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Alyssa didn’t keep in touch with many people from the Salvatore School. Mystic Falls had been her home during some of the worst events of her life; it was where her heart had been broken and where she had hurt so many people and where she’d died, albeit temporarily. And she’d left after making such a mess of her relationship with MG that all she’d wanted to do was leave it all behind.
But a couple of the witches still texted her from time to time, and while they usually kept the topics to fun things - who they were dating and what spells they were learning, that kind of thing - Alyssa got updates on what was going on with everyone in school in little drips and drabs. Like how MG and Lizzie had started dating, and then a few months later, stopped dating. She’d thought about calling him but she figured she’d probably burned that bridge to ash by now. And she’d heard about Landon and then Ethan, and that Lizzie was a vampire now, and that Josie had ditched the school just like Alyssa and Penelope before her, which made her hate Josie slightly less.
She didn’t hear about Jed. Instead Becky texted her several months after the whole god thing - and wow, was she happy she bailed before that whole thing went down - about how Finch had beat some challenger for Alpha.
It took her a couple days to realize why that sounded weird and text back, Wait, Finch is Alpha now? Where’s Jed?
Becky texted back a shrug emoji, so Alyssa texted Madison instead. Wtf, Becky said Jed isn’t Alpha anymore?
Yeah, came the reply almost two hours later. Jed’s curse got broken during the whole Ken thing and he took off with his new friend ig.
New friend?
Ben. Big dude. Super hot. I think they live in a RV, see it parked here sometimes when they visit.
Alyssa wrinkled her nose at the idea of living in an RV, but it kinda fit for Jed. She felt a little uncomfortable at the thought of Jed without his wolf. Her former hookup had been so defined by the pack, by his place within it, that she couldn’t imagine what life could be like for him without it.
But whatever. He had a friend and a car-house and he wasn’t a part of her life anymore. And he’d survived the god thing, which was good. That was really all she needed to know.
So she asked Madison about her new girlfriend and didn’t think about Jed again for a very long time.
*
Jed was still hot.
It was the first time she’d laid eyes on her former hookup in five years, and she was remembering why she’d kept going back to him even though he was deep as a puddle and had maybe two brain cells to rub together. After five blissful years away from the Salvatore School, a world-ending disaster had Hope and her little super squad reaching out for literally anyone who might be able to help, and Alyssa had reluctantly answered the call. She wasn't about to trust these idiots to stop the apocalypse on their own, and a couple of the younger witches from her time at the school were still there and she didn’t want them getting ripped apart by gods or whatever. So here she was, expecting to feel nothing but annoyance and maybe a little guilt when she saw MG, but instead, mostly she was wondering if she’d have time to save the world, catch up with some witches, and have a night or two of fun with a pretty ex-werewolf.
She had forgotten about those cheekbones, how tall he was; he still had huge arms that were bulging against his short sleeved shirt, which was more fitted than what he used to wear, with buttons and a collar. He was talking to some guy, who was admittedly also hot if a little too pale and too buff for Alyssa’s taste, and suddenly Alyssa remembered what a sexy voice Jed had, and she really wanted to hear it again.
Alyssa sashayed across the foyer, using her magic to move students out of her way. Jed didn’t notice her coming, too caught up in his conversation with his blonde, incredibly swole friend, so she did a dramatic throat clear as soon as she was in hearing range to catch his notice.
The way he lit up at the sight of her was gratifying. “Alyssa! Wow, I can’t believe you’re here. How long has it been?”
“Too long,” Alyssa said, giving him an appreciative once over. “Not that I missed Mystic Falls, but I guess you know all about that. I heard you left a couple months after I did.”
"I guess I did. We’ve been back a lot though,” Jed said, smiling at his friend. “This is Ben, by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Alyssa,” Jed’s friend said, formal with a polite smile. “I’ve heard plenty about you. Thank you for coming to help us with the upcoming battle.”
“Oh, I’m not fighting any gods, absolutely not,” Alyssa said, rolling her eyes. “Dying once in this school was enough for me, thanks. I just agreed to help with that group spell to make a god-trapping prison world or whatever. Then I’m on the next plane out of here.”
“That’s awesome, Alyssa, thank you,” Jed said beaming down at her. “We owe you one.”
“Who’s ‘we?’ You’re not on the suicide squad or whatever anymore, right? Aren’t you, like, human and breakable now?”
Jed winced. “Yeah, kind of a long story, but I’m an expert on the Greek gods, both the mythology and the real history and stuff. I’ve uncovered some things even Jen doesn’t know. Besides, Ben needs me, so I couldn’t be anywhere else, y’know?”
