Page 80 of Abdominal Snowman

With a Reason

The backdoor snapped shut behind him, and Soren breathed out a sigh into the icy cold air.

It nipped at what skin he had exposed, but it didn’t sting in the same way it did for humans. In fact, he loved it. It’s why he hadn’t ever wanted to go anywhere else, even once his parents had gone.

And now, finally, he wasn’t alone anymore. Not with Sage here. But it wasn’t fair of him to burden her with that. So if… when she wanted to leave, when she decided her vacation was over, she’d go back to sunny skies and too hot beaches. And Soren would remain here, in his cabin on the mountain with enough snowy days to last two lifetimes.

As he flipped on the lights in the garage, he grumbled.

Sage leaving wasn’t even the pressing matter at the moment.

It was that asshole Tobin, and the fact that right at this moment, Sage was sticking her nose in places it didn’t belong.

It wasn’t that he was afraid she couldn’t do it, that she’d fail. It was the opposite. Soren knew she’d find something—there was too much passion in her gaze for her to fail. It just wasn’t an option in her mind.

His chest was tight, and it didn’t sit right with him to let Sage dig herself into trouble. But she had a point. She didn’t live here, and she was no more than a stranger to Tobin. But she was a stranger Tobin was interested in, nonetheless. If only because of Soren.

Soren didn’t want to get in the way of Sage’s story. But he might have to just to keep Tobin away from her.

Abominable for a bodyguard? Soren guessed she couldn’t do any worse.

Shaking his head at the entire situation, he sat down at his bench, pulled his tools close, and surveyed the half finished figures around him. The problem children.

On each figure, something had gone wrong, and he’d put it aside in frustration to come back to later.

Well, it was later.

Soren grabbed a partially shaped wolf and stared at the wonky head. His hand had slipped, and he’d snapped an ear off.

But after staring at the damned thing and wasting his time, he sighed and pushed it back to the pile.

Maybe it wasn’t later just yet.

He stood, walked around his worktable, and surveyed the shelves. Random boxes stuck out at him, forgotten tools, some of his parents’ stuff. He’d organized it over and over again as a coping mechanism, and every box was organized by dimensions and their contents. The one Sage had found was sitting askew on the shelf, and Soren found himself staring down at the weathered box before he knew it.

His heart pounded in his chest just from laying eyes on the box again. But it was the contents that made his stomach twist with nerves.

He could only imagine what they held.

Memories. Worry. He wondered at what point they shifted to disappointment and hurt.

Why hadn’t he ever responded to them?

His fingers tightened around the box. He remembered receiving the very first letter. Still adjusting to home life without his parents, he’d been absolutely shocked to visit town within the next month and find a letter from them. It had been awaiting him at the post office, where his mail was collected since the postal service couldn’t reach his house. At least not year-round.

At the time, it had felt monumental to receive a letter from them. They were alive and safe, and he supposed the clan had welcomed them with open arms if they were writing letters.

But even if that were true, Sage was right. What was he going to do if one day the letters stopped coming? It would be too late for anything then.

With a deep breath, he pulled the box off the shelf and walked it over to his worktable. The bright table lamp shone a spotlight on everything he’d been ignoring for the past… years. This box held years of information and memories and missed conversations with his parents.

His chest ached, and he tore the top of the box off, upending the contents all over his table. It knocked over a few of his figurines, but he couldn’t be bothered. He grabbed a few of the last letters that tumbled out, tracing back years.

But as he looked at them all piled up, he realized he’d never get through them in one sitting. It would take days. Weeks.

He didn’t want to wait that long to find out if they were okay now. Soren cursed and started digging through the letters, looking for some with a recent stamp year.

It was suddenly the most important thing in the world to know they were okay. Both of them.