“I don’t want you feeling like you have to do this,” he grumbled, lifting a heavy stack of plates into a cupboard. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Ev, there’s a difference between wanting to help because it’s kind and being made to do so. You keep telling me I need to find the difference, but you need to, too. I won’t know what it’s really like to be here if you don’t let me act normally.”
“You’re right.” He sighed, grabbing a cloth to wipe down the sides. “It’s just hard. I don’t want to screw this up.”
I studied his profile as he meticulously cleaned. “I don’t think that’s possible, Ev.”
He raised a brow. “Did the wine make ye forget the past?”
“I might be on the smaller side, but it still takes more than one glass to make me tipsy.” I drifted closer to him, my fingers twitching slightly. “The dinner did reinforce how wrong I’ve been though.”
He dropped the cloth, leaning against the side as he faced me. “What do ye mean?”
“I mean, I’m sorry,” I said, the words rushing out. “Iknow I’ve said this already, but I’m really sorry, Ev. I should never have asked you what I did.”
A blazing heat filled his eyes as he cupped my face. “Yes, you should have, Reid. You were a child asking for help. You did the right thing. I was in the wrong.”
“No, you weren’t,” I whispered, my vision blurring. “It wasn’t right to put all of my problems on you.”
“Sweetheart, stop.” He gathered me into his arms. “I don’t like this. You were the victim, and the thought of you not asking anyone for help? That guts me almost as much as knowing I didn’t give it.”
We could agree to disagree on that point, but not the next. “I had no right to hold it against you all this time though. You didn’t mean to come back into my life, and I’ve done nothing but punish you for doing so.”
“As you should have.”
“No, Ev.” I pulled back to see his face. “I shouldn’t have, especially with how you’ve been looking out for me. You said you want us to find the way back to the light together, but I’m the one who put you in the darkness. It’s not right.”
He used his thumbs to stroke away tears I hadn’t even realised had fallen. “No, sweetheart. I was in the darkness because you were unhappy. My wolf wanted to help you.Iwanted to help you. I’m not going to stand here and pretend you’re not important to us when you are.”
“But you didn’t even know me.”
“I knew enough,” he said. “And everything I’ve learned since then has confirmed we were both right. You’re important to us, Reid.”
I clasped my hands behind his neck. “You’re important to me too, Evan. I think that’s why I hate what I put you through so much. You’re kind, caring, funny, and sogoddamned decent. That I accused you of being anything else makes me want to cry.”
“No more tears,” he whispered, rubbing his nose against mine. “I don’t judge you for how you behaved.”
“And I don’t judge you for the choices you made.”
“Okay.” His teeth flashed at me as he grinned. “So now we’re officially not judging each other, how about we forget the past and just focus on the future?”
“That sounds good to me.” If I was being honest, there was another thread in my mind that was demanding attention. “We’re not very good at keeping things casual.”
Evan’s hands froze where they’d been stroking my back. “Um, want me to back off?”
“Fuck no.” I tightened my grip. Not that it would have stopped Evan if he really wanted to pull away. Even if he were human, he’d probably be stronger than me. “I was just thinking…seeing as we suck at being casual, we should get some of the other benefits, right?”
Evan purred, his face dropping against my neck. “I told you already, we can keep things casual and still have sex. I’m just your personal stress relief toy.”
I tugged at the short hair at the back of his head until he lifted his head. “Look me in the eye and tell me you weren’t feeling all messed up after what we did earlier.”
His gaze turned wary. “I already said it was weird.”
“Because I was insisting we keep things casual. You can tell me it’s fine all you want, but it’s not, is it? Your wolf doesn’t like it, and neither do you.”
Evan winced but didn’t speak. I could tell he was struggling, wanting to communicate but knowing what the truth might do.
It was time to allay his fears the way he’d been doing with me. “Ev, this isn’t casual for me. It’s not a relationshipeither—I stand by everything I said this morning, but…I don’t want you to feel like this is all one-sided. It’s not.”
