“Could I interest you in sitting right here while you think?”
Madison snuggled in tighter, wedging her head beneath my chin and locking her arms behind me. “I could be persuaded.”
Tyler would have flung me in the car and had me at a clinic before I could even think straight if I was in the same situation with him. I’d always been so diligent about birth control for my heats with Tyler, but I’d never had to worry about a heat flare before. Was that only a concern with scent matches? Bringing a kid into the world with a dad who professed to hate children was a cruelty I couldn’t get anywhere near. But nowthings were different. Things might still be new and kind of weird, but none of them gave me pause when I thought about how they might be as a father.
Cuddled up in my nest with the whole pack, a movie playing quietly on the TV, and not a single person crawling up my ass to make an immediate decision was such a drastic change from my old life, I didn’t even know what to do with it.
“Can I ask a question?” Nathan asked. “And feel free to tell me to fuck off if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Hmm?”
“What went on in your life before Tyler?”
Pain burst, hot and bright, in my chest, and Leo gathered me closer.
“Maybe a question for another time,” he said gently.
“No, it’s…it’s okay. You guys should know what kind of mess you’ve signed on to share your life with. You should have time to leave if it’s too much.”
Confusion and disappointment tumbled down the bond. At first I assumed Leo was disappointed inme, which felt particularly miserable after having disappointed so many before him, but then he said firmly, “You’re not a mess, and we’re not going anywhere. I wish you wouldn’t talk about yourself like that.”
I shrank, knowing I’d upset him. The instinct to hide or placate was still there, hovering beneath the surface.
“I asked because I want to understand,” explained Nathan, “not so we can judge you.”
I sucked in a slow breath, considering how I could explain everything in a way that might blunt the inevitable judgment, no matter what they said. Maybe it would be better to get it all out. I would be forced to feel Leo’s reaction, but if I closed my eyes, I could temporarily avoid it from the others.
Might as well plunge in the deep end.
“I haven’t spoken to any of my parents since I became an adult. They were addicts—drugs, alcohol, gambling—they all had their own vices. Sometimes they indulged in multiple.”
Anguish poured down the bond from Leo. Jude knew some of it, but not all the details. I didn’t dare open my eyes to see the look on his face.
“They were in and out of prison and rehab facilities constantly, and sometimes I was in foster care. I took care of myself from the time I was about six years old. When I woke up in the morning, I never knew if someone would be there or if there would be food in the house. My school was close enough to walk and I would get there when the doors opened, then not leave until they forced me to, when all the extracurricular activities were done for the day. Teachers noticed, which is how I kept ending up in foster care, so I got better at hiding things.”
“Why hide it?” Alve asked delicately.
“School was my only stability. Sometimes I’d have to start a new one if my foster parent lived in a different district, and I wanted to stay where my friends and teachers were. Some of my friends’ parents would take me home for dinner, taught me how to do laundry, and made me memorize their phone numbers in case I needed somewhere to go. That came to a pretty abrupt halt when one of my dads accused a friend’s mom of kidnapping.”
“Jesus Christ,” Nathan muttered. “Did she get charged?”
“No. It was obvious to everyone involved what was happening, which got me into foster care again.”
“And where did Tyler fall in all of this?”
“I met Tyler our last year of middle school, when I was with a foster family for almost a year, and we went to the same high school after that. He wasn’t bad then. He got a car for his sixteenth birthday and got me out of my house at every opportunity. Looking back, I can see how demanding he was, but I didn’t notice at the time. I was too happy to listen because hewas only one person to navigate, and if I went somewhere with him, I knew I would be fed, that someone would hold me…I was so lonely.”
The words were hard to form. All of my alphas were holding me now, and it came without expectation. Leo’s disappointment had faded into a dull ache, something that felt closer to regret, like maybe he wished he’d met me sooner instead of Tyler.
“Then Tyler’s grandfather passed and he received a fuckload of money that he used to buy our house and start up his business as soon as he turned eighteen. I leapt at the chance to have a permanent home and a taste of stability. At first, it was great. He encouraged me to make the home my own, gave me money to decorate and get myself an actual adult wardrobe. We always had food in the fridge, and I had pockets of peace living there. I think over the years, my gratitude toward him for getting me out of my old life turned into feeling indebted to him, and because I felt that, he started to agree. I think he loved me once, but committing yourself to someone as a teenager doesn’t often work out. We grew apart a long time ago but neither of us was willing to let go.”
No one said anything for a while.
Nathan broke the silence in his uniquely Nathan way. “I still want to launch him into the sun. I’ll duct-tape your parents to him and they can all go together.”
“I’d pay for the launch,” Alve quietly added.
A tiny bubble of mirth popped in my chest and I managed a small smile. “My parents built their own prisons. I’m happy to let them live their lives behind those bars, so long as they stay far away from me. As for Tyler…I’m still grateful to him for getting me out, but he wasn’t the person I needed once I left the crisis phase.” I let out a bitter laugh. “My whole life was a crisis phase, I guess.”
