I take a breath, testing my pain levels. They feel tolerable, but worry spikes. I’ll need my medication. “What time is it?”
“Coming up to dawn.”
Shit.“I should go.”
“Or you could stay,” Max says quietly. “You don’t have to go.”
Such small words. But they threaten to flay open my chest, that string that connects us leaping in sudden, dangerous hope. “Don’t say things like that.”
“I mean it.” He reaches for my hand, eyeing me cautiously but wrapping his fingers around mine when I don’t pull away. He squeezes, infinitely gentle. “Stay, Kenny. Let’s work this out, like we should have done from the beginning.”
Smoothing my other hand down my jeans, I look away from him, taking in the room. My eyebrows furrow. “I… recognize this.”
But I’ve only ever seen it on paper. Max’s cheeks are flushed. But he shrugs. “You think we’d build a home for our pack and not include you?”
It’s… my nest. The one I always wanted. The one I drew for Oscar, when he asked me. “He really kept the drawing?”
“Of course he did.” Max’s thumb rubs over my knuckles. “He doesn’t break his promises, you know that. You were always supposed to be ours, Kenny. We just… got a little mixed up along the way.”
My hand tightens in his.
I want what he’s offering. Want it with an intensity that steals my breath as I stare around at the room they designed for me without even knowing if I’d ever see it.
Maybe things could be different.
I can almost see it. Taste it. A future I thought was impossible, lingering just out of reach. Around a corner, but soclose.
I just have to tell them. Tell Theo.
Break his heart.
Break the agreement I made with his father.
Break the promise I made to myself on that cliff edge.
And in the end, none of it will fucking matter, because I’ll be dead and they’ll be broken all over again.
A double hit, and I’m not sure they’d survive this one.
Max shifts, and I turn my eyes back to him, breathing in his scent. Just like the forest he loves so much.
Max, who’s always smiling, but not now. He looks almost… embarrassed.
“Look…,” he hesitates, looking down at our hands. “I know I’m not the best option for you, not really. I’m not going to college, Ken. I’m never gonna have a fancy job, like Theo and Oscar will.Even Jake will rise up. But I’m a trail guide, and that’s what I’m good at. I’m never going to be able to give you everything I’d like to.”
My heart squeezes. He thinks he’s not good enough. Forme. “Wait—,”
“But I’m a hard worker,” he rushes out. His brown eyes are bright. “And I’m loyal. I promise that I’ll make sure every day that you never regret choosing me, mating bond or not. Because I chose you two years ago, Ken, and I’ll choose you over and over again if you let me. I won’t let you down again. Not this time.”
He lifts our hands, pressing his lips to the back of my hand. “I’m shit with words. You know that. But whatever I have is yours, okay? We can figure out the rest. And I know I’ll have to earn it. We haven’t exactly been good mates so far. But Iwillearn it.”
The vulnerable, quiet words send me reeling. My breathing is the only sound as I lean forward.
Max inhales sharply as I press my head into his shoulder. His hand slips from mine, rising to run over my back as I nudge myself into him, breathing him in. “You don’t need to be anything other thanyou, Max. You never have.”
He lifts me onto his lap with effortless ease. My legs settle around his hips, my arms slipping around his neck even as he presses his lips into my throat, over my sweater.
And he murmurs my name like it’s his own personal nirvana. “Kenny.”
