Phantom snarls, shoving me off his knee.
Good.
Finally, I’ve pushed him past his limit. I like to see the fire in his eyes.
He backs me against the wall.
“What?” I demand, meeting his furious gaze. “Isn’t that what you think? Because last night in the pool, Jokes thought all that.”
Shocked, Phantom stumbles back a step, knocking into the easel.
He shakes his head.
Ruthlessly, I press on. “Jokes has loved you for years. You must know that. He can see how much you’re falling already for Bird. Of course you are, Bird is fucking adorable. And you and me have this connection, right? Joker and you, on the other hand, are still functioning like you’re in the SEALs together. You’re a unit, rather than a pack. You’ve been fighting…never stopping…hunting and planning and…but Jokes blames himself for that. If he hadn’t switched in the middle of that battle, then your world wouldn’t have burned around you.”
Phantom makes a furious gesture that I am certain meansbullshit.
“I’m not saying that it’s true. I’m saying that it’s how Jokes feels.”
Phantom’s jaw clenches, before he grabs his pencil and writes on the sketchpad.
Impatiently, I wrap my arms around my middle and wait.
Finally, Phantom thrusts the sketchpad at me, hurling down the pencil.
My heart drops when I read his scribbled explanation.
Joker can’t stop feelingguilty for everything because he blames himself for his pack dying.
He blames himself for losing his sister.
The invention that his dad was working on the night he burned down the house was to help Joker. His dad became fixated on his Beta son being able to compete against Alphas. It cost his pack everything.
Joker has had to carry that on his shoulders.
I don’t blame him for anything. I made my own choices.
I would have saved him when he went into heat because he was my friend.
Yet I also love him.
Does he think that I would give bullet shaped chocolates to just anyone?
I cooked him heart-shaped pancakes this morning.
I’mboth laughing and trying hard not to let the tears, which are trembling on my eyelashes, fall by the time that I reach the end of the letter.
“Your romance is all actions, Penn. Our Beta is the type who needs words,” I explain. “I get it. I’m the same. I barely talk about my feelings. You’re a military man. But how about you write a letter like this one but with more of the romance shit?”
Phantom wrinkles his nose, as if to say he has never read, let alone written, a letter like that.
I poke his chest. “Your task this evening, solider: read a romance novel. Just not a dark romance. I don’t want to give you any ideas.”
Phantom curls his lips, exposing his canines.
Suddenly, he looks dangerous and like he could be one of the Alphaholes in those books.
“I said,notone of those, Penn.” I poke him in the chest, before he captures my hand in his giant one and lightly kisses its back. I study the mask, wondering if he will ever be able toshow me this part of himself. It needs to be in his own time. To my surprise, he kisses my cheek. I blush. “I hadn’t realized just how much we’re the same. Tough on the outside. We’d kill for our pack. If we’re with the right people, however, then also we can be…” I break off, unsure whether I can voice the vulnerable aspect of myself, which Phantom has already seen and painted. “…we can have a softness. I didn’t feel safe to show it because I had to protect my brother. I needed to survive. But now that we’re together, finally…”
