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“Do you see what I am trying to say here? Trust us. Trust me to help you carry your load. No, that is not what he said. Stop it.”

Jay smiles, but Nix’s words have cracked open the doubt in his chest that he’s let his mates down yet again and it’s because he was trying to save them.

“I can’t.”

It’s as true as anything has ever been.

“I can’t give all this shit to you. I know sometimes it leaks out…and it’s ugly. I—I can’t have you look at me like that again.”

“Like what? Leaking out? Again? When?”

“Before. At the church, and that day in the gym, and probably a hundred times before that. I let how I felt hurt you. I can’t—”

Nix’s eyes go wide, and he looks genuinely shocked.

“Jamie, that wasn’t ugly. That was real. Sure, we argued, and then we made up. It’s what families do.

“What Luca and I do. What Gray and Ro do. Those two were at each other’s proverbial throats for months, and I can’t tell you what they were doing in there to make up earlier, but it sure wasn’t ugly.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Your emotions aren’tugly. Fuck.”

Nix is at a momentary loss for words.

“Not all of them, I’m not saying that. Like sometimes I’m happy, and in love, and excited, and…”

“I just get the happy parts, then? What are we doing here, Jamie? Do you want only the happy parts of me?

“I won’t bottle it all up again—not even for the love of my fucking life.”

“What? Why would you think I meant you?”

Nix has come so far, and it’s beautiful to see how he copes—exploring and getting to know himself, with the pack’s love and devotion as a safety net.

That he trusts them to help him shoulder his burdens in the hard times and share his joys in the best of times is the purest thing—the epitome of lov—

Well, fuck.

The light bulb must go on visibly in his face, because Nix pokes Jay’s forehead with his fingertip, and none too lightly.

“Figured it out? Good.”

He kisses the small, tingling mark he’d left on Jay’s forehead.

““I told Leo this once, and I’ll tell you, too—sometimes a person has to keep their own counsel. I understand that. But other times, like with what happened today, we want you to let us in. Please, please, let me in. Share your full heart with me. With us. Please don’t shut us out.”

Jay had shut them out—and locked the metaphorical door.

They’d arrived back at the safe house, unloaded, and watched as Nimue taught them the blessing for their temporary home and helped Grayson practice his newest meditations. Afterward, every single one of his mates had sat by and waited for Jay to acknowledge his grief in whatever small way he could. They wanted to share his burdens—not to offer solutions or platitudes, but to cry with him or soothe the roughest edges of his pain.

To hold him up, just like he has always done for them.

But Jay had shut it all down and headed off into the shower. When he’d turned the water off and opened the curtain, he’d found Finn’s favorite sweats on the counter and Grayson’s green tea and basil body lotion fromhome, and they had made his heart hurt just a little.

He’d locked them out only to find that Gideon had waited up with that infernal oolong-tar-tea he likes to drink when he’s sad, as if his beverage has to reflect his inner sadness.

Wanting only to offer Jay love and care. To be his shoulder to cry on. To help hold him together, as he always does. Careful—so careful—so that if Jay needed privacy, he could have it with just the two of them.