Right. Jed was stupidly loyal. It was almost sweet, even if he had negative survival instincts.
Ben seemed to agree, shaking his head at Jed. “You could and should be somewhere else. I explicitly told you to go anywhere else in the world several times.”
“And I told you to suck it.”
“Very mature.”
“Sorry, I’ve run out of nice ways to tell you I’m not leaving you, especially when you’re in danger,” Jed said with a shrug, shooting a grin and a wink at Alyssa. “I’m stubborn like that.”
Yeah, still hot.
She took a step closer and looked at him from under her eyelashes. “I’ll be here for at least the next two days. We should hang out.”
“Oh, totally! We’ve gotta meet up with Cleo and Jen to do research, but maybe tonight?”
“I’m getting drinks with some of the witches tonight, but I’ll come by your room after.”
“Cool, cool,” Jed said, his eyes on something over her shoulder. “Shoot, looks like they need us. See you later, ‘Lyssa!”
And then he grabbed Ben’s hand and towed him away.
She wasn't entirely sure he'd understood what she meant by 'hang out', but then again, Jed was notoriously bad at catching signals. Alyssa wasn’t the only witch who’d wanted to sleep with him, but she was only one who had ever managed it because she was the only willing to say in plain terms that that’s what she wanted. If he hadn't caught her meaning now, he'd figure it out when she showed up at his door tonight. Probably.
*
It was late when Alyssa finally staggered home with her friends, giggling over the charm Becky put on the jukebox that made it play nothing but pop divas all night in spite of the fact that the jukebox had no Whitney or Britney or Sabrina on it. When they left, the manager was on the phone with the bar’s owner trying to figure out how they kept pushing the button for 'Born on the Bayou' and getting ‘Drop Dead’ or ‘The Giver’ instead.
With a coy smirk, she veered away from the witches as they walked up the stairs to their bedrooms and headed towards the teacher’s quarters instead. She’d heard through the grapevine that’s where Jed was staying, since his old room had been given away years ago.
It took a couple knocks before Jed opened the door, mid-yawn. He was shirtless, which was promising, but also had bed-head like he had actually gone to sleep instead of waiting up for her.
“Hey, Alyssa,” Jed said scrubbing at his face with his hand, his eyes drooping. “I think it’s a little late to hang out. Rain check for tomorrow after the ceremony?”
“No need. I think this is the perfect time for us to … reconnect," she purred.
“Um, call me old, but two AM is past my bedtime. Promise we’ll find some time later.”
She was glad she had worn boots to the bar instead of heels when she had to stick her foot in the door before he could close it. She huffed, remembering why booty howl had never turned into anything more; Jed was disturbingly dense sometimes. “I’m coming onto you, Jed. Now let me in.”
Jed’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, no. Alyssa, I think there’s been some, uh, some confusion -“
“Jed? Do they need us?”
And then out of the dark emerged a huge arm that draped itself over Jed’s collarbone and curled around his chest. It was followed by a sleepy, slowly blinking Ben, who leaned heavily on Jed, his entire front pressed to Jed's back and his head dropping onto Jed's shoulder.
“No, honey, it was just a mix-up,” Jed said, wincing. He smoothed Ben’s bedhead down and Ben leaned into his hand. “You can go back to bed.”
Embarrassingly, it took until that moment for Alyssa to understand. She knew better than to ever assume anyone’s sexual orientation, and she hadn’t, not really, but … well, Jed had never been in a serious relationship before or hooked up with anyone that wasn’t a girl, at least as far as she knew, so him suddenly having a boyfriend that was so serious he’d shacked up with him after knowing him less than two months was so outside of the realm of possibility it hadn’t even occurred to her.
But to her continued astonishment, Ben made a little grumbling noise and kissed the side of Jed’s head before shuffling back into the dark room.
Jed smiled tightly at her. “Sorry, he’s, um. He didn’t use to sleep very much in, like, a normal healthy way, so now it takes him a while to turn into a functional person after he wakes up.”
“Sure,” Alyssa said, because she had no idea what he was talking about but had no desire to further this conversation. “So I’m gonna go.”
“Alyssa, wait -“
“Sweet dreams!” she said loudly before double timing it back down the hall.
*
When she got down to the kitchen, looking for a sugar fix to help her sober up and think through what just happened, she found Josie Saltzman already there, sitting cross-legged on the counter with a tub of ice cream on her lap.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
Alyssa thought about running for it, because the last thing she needed was to be stuck in a room with the girl who killed her; but then Josie pulled open a drawer and held out a spoon. “Want some?”
