Trevor leaned right into his space and eyed the project. “What’s this?”
Ezra grunted. “What’s it look like?”
It was…well, kind of beautiful. And really well conceived. Somehow Ezra had made a mountain slope, layers and gradients of brown and gray that looked like soil and rock, sunlit in some places and shadowed in others. Patches of grass, sturdy evergreens growing despite the incline, and…wow. A waterfall. It seemed to cascade down to a wide stream that flowed to the edge of the table. Around the stream grew flowers, trees, bushes. Here in a tree perched a squirrel, there on the ground grew a cluster of orange mushrooms, there on the stream’s bank sat a tiny green frog.
“This is cool, man.” Understatement of the week.
“Thanks.” Ezra finished pressing a few more flat bricks—what were those called again? He had a name for them—into the side of the mountain, then sat back. “You want anything? There’s leftover ribs in the fridge.”
“Nah, I had dinner at Maggie’s.”
“Okay.”
“No sense making small talk. Just tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Sure,” Ezra said. Then he selected a few bricks from one of the sorting drawers. He looked a long moment at his creation before pressing them into place. “Are you…serious about her? I mean, do you think you’ll move forward with her even though you’re not fated?”
“What makes you think we’re not?”
Ezra’s hands went still, then continued to work. “You told us you broke up with her.”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re not fated, or…well, or you wouldn’t have.”
Talking about this, any of it, still left his mouth dry and his chest tight. Easier to claim the lore got a few things wrong. Claim that wholecan’t live without each otherthing was a crock of melodrama. Aaron used to say it all the time, though since he’d met Ember he’d changed his tune. But the prospect of a lie like that, a lie relating to him and Kelsey, made Trevor’s skin itch. Every cell in his body wanted to claim her, must claim her.
He tugged a chair from the matched set propped in the corner. He drew it up to the table opposite his brother and took a seat. They’d be here a while.
“I didn’t know until after she left.”
Ezra glanced up at him, his expression no less reserved than usual. But his scent grew tangy with surprise, heavy with concern.
“Yeah,” Trevor said. “It sucked. And I know what’s next: I didn’t say anything because back then I didn’t get it, how normal it was to be wrecked, how life mates are…you know. I thought I was just a stupid pup who needed to snap out of it, get himself together.”
“I would’ve thought the same thing. And…crap, I probably would’ve told you to snap out of it.”
“See, there you go.”
Ezra resumed picking various bricks and pressing them into place. Aha, he was adding a little rock shelf to his slope. After a minute he said, “I’m sorry, bro.”
“Yeah, well, it is what it is.”
“No, I mean…” Ezra looked up and held Trevor’s gaze. “That’s what I wanted to tell you, face to face. Ever since she came back, I haven’t wanted her here, and I haven’t done right by her. Not if you’re going to be with her, and—dang it, Trevor, not if she’s your mate. I can’t believe I didn’t know.”
“Well.” Trevor shrugged. “You can make it right, you know.”
“I’ve got to. I’ll talk to her.” His eyes brightened. “She’ll be at the cookout tomorrow, right?”
“I think so. Maggie’s going stir-crazy over there, keeps saying she needs a day to herself, but Kelsey’s been scared to leave.”
“Sounds like Maggie.” Ezra topped his rock shelf with a single smooth piece to stabilize and finish it, then looked up again. “And sounds like Kelsey. She sticks like glue.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean in a good way.”
Trevor grinned. “I know, Ez. It’s okay.”
