Chapter 63: Jason’s Choice

Chapter 63: Chapter 63: Jason’s Choice

When Jason had told iris that he will be waiting for her, to talk to her after her lecture, he kept to his word.

After Iris went into the lecture hall to stew in her impotent rage at Jason’s audacity to kiss her, after she told him otherwise, he had remained in the parking lot long after the students had disappeared into their classrooms, sitting behind the wheel of his black Porsche 911 with the engine turned off and his phone lying untouched against his thigh.

He should have been thinking about what he was going to say to her, but instead, his mind kept replaying the moment in the hallway.

The way Iris had looked at him, the way her breath had caught when his mouth found hers. The way she had wrenched back, palm pressed to lips as though to scrub the taste of him away. And the unmistakable anger that had come burning up through her eyes like something that had finally, finally ignited.

Jason tightened his grip around the steering wheel. He hadn’t meant for it to happen that way.

He had wanted to talk to her. He had wanted to explain himself, to tell her that there were things about Vanessa she didn’t know, things about him that Iris had never known, and that what had happened between them wasn’t as simple as it appeared.

But the moment he had seen her standing there— all that dark hair, that mouth he’d memorized three years ago and knew how it felt on his— every carefully constructed word had evaporated, and what remained was only want.

He had wanted her. He still did. And seeing the distance in her eyes had only made the ache in his chest worse.

The driver’s window suddenly received two sharp taps. Jason looked up and saw that Shawn Matthew stood outside with Finn Callahan beside him.

He unlocked the doors.The two boys climbed into the car, Shawn taking the passenger seat while Finn dropped into the back.

Finn had barely settled before he was leaning into the gap between the two seats and looked at Jason.

"I honestly cannot believe you’re sitting here waiting for her." Finn said.

Jason glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

"And how exactly do you know I’m waiting for her?"

Finn pulled out his phone. "Because, genius, your little tug-of-war kiss is all over the Campus Pulse."

Jason’s expression tightened. "What?"

Finn pulled out his phone and turned the screen toward him. "Apparently half the university just watched you kiss your ex-girlfriend while she was very clearly trying to get away from you. People are asking whether trouble has finally arrived in paradise. I didn’t think the great Jason Montgomery would one day be trending for forcing a kiss on an unwilling girl."

Jason took his own phone from the console, he opened Campus Pulse and his jaw tightened immediately.

There it was. A video, forty seconds long, shot from somewhere across the corridor —it was shaky, zoomed, and unflattering. The angle made everything look even worse than it had felt in the moment. Beneath it, the comments multiplied as he watched.

Wasn’t that Jason and Iris, the school hearthrob?

The kiss seemed unwanted by Her. Did they break up?

Why was he kissing her if she’s pushing him away?

Is Jason trying to get her back?

He locked the phone and and tossed it back onto the console with a sharp...clack. The way a man sets down something he’d like to throw through the windshield.

"Fuck."

Finn leaned back, arms crossing behind his head. "I never thought I’d see the day Jason Montgomery became the villain on Campus Pulse."

Jason shot him a glare. "This isn’t a joke," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating with a suppressed intensity.

"I’m not laughing," Finn said, though his smile remained. "I’m merely amused by the spectacle." The ghost of a smile ghosted across his mouth anyway.

Shawn turned around and gave Finn a warning look. "Maybe you should try to not make things worse."

Finn raised both hands in surrender. "Fine. I’m done."

Jason dragged a hand through his blonde hair and tipped his head back against the headrest. For a while nobody spoke, and the silence in the car had a texture to it — the thick, waiting kind.

"It’s just..." he started, and stopped.

Shawn looked at him. "Just what?"

Jason stared through the windshield, at the business administration building. "I wanted to talk to her. That’s all I went there for. I wanted to explain everything to her— every single thing. But when I saw her, I just..." He exhaled heavily. "I wanted to kiss her again. I wasn’t thinking about anything else. And my hands moved before I did."

Finn shook his head. "Of course she didn’t want you to kiss her. As far as Iris is concerned, you’re now her ex. You cheated on her with her best friend. You can’t expect her to suddenly look at you and forget everything because you still want her."

Jason’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. "We’re not finished."

Finn’s brows lifted. "Dude."

"I’m serious about it."

"Jason—"

"She’s still my girlfriend. She still belongs to me."

Shawn slowly turned in his seat. "Jason," he said softly. "She broke up with you, I was standing right there. The words were pretty clear."

"I don’t care what she said in the heat of the moment. We aren’t finished." Each word came out level, and that levelness was worse than shouting. Jason’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. "She’s not leaving me."

Finn and Shawn exchanged a glance over the seatback — the kind of glance old friends pass without moving their mouths.

"You don’t care what she said that morning in front of her apartment," Shawn repeated carefully. "You don’t care what she tells herself, or how many times she says you’re over."

"That’s exactly right. I don’t care what she said that morning in front of her apartment. I don’t care what she tells herself, and I don’t care how many times she says we’re over."

"Jason—don’t tell me that you’ve decided you know her heart better than she does."

His eyes remained fixed on the business administration building. "I know Iris, I know the way her pulse quickens when I touch the small of her back. I know the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching...she loves me.

She’s angry, she’s hurt, and she’s confused— that’s fine by me. But that doesn’t erase what we had. Nothing erases what we had. She is coming back to me. Whether it takes a day or a year, she is mine."

Shawn frowned. "You can’t decide how she feels."

Jason slowly turned his head. "I don’t have to decide how she feels. I know how she feels."

There was something unsettlingly certain in his voice.

"And if she needs time to remember that, I’ll give her time. If she needs me to explain everything, I’ll explain until my voice gives out. If she needs to hate me for a while, I’ll let her hate me."

He paused, and when he spoke again his voice had gone soft in a way that was almost frightening. "But she is coming back to me."

Finn shifted in the back seat. "And if she doesn’t?"

Jason’s expression went cold and still. "She will. And for now, she’s still my girlfriend, and I have every right to kiss her whenever I want."

Finn sighed and put both hands up again. "All right. Fine. She’s your girlfriend."

He caught Shawn’s look and shrugged. Already tired of the argument and Jason’s conviction. "I’m not getting dragged into another argument with him."

Shawn turned his attention back to Jason, and his voice changed — it was quieter, more careful, the voice of a friend who knows that he’s stepping onto thin ice.

"If you’re so certain she’s still your girlfriend, why are you sitting here instead of going after her?"

Jason’s expression changed. "Because they have an important morning lecture, remember? So I’m sitting here, waiting for her to finish and walk out of it. And then I’m going to tell her everything."

Shawn’s brows furrowed. "Everything?"

Jason nodded. "Yes, everything."

Finn leaned forward until his arms were folded across the back of Jason’s seat. "Define everything. Because if you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, that’s not a conversation you get to take back once you’ve had it."

Jason looked at him in the mirror. "I’m going to tell her about us. What we are.

Silence filled the car. Shawn stared at him.

"You mean you’re going to tell Iris about the supernatural and that we’re werewolves?"

"Yes."

"Are you insane?" Finn hissed. "You’re going to tell a human girl that her boyfriend is a werewolf? She’ll think she’s had a psychotic break, or worse, she’ll be terrified of you and about everything. Why would you do that?""

"Because she deserves to know the truth," Jason countered, his voice softening but remaining resolute.

"If she thinks I slept with Vanessa behind her back because I was bored or impulsive, she has every right to hate me. But if she knows what truly happened, if she understands the instincts, the pull of the pack, the way Vanessa manipulated the situation... maybe she’ll see that it wasn’t a betrayal of love, but a complication of nature."