Something flared through those golden eyes: fear. Confusion. If he got the words out, it would probably turn into anger.Whenhe got the words out. He needed Miles to have the full picture before they got to the Wilder portion of his fuckup.
A hand slid into his, warm and steady. He glanced up at Emma. There was a small smile pulling at the corner of her lips as she gave him an encouraging nod. He held her gaze as he spoke. “He was an asshole. He made me doubt myself. He made me hate myself.”
His throat closed up, tears filling his eyes. He turned his gaze toward Miles, watching him through those tears as he slid his hand free from Emma’s to sign the words that just wouldn’t come.
“Travis and Emma made me see the truth. I left him. He didn’t accept it.”
Miles’s jaw dropped as he stared at Emmett with wide eyes. He couldn’t tell if that look in his eyes was shock or disbelief.
“That’s partly why I came here. To escape it all and start over. Then I went and fell for the one guy I shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, Em,” Miles breathed.
“I know.” He nodded, eyes burning and making him blink against the tears filling them. “I’m an idiot.”
Miles shook his head and reached for him, pulling him into a tight hug.
“No, you’re not.”
He dropped his forehead to Miles’s shoulder and took a deep breath of the citrus smell always clinging to Miles. There was a hint of leather, too, but no woods, no lake. As much as he loved Miles, he wasn’t the one he wanted to lean on right now. He understood that Wilder needed to cool off. He needed to… figure things out. He wasn’t sure which things, though.
He knew this wasn’t entirely about them. It was about Wilder and Solo and the broken trust between them. But was Wilder mad at Solo because he’d inserted himself into something Wilder didn’t want him involved with, or was it more? Was it?No. He couldn’t bring himself to think it. To believe it. Even for a second. It would hurt too much if Wilder came back and told him that Solo was right and everything between them was temporary. That it was over.
He wasn’t sure he’d survive that because, despite trying not to, he’d fallen in love with Wilder.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Wilder
HE PULLED up in front of the familiar red brick building, a smile gracing his lips when the sound of laughing kids reached his ears. Growing up here had been a blast despite the circumstances of why each kid came to live here. They all understood each other, accepted each other for who they were, and that’s what made it home.
He’d been jealous at first when it became clear that Kaz was going home with Jace and Ares. That Kaz would have a family in a way he never would. He’d thought for sure Kaz would forget about them, but he’d kept coming back, never wanting to leave them for long. That’s when he realized that their family hadn’t gotten smaller, only bigger, with the addition of Jace and Ares.
He pulled his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair before dismounting, leaving his helmet on the seat as he headed toward the entrance to the private residence.
He didn’t bother knocking, opening the door, and stepping inside, unsurprised when two kids came barreling down the hallway, mischievous smirks on their faces. His knees hit the ground, and he opened his arms, the two small bodies slamming into him, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
“You’re home,” Aria squealed, the joy in her voice filling his heart with a warmth he recognized as love.
He laughed, half-whispering as he said, “I’m home.”
He held the twins as tight as he had the day he carried them out of a house filled with drug addicts. He remembered that dayas if it were yesterday, remembered how small they had been, how they’d hid their faces in his neck and clung to him. The twins had barely been two years old then, and now they were a few months away from their seventh birthday.
The click of a tongue had him looking up to find Kai standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his lips pursed as he ran his gaze over Wilder.
“Oh. You’re alive,” Kai said, his droll tone negating the twinkle in his eyes.
Kai crossed his arms and arched a brow at Wilder, drawing his attention to the lines on his face. Those laugh lines had only grown over the years, and though he didn’t know how much he had to do with those, he knew for sure that he was at least partly responsible for the wrinkles on Kai’s forehead.
Wilder lifted Jesse onto his feet and then put his sister on hers as well, watching them run to the front door before he pushed to his feet, a brow arched at the man he considered the closest thing to a parent he’d ever had.
“Are you mad because I haven’t been home in a little while?”
Kai snorted. “Several weeks isn’ta little while.”
“You missed me,” he crooned, stepping closer and laughing when Kai flipped him off.
“Not in front of the kids,” Steel yelled from somewhere inside the house. He had some kind of sixth sense when it came to misbehaving. He’d learned that the hard way as a teen.
