He silently watched Jenna as she stood there in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, fingers working the clay like a magician. He had no idea how long Jenna had been crafting the piece, but it couldn’t have been that long. Yet she’d already sculpted the face, shoulders, and chest of the ghoul in exquisite detail. He would probably never understand how she found comfort in the act of creating these images, but it seemed clear that was why she did it.
Right now, though, Trevor needed her attention on whatever was bothering her.
“Jenna, would you please stop working on that sculpture for a second and look at me?” he said gently, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “It’s clear that you’re upset, and I’d like to understand why, especially since it seems to be my fault.”
She stopped sliding her fingers through the clay but still didn’t look his way. Instead, she stood there, staring at her creation, her heart beating faster, a gleam of tears in her eyes.
Trevor still wasn’t sure what he’d done, but it was obviously bad.Verybad. Realizing that he’d somehow hurt Jenna made his heart constrict in his chest in a way that convinced him more than ever that Jenna wasThe Onefor him. Because hecouldn’t imagine feeling pain like this for any other reason.
“Where have you been?” Jenna asked, finally turning to face him as she cleaned the clay off her hands with a towel. The tears weren’t quite as evident now, but he could tell from the tension in her shoulders that she was still angry. “I assume from the new shirt that you ended up somewhere other than the hospital.”
Trevor frowned, his head swimming as he tried to understand what she was upset about. “Um…yeah. We went over to Davina’s club. We wanted to tell her about the tunnel network we found. She had us draw out as much of it as we could remember in the hopes that she might be able to use that to find another way into the ghouls’ caverns. I got this shirt out of the club’s lost-and-found box. Apparently, a lot of clothing gets left behind in the place. Which is something I probably don’t want to ponder too deeply now that I’m thinking about it.”
Jenna’s expression darkened. “You had time to draw maps of underground tunnel networks and dig through a lost-and-found box at a nightclub for a new shirt, but you didn’t have time to text me and let me know everything had gone okay at the hospital? That you were evenalive?”
Trevor felt a stab of panic as he got his first sense of what he’d done wrong. “But I told you it wasn’t anything more than a few scratches.”
“Scratches?” Jenna said, her pretty hazel eyes going wide. “You were bleeding all over the place. Those creatures must have sliced you down to the bone. I thought you were going to die!”
She was hyperventilating by the time she’d finished speaking, her heart pounding so fast and hard that Trevor could see the blood pulsing under the pale skin of her throat. And the tears that she’d been fighting to hold back earlier were now cascading down her cheeks in endless streams that damn near tore his heart out to see.
Trevor wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, unable to speak.
“I thought you were going to die,” she said again, the words nearly incomprehensible through her sobs. “I wanted to go to the hospital with you and you wouldn’t let me. You never called to tell me you were okay.”
Trevor stood there holding Jenna as she cried, feeling like a complete and utter jackass. He wasn’t sure which of his offenses made him feel worse. Was it the fact that he’d never even considered that Jenna—who was almost certainly his soul mate—might have been worried about him? Or because he hadn’t given a single thought to texting or calling her to let her know he was okay after tending to his wounds?
Of course, part of that was because he and his pack mates had never gone to the hospital. Instead, they’d gone straight to Davina’s club and cleanedup in one of her bathrooms. Since the worst of the ghouls’ slashes closed up within minutes of coming out of the tunnels, there was no reason for a hospital. In fact, the cleanup had come down to little more than washing the blood off and wrapping his arms in gauze so Jenna wouldn’t realize how quickly the wounds had healed.
Still, that was no excuse. He should have known Jenna would be worried about him. If the situations had been reversed, Trevor would have been losing his mind.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, squeezing her tighter and rocking her back and forth. She curled the fingers of one hand around the fabric of his shirt, clenching it like she never intended to let him go. “I should have thought of you. I should have called.”
“Why didn’t you?” Jenna murmured, the words hard to hear as she kept her face pressed to his chest, sniffles and sobs still making her shoulders shake.
Trevor paused before saying anything, accepting that Jenna was looking for a real answer and not some meaningless platitude. And after the way he’d blown her off, she certainly deserved a little introspection on his part. Unfortunately, even after a few moments of thoughts, he still wasn’t entirely sure what to say. It struck him painfully hard that he had no conscious excuse on why he hadn’t called her, much less considered that she’d be worried.
Part of him thought it might be easiest if he simply admitted to being a werewolf. But that was out of the question, for obvious reasons. Worse, he didn’t think his furry problem had anything to do with his inability to operate a phone.
“I know this is going to come out as the lamest excuse in the history of the world,” he said after a few moments of thought, his chin resting on the top of her head, his hand making slow, soothing circles on her back. “But the reason I didn’t think to call you is because I haven’t had anyone waiting at home to be worried about me. So I don’t think I immediately connected with the possibility that you would be one of those people.”
Jenna’s shoulders stopped shaking in his embrace, her sobs quieting. Then, after a few seconds, she slowly pulled back to gaze up at him with eyes all red and puffy. Trevor would rather be kicked in the balls by a Clydesdale than see her like that.
“So you’re telling me that the reason you didn’t call is because you seriously had no idea I cared?” she asked incredulously.
He wanted to tell her that it was far more complicated than that. He wanted to explain that it had been so long since he’d worried about the consequences of getting injured because, well…werewolf…and that the thought that anyone would care about a few slashes and a couple pints of blood simply didn’t register.
“Um…it sounds so much worse when you say it that way,” he murmured. “And more than a bit pathetic. But basically, yeah. Since I became an adult and moved out on my own, the only person who worried about me was me. Sure, in the army and on my SWAT team, we look out for each other, but that’s completely different from having someone at home worry about you.” He sighed. “I know it’s a horrible excuse. I’m genuinely sorry for not thinking to have you there when my injuries were being looked at. And for not texting or calling you, too. I can only promise to never do that to you again. I promise that if I ever get hurt in the future, I’ll make sure to keep you informed. No matter what.”
She regarded him silently for a moment. Her expression clearly said she was still upset, but at least she didn’t seem angry anymore. And thank goodness she wasn’t crying. He’d decided that seeing Jenna cry was the most painful thing in the world.
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice rough with emotion. “At some later date, we’re going to sit down and have a long conversation about you thinking there’s nobody around to worry about you, but for now, maybe you could simply promise to make sure you’re never in a position to get hurt again?”
Trevor wanted to nod and go with that, relieved Jenna seemed to be at least willing to accept his apology, but he knew he couldn’t do that.
“I wish I could tell you that I’m never going to get hurt again,” he started slowly. “But given that we’ll probably be going back down into those tunnels again as soon as we find a way back in, that’s not anything I can promise.”
When Jenna didn’t say anything, Trevor was sure he’d screwed up again, but then she nodded her acceptance.
