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“Aspen, please…” He thrusts his hands through his hair as he paces. “I’ve never talked about this with anyone, not even Silas, until recently. I need to say this all and pray to the Goddess that you understand. Can we go sit in the living room?”

I don’t know what to say, so I simply nod my head and follow behind him as he walks out of this gorgeous room. With a last glance over my shoulder, I follow him out. He is already sitting on the sofa with his arms braced on his legs as they bounce. He is staring at the coffee table as though he is lost in his mind.

With slow, measured steps, I walk into the living room, taking the seat across from him on the loveseat.

“The night my parents passed, I was playing at the State Championship. Something I’m sure you know, but what you don’t know is that I felt as though it was my fault. I kept telling myself that night that it was odd that they weren’t there. Several times, I would glance into the stands trying to find them, only to come up empty each time. I remember being livid with them. How could they not be there on the biggest night of my life? Coach kept bringing my attention back to the game by keeping me on the field as much as possible. Looking back now, it’s because he already knew my parents had passed. Every time that we would come off the field, I would look to the stands. There wasn’t a single soul up there for me. One of them...” He looks up at me. “Because I was a fucking idiot, but my parents? I couldn’tunderstand why they weren’t there. They left only ten minutes behind the bus, so surely they would have made it.”

He pushes off the couch and walks over to his wet bar. Twisting the cork out of his bourbon before pouring himself a drink. He tosses the entire thing back before coughing and hitting his chest with his fist a few times.

“The entire game, I was livid with my parents, at myself for pushing you away, and we ended up losing the game. I blamed myself for that, too. My head wasn’t in the game. Too busy wondering where my parents were to even focus. I dropped the winning pass one yard from the end zone. A catch I’ve caught hundreds of times before, slipped right through my fingers.” He slams the crystal glass down on the bar top before pouring another glass. The ice chinks against the side as he throws back another drink.

My eyes are welling up with tears, not out of pity, but for the boy who has been struggling with the loss of his parents. The boy whose entire world was changed in the blink of an eye. I already knew what had happened. They were killed in a car crash on the interstate on their way to the game. A dumb teenager was speeding down the road at over a hundred miles per hour and didn’t have time to slow down when Warrick’s parents switched lanes. They died instantly and there was no hope of saving them.

The glass grinds across the top as he slides it across the wood. His head hanging between his shoulders, he shutters out a breath. “The state troopers had told the coaching staff shortly after the game had started. They wanted to give me one last night as a normal kid before they told me the news. One last chance at being happy before my world crumbled.” He sucks in a pained breath.

“When the game ended, I had every intention of making it to my phone in the locker room. Determined to call my parents and find out why they let me down when I needed them most. I never even made it that far.” The first tear gleams as it traces the apple of his cheek. “The sheriffs were waiting for me outside the locker rooms with the assistant coach. They had their hats off and their heads bowed and, somehow, I knew then my life would never be the same.”

The tears are falling in succession as his pained words come out. “I barely remember what they said to me, really. It becomes an out-of-body experience. One that you will always question if you really experienced. Part of you is actively operating, but you feel as though you are sitting in the back watching the movie happen.” He hiccups out the last words.

“Silas came running to find out what happened, but they wouldn’t let him near until I begged them to. He rode with me in the cop car to the hospital where they were. Do you know they have to have a family member confirm their identity?” He looks at me with bloodshot eyes and tears streak down his face.

I’m not even sure he is expecting an answer from me. I shake my head once while maintaining eye contact.

He looks back to his empty glass as he swirls the melting ice around the cup. “Imagine being seventeen years old and having to see that. To this day, no matter how hard I try, I can still see that as clearly as I do you. No amount of alcohol, women, or adrenaline could burn it out of my mind.”

My eyes burn as he retells the story of that tragic night. Lucien and Elara Merrit were caring, loving parents. They always welcomed me into their home. His dad’s hugs were the best, the kind that you feel in your soul as his arms squeeze you. Elaraloved to bake cookies and you could bank on her having several dozen every time you came to their home. As much as I miss them, I know it’s not even close to how much he misses them. I know the grief of losing a parent, but not the tragedy of loss like his. My father passed from an illness that not even our wolf healing could beat, a rarity in itself. I’ve never considered what it has been like all these years for him. The guilt he must feel over all of this. I want to reach out to console him, but I’m afraid to move in fear he will stop telling me how he feels.

