Seth leans closer from across the table. “He’s not big on talking about his past,” Seth says, like he’s covering for me instead of calling me out.
I glance down at my sleeve of ink. “This,” I say, keeping my voice low, “is my family’s heritage from Maui. I got it so I don’t forget who I am… beyond everything I left.”
Her fingers hover, then lightly trace the linework. “Everything you left,” she repeats, gentle.
I nod once, throat tight. “I didn’t grow up with the kind of family you miss.”
Her brows pinch.
“My old man drank,” I add, blunt and small. “When he got mean and raised his fist, I learned to get out of the way. Then I learned to get gone.” My fingers brush the edge of my sleeve like it’s an old scar. “I took off young. Didn’t have much besides whatever I could carry and a chip on my shoulder the size of Texas.”
Her hand closes gently over my wrist, steadying instead of pitying.
Carter clears his throat, suddenly less of a smart-ass. “He ran with nothing and still ended up the most solid one of us.”
Seth’s hand taps my shoulder—quick, like he’s got my back. “He’s the reason this pack works,” he says. “Even when he pretends he doesn’t need any of us.”
“I didn’t do it alone,” I say, and it comes out rougher than I mean. My gaze flicks away for half a second, long enough to see a memory I don’t usually let in. “I got lucky. I was sixteen when John took a chance on me,” I add. “Dragged my sorry ass into the rodeo world, put a roof over my head, and gave me rules that didn’t come with fists. Gave me a way out.”
I look back at them—at her—and the truth sits steady in my chest. “Without that… I don’t know where I’d be.”
Seth’s mouth quirks, eyes steady on mine. “And you’re the reason you’re still standing, Kai—don’t forget that.”
My thumb brushes her knuckles again as I give Seth a nod of appreciation, then I’m focused back on June. “So yeah,” I say quietly. “Brutus isn’t impossible.”
And for a beat, with her looking at me like I’m already worth keeping, I don’t feel impossible either.
She searches my face for a long moment. I don’t know what she’s looking for, but whatever it is, she must find it, because some of the tension leaves her shoulders.
“I do trust you,” she finally admits. “But I’m still going to worry like hell.”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
She laughs, and I pull her against me. She fits there perfectly, her head tucked under my chin, her hands fisting in the back of my shirt. I breathe in her scent and let it ground me.
This is what I’m fighting for. Not just the town or the circuit or the abstract idea of doing something good.
Her. Them. Us.
A pack. A family. Something worth protecting.
When I finally let her go, Seth and Carter are both watching us with heartfelt expressions. We’re all in this together, and they know it as well as I do.
“So,” I say, stealing a rib from Carter’s plate just to annoy him. “Anyone else got any terrible ideas they want to share? No? Just me? Cool.”
Carter flips me off, but he’s smiling.
The country music shifts to something slower, and the evening settles into that golden-hour warmth where everything feels possible. Somewhere out there, a legendary bull named Brutus is probably terrorizing some poor bastard’s garden, completely unaware that his retirement is about to get interrupted.
And me?
I’m sitting with my pack, my Omega pressed warmly against my side, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together.
Even ifwhat comes nextinvolves an angry bull with a grudge and a ninety-seven percent success rate at destroying anyone stupid enough to climb onto his back.
But hey.
