“You sure?”
“Yep. Come on.” I opened my door before I changed my mind.
Max joined me on the pavement, shoulder brushing mine as we walked up the driveway. “Do you want me to wait out here for a bit? Let you go in first?”
“No.” I let my fingers twine with his for just a moment before pulling away, conscious that we were out in the open where anyone could see or hear us. “I need you in there with me.”
“Then that’s where I’ll be.” He smiled, the warmth in it settling the raging butterflies inside me. “Always.”
If only that were true.
The door opened wide before I had the chance to knock.
My dad stood there, gaze flicking between me and Max, the uncertainty in his eyes something I never wanted to see when he was looking at me. Instinct took over and I stepped over the threshold, wrapping my arms around him in a hug I should’ve offered him weeks ago. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, burying my face in his neck, his scent so familiar, so comforting, I wanted to kick myself for waiting. What the fuck had I been thinking?
He clutched me back just as tightly. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who—”
“No.” I pulled back and shook my head. I was about to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for either, because it was all a fucking mistake, but Max ushered us inside, closing the door behind us.
“Not here.”
Right. We were surrounded by pack on this street. They might not know what they were hearing, but I didn’t need anything getting back to Xen to make him any more pissed off with me.
Once in the relative privacy of the living room, my dad shut the window and turned on the TV for background noise. We all stood around awkwardly in the middle of the room until Max huffed and rolled his eyes.
“For fuck’s sake,” he said, looking between me and my dad. “We need to address the elephant in the room right now, because we don’t have time for this nonsense.”
“Not that I disagree, but why don’t we have time?” Dad’s eyes narrowed, then snapped shut as he sighed. “What have you done?”
“Nothing yet,” Max murmured. “But we’re working on it. And we won’t get very far if you and Jake don’t make peace with what happened.”
I turned an incredulous look his way. “And you. It’s not only me who’s affected by all of this.” Pain flashed in his eyes, and I almost regretted saying it. But I was right. If he felt anything near what I felt for him, then his life was about to be as ruined as mine was. Which meant he needed to clear the air with my dad, too.
I reached for his hand, warmth suffusing through my chest as his fingers wrapped around mine, no hesitation.
Dad’s mouth opened on a gasp. “No.” He stared at our joined hands, then looked at me, then Max, eyes wide. “Are you twotogether?”
I nodded with a sigh of my own. “Well, we were.”
His face fell. “I didn’t think it was serious,” he whispered, gaze flicking between us again. “You never said anything when Xen told you to stop.”
Anger chased away the guilt his words evoked. “What the fuck was I supposed to say?” I hissed, struggling to keep my voice low. “Sorry, Xen, I don’t want to stop seeing Max, so just go ahead and let Frost kill my dad.” I squeezed Max’s hand, needing to feel him to keep my temper from escalating. “I hadnochoice.”
Silence filled the room, as loud as if we’d been shouting.
“Hey,” Max said, positioning himself between us. “None of that matters now. It’s done.” He turned to face my dad. “If it wasn’t for that night, we’d be together now.” My dad flinched, but Max didn’t back down. “I’m not saying that to make you feel worse than I’m sure you already do. I’m telling you because you need to realise what’s at stake here for us. We have to find a way out of this deal. A way that doesn’t end up with you dead,” he added when my dad opened his mouth.
He closed it with a snap. “I don’t remember anything about that night,” he muttered. “Jake and I have already been over it.”
“Not really. You shut me down before I had chance to ask you anything.”
“Because we can’t talk about it,” Dad shot back.
“We can with each other.” Maybe he didn’t remember exactly what Xen had said that night. “He banned us from talking to anyone who wasn’t involved.”
“Oh.”
Facing my dad, Max tried again. “Do you remember anything from that night? Anything at all. In fact,” he said, gesturing for us all to sit down. “Why don’t you talk us through that whole day?”