He pours himself another glass as he slowly breathes through his tears. I wonder if this is his first time processing these feelings. Maybe his first time working through his emotions and thoughts about it at all. He holds the crystal glass up in front of him as he watches the light bounce off it to create a tiny rainbow on the wall. “I convinced myself that not only was it my fault they were dead, but that I wasn’t worthy of love. How does one jump to that from there, you ask yourself?” He looks at me before taking, thankfully, a smaller sip this time.

“I’m not really sure, to be honest. I think some shrink would tell me the answer, if I had ever seen one of those. Never have, though. I think if I really considered it, it would be from the anger I felt when they weren’t there. Instead of worrying, I was angry with them. Instead of questioning it, I kept playing the game. How could I ever love someone else if I wasn’t there for the people who loved me?” I watch his throat bob as he swallows back the anger I’m sure is trying to rise.

“After everything that fate dealt me, I think the worst blow was when I realized you were my mate.” My mouth drops open. He looks over at me and sees tears streaming down my face. “I thought it was a punishment for how I behaved and the thoughts I had about my parents. As if the goddess was laughing at mypain and gifted me the one person I knew I would never deserve. The one person who always chose me for me. Not because I was popular, the big shot football player, or my looks. How could she give me the one person I had hurt the most?”

The bourbon swirls with the ice in his cup as he throws it back again. He slides it across the bar top before stepping away. I watch as he moves around the sofa to the mantle above his fireplace. Along it are a row of framed pictures I didn’t even notice until now. He lifts the largest framed photo, and I immediately recognize his parents in the photo.

“I’m pretty sure my mom would have beat me with a wooden spoon for how I’ve treated you over the years. She always loved you and always knew you would be my mate. I brushed it off because how would she have even known, ya know?” He runs a finger along her hair as his eyes stare into their faces before he places it back on to the mantle. He picks up a smaller one beside it and I can see it’s him and Silas during some wild trip they took. “Silas did everything he could the last few years to bring me out of this funk. Always lecturing me about how the goddess would be upset with me if I didn’t follow my fate. He spent more time worried about what I was doing than he worried about even finding his own mate.”

He lets out a hollow laugh before setting the photo down. “Guess that worked out for him in the end.” He grabs up the other photo and I recognize it immediately. It was the time we snuck out to the flower fields on a clear night to lie under the stars. I talked his ear off all night about the different constellations. My mouth drops open as I look over to the room we left. It makes so much sense now. My head whips back to him. He is smirking as he brings over the photo to me. The cold frame bites into my skin as I pull it from him. Our smiling facesare blown from the flash as we squint against the bright light. I run my finger along the faces of our younger selves. So young and excited about what the future would hold.

“I...” I look up to him. “I didn’t know you had this.”

He sits down next to me, pulling the frame to sit between us. “What would you tell your younger self if you could?”

I glance between the frame and his face so close to me I can smell the tears mingling with his scent.

“I would tell her that sometimes life makes little sense, the journey isn’t clear, but trust yourself to make the right decisions as you go.” I angle my head to see his reaction. I watch as he contemplates what I said, his eyebrow rising, the quirk of his head, the dip of the edge of his mouth. “What about you?”

He is quiet for so long that I almost wonder if he will answer me, before he whispers out, “It was never your fault.”

I slip my hand down his thigh to where his hand dangles between his spread legs. My fingers graze across the rough patches along his palm to lace our fingers together. I squeeze his hand as I shift to look at him. The photo drops into our laps as I let go of it to turn his face toward mine.

“You are right. It was never your fault. Not your parents’ car accident, not them passing away, and not even the emotions you felt. We never know how we will feel, react, or handle the challenges life throws our way. We can only take it one moment at a time and hope we make the right decisions along the way.” I splay my hand across his cheek as I use my thumb to swipe away the tears. “Your parents loved you and would never choose to not be here. But there is something you are wrong about.” I quirk myeyebrow at him as he continues to stare at me. “You do deserve to be loved.”

He attempts to shake his head, but I don’t waver in my hold on him.

“You do. Everyone deserves to be loved and love another in their lifetime. There is fulfillment in those feelings that you will never achieve anywhere else. Something in knowing there is someone always in your corner, to pick you up when you stumble, to lift your chin when you are down. Knowing each day when you come home from work, there is someone there to share in the burden of life. To share the wonderful moments, the highs and lows with.”

Letting his face go, I pick up the photo and hold it up again between us. “Keeping this photo means that you never let go of this moment. On some level, I think you never moved past this guy.”