And yeah, she really did. Sighing, she stalked around the counter and took the spoon, digging in for a big chunk of cookie dough.
“Romantic problems?”
“We don’t have to talk,” Alyssa said around her mouthful of ice cream.
“Right.”
Josie looked at her with her big, sad doe eyes and Alyssa scoffed. “Fine, tell me.”
“Penelope’s mad at me for coming back here. Thinks it’s a step in the wrong direction. Like I’m gonna go back to being constantly self-sacrificing and codependent just because I spend a week back at this school.”
“Well, are you?”
“No.” Josie stabbed at the ice cream viciously before deflating. “Maybe. It’s hard to know with me. I don’t always make the best decisions for myself. But I also feel like I’m not needed as much around here. It's not like they’re hurting for all powerful witches, not when they have a fury and a heretic and a tribrid. And two gods. And a dragon.”
“God, everyone really upgraded as soon as we left,” Alyssa muttered bitterly, doing some ice cream stabbing of her own.
“Okay, so clearly something’s going on with you.”
“No, it’s fine. Just made an idiot out myself with Jed.”
“With Jed?” Josie frowned, then her eyes went wide as she realized, “No one told you about Ben.”
“Oh, I heard about Ben. About them dating, not so much.”
“If it helps, I don’t think they actually told anyone except Finch. Lizzie said everyone got blindsided by them one way or another.”
“I'm as stupid as everyone else around here, great. And it's serious?"
“I’ve heard them use the word ‘soulmates’ more than once. Sorry.” Josie frowned as Alyssa scooped out a giant spoonful of ice cream. “No offense, but I never thought you were that into Jed. Weren’t you super into MG and then kinda into Kaleb?”
“Sure, but I’m over all of that. I just wanted a little fun and Jed’s always been a good time, that’s all.”
“You seem more upset than missing out on a good time.”
Fortunately, before she had to come up with an answer to that, Lizzie stormed in. She groaned at the sight of Alyssa. “Ugh. You are the last person I need to see right now.”
“What crawled up your ass, Saltzman?”
“Romantic problems. She’s into Hope and Jen and can’t pick who to be with.”
“Josie,” Lizzie snapped, flushing. “Not in front of Alyssa Chang.”
“Alyssa’s sad that Jed is with Ben.”
Lizzie pointed at Alyssa. “Ha!”
Alyssa glared at Josie. “Seriously?”
“I might have had a couple beers before I broke out the ice cream,” Josie admitted with a shrug.
“I hate it here,” Alyssa sighed. Then she reached into the drawer and pulled out a spoon, holding it out for Lizzie.
Lizzie scowled but walked over, took the spoon, and dipped into the ice cream. “Sorry about Jed. But he’s basically married to Ben and I think I have to hurt you if you try to break them up. We’re kinda close now, so.”
“Weird. But fine. I’d rather talk about your love triangle anyway. Tell me more about how you’re stuck between a god and a tribrid and how awkward it’s gonna be for eternity no matter who you pick ‘cause you’re all immortal now.”
Lizzie groaned again and Josie laughed and for the first time, Alyssa was glad she came back to Mystic Falls.
*
After they made the prison world during the solar eclipse the next afternoon, Hope took all the witches out for celebration milkshakes. Then Lizzie and Hope had peeled off, maybe to figure out that whole triangle situation, and a slightly hungover Josie had gone back to bed. The younger witches went back to class and Cleo went back to work and Alyssa had been left alone, awkward with no one to talk to and her flight home booked for tomorrow. So she found her way to the Old Mill.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one with that idea. She heard their voices before she got there, soft and happy. She considered about turning around, but letting them scare her off made her feel more pathetic than she could take.
Ben saw her first, his gaze turning something between calculating and kind. “Hello, Alyssa.”
Jed’s head whipped around when he said her name and his smile dropped away. “Oh. Um. Hi.”
She gave him a tiny nod. “Hey. So last night, that was my bad. I didn’t know that you two were ... y'know.”
“Not the first we’ve heard that,” Jed said, sharing a rueful glance with his boyfriend. “It seems so obvious to us we keep forgetting to tell people.”
“Hmm, one of us forgets to tell people,” Ben said with a half-smirk that was softened by how adoringly he was staring at Jed. “I’ve never had anyone to tell.”
“You didn’t tell your sister.”
“We were not speaking at the time.”
“Whatever, fine, I forget to tell people.” Jed rolled his eyes. “First people complain I don't tell them, then they get mad when they catch us making out in the gym. Can't make anyone happy."
"Yes, my love, that is absolutely a reasonable conclusion to make from those examples." Ben stood up from his chair, reaching down and squeezing Jed's shoulder as he passed him. "We're out of beer, I'll go get us more."
Jed watched him go, staring with such naked adoration that it made something in Alyssa's chest ache.
She perched on the chair on his other side and cleared her throat. “So … you shacked up with a Greek god, huh?”
“Demigod, and he’s Georgian, actually, but yeah, basically.”
“Wow. You’re a lot more interesting than I thought, Jed Tien.”
“Thanks?”
“Think that’s on me, though, for never really bothering to get to know you.” Because that was what had really been bugging her, she'd realized in the cold sobering light of morning. She'd never had romantic feelings for Jed, not then and not now, but she'd hated how people underestimated and misjudged her during her time at the Salvatore School. Apparently she'd been doing the same thing to Jed the whole time. It didn't sit right with her.
“Eh, I wasn’t that worth getting to know, at least not when we first started hooking up,” Jed said with a shrug. “And we were casual anyway. Maybe my feelings weren’t casual, but that wasn’t on you or anything.”
“No, but I still didn’t have to treat you like crap. Like using you to cheat on MG and then leaving you to deal with the mess.” She caught his eyes, made sure he saw how sincere she was, for once. “I’m sorry I did that.”
“Oh. Um. Thank you. But hey, I knew I shouldn’t’ve helped you cheat and I did it anyway. And if I hadn’t worked so hard to make it up to everyone and really tried to be a better person, I might not have been the guy that Ben fell in love with.”
“So I’m single and friendless because I run from my mistakes?”
Jed's eyes went wide. “No, I wasn’t - that’s not what I was trying … I just meant -“
“Don’t have an aneurysm, Jed, I was just joking,” Alyssa said, rolling her eyes. Then she sighed. “But maybe it’s kinda true. I mean, I’m not friendless, exactly, but I don’t have a lot of people I’m close to and I don’t usually stay in one place for very long. It’s easier to run than to face some of things I’ve done.”
“Hey, a lot of that stuff was when you were a kid. I mean, you haven’t been working with any world ending jerks or sending people into prison worlds lately or anything.” He frowned. “Right?”
“No, of course not. I mean, I set one girl’s hair on fire at the next school I went to, but that was an accident. Mostly. And I put it out right away so just the ends got singed.”
“Okay, so maybe now that you’re older, you can get some perspective on stuff. Maybe it’s a little easier to face.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know some of the worst things I did.”
“I kinda do. I heard about your parents.”
Alyssa’s stomach sunk. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I killed my dad.”
Her breath caught. “What?”
He looked so much older than his age in that moment, the way his whole body sagged, his eyes sad. “He tried to get me to fight my friend. Whoever won would kill the other and become a werewolf. I killed my father instead.”
“I didn’t know,” Alyssa said, her mouth dry. “How did I never know that?”
“I didn’t tell anyone after Dr. Saltzman found me, not until Ben. So trust me, I get it. But you have to be honest with yourself about the things you’ve done to get past them. And I’m not sorry I killed my dad but there are so many more things that I did, people I’ve hurt and let down, and it started that night. Because I was still running from it.”
She nodded, taking a shaky breath in. "Running's easier."
"But then you don't get a super buff demigod boyfriend."
"That is a hell of a sale's pitch for emotional maturity." She pulled her phone out of her pocket and held it out for Jed. "Here, put in your number."
"Was I somehow not being clear again, because seriously, I'm really, really taken -"
"Yeah, no, got that. I just thought we could talk sometimes. Turns out we have a lot in common."
Jed grinned. "Alyssa Chang, are you asking to be my friend?"
"Ugh, shut up."
He laughed, and she smiled, and then Ben came back with the beers and with Finch, who Alyssa had never met before but seemed cool enough; she definitely had cool hair. And it was a pretty fun evening of chatting and hanging out, and even if it was kinda gross how Jed and Ben kept making heart eyes at each other, it was kinda nice, too, seeing how happy Jed was.
She wanted to be happy like that.
Her phone buzzed after as the sun was starting to set. It was from Lizzie. Springing the prison world trap tomorrow night. You in or what?
Alyssa looked around at the Jed and Ben and Finch. She remembered ice cream with Josie and Lizzie, and how things had felt normal between them for once. She thought about apologizing to MG, for real this time.
Duh, she sent back. Like you could do it without me.
She pulled up her flight information and cancelled her ticket. Time to stop running.