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REMI

“You ever miss her?” Cortland asks at my side, tipping back his beer.

It’s cold, December now, and I wrap the blanket draped over my shoulders tighter around me. I’ve got Cort’s West River High hoodie on underneath, and it fits well over my expanding belly.

“Yeah,” I tell him, knowing who he’s talking about.

I look up at the stars, then glance around the cemetery, my eyes raking over every tombstone.

Mom isn’t buried in this one, but I still feel close to her here all the same.

Cortland wraps an arm around my shoulder, tugging me toward him.

I inhale his cedar scent as he kisses the top of my head.

“You miss your mom?” I whisper in the dark.

For a second, he stiffens against me.

He’s video messaged his brother, Tristan, a lot. We’re going up to West Virginia for Christmas. Cortland says his brother is in a much better place, and his dad is, too.

We all are. Even Dr. Ravi has stopped trying to warn us away from each other. She can see in our sessions how much we’ve grown.

“No,” Cortland finally answers me, relaxing against my body again. “I miss what she might’ve been,” he adds quietly before he takes another pull of beer. “But I don’t miss who she is.”

I lean my head against his chest and feel both of his arms circle me, his beer bottle dangling from his fingers.

I kind of feel that way about Silas.

It would’ve been nice to have a stepdad that cared. If he could’ve filled that role appropriately, it might’ve saved me a lot of grief.

But then, maybe I wouldn’t be the girl Cortland is in love with.

And that’s the only person I want to be.

Absentmindedly, I run my hand up my arm, over my hoodie. The scars have faded easier there than the ones on my palm and in my side.

Regardless, I’m not sure I mind any of them.

It’s a reminder of all the shit I survived. All the shit we endured to be right here.

“We should go,” Cort says, kissing my cheek. “I’ve got work in the morning.”

My chest tightens as I think about it. He quit school. Started working full-time in construction. A job his uncle helped him get with some connections.

I’m still in school with plans to finish, despite, or maybe because of, the baby.

Storm offered to babysit.

The thought makes me laugh a little.

Maybe.

“Okay, baby,” I tell him, twisting under his arms to look up at his gray eyes in the night.

He smiles, that lip ring tugging up as he does. “God, I love when you look at me like that.”

My heart skips a beat. “Like what?” I ask quietly.

He leans down close to me, his nose to mine. “Like you don’t wanna be anywhere else in the world but here in my arms.”

He tilts his head and his lips find mine.

I don’t answer him with words.

The kiss tells him everything he needs to know.

This is exactly where I want to be.

“Don’t you dare fucking lift that.”

I roll my eyes, running my hands down my plaid shirt. His shirt. I dust them off on my jeans, straightening the box I’d been about to take from the bed of his truck. I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, glaring at him as he grabs a box and walks backward, toward the door.

I see his muscles flex beneath his tight, black long-sleeved shirt.

West River Wolves, because of fucking course.

“You’re pissing me off,” I tell him. “I’m not a delicate flower.”

He grins, glancing at my throat, fresh bruises along my collarbone. I convinced him we could still have rough sex.

Thank God. He admitted he liked it always, but that he’d never want anything else with anyone but me ever again.

“I know,” he says, running his tongue over his lip ring.

“Just indulge him,” Storm says at my side, and I turn my head to meet his blue eyes as he pulls a box of my shit from the dorm to the edge of the truck. “He’s crazy about you, you know?”

I smile, my cheeks heating as I do, Storm giving me a rare smile of his own.

“I know,” I tell him.

“I’m taking a break!” I hear Sloane yell from inside the house.

“I’m getting high!” Van adds.

“Not in my fucking house, she’s pregnant,” Cort bites back.

Things are tense between them, to say the least. But they’ll make it work.

Storm and I both shake our heads as we look at each other. Five days ’til Christmas, and tomorrow we leave for West Virginia. Cortland thought that made today the best day for us to move my things from the dorm to his house.

Our house, I guess.

And Storm’s.

He glances at my stomach, then back up. “Uncle Storm kinda has a certain ring to it, huh?” he asks with a wink.

Then he hauls the box over one shoulder and starts walking to the front door.

I smile after him, both of my wolves disappearing into the house.

I pull my phone from my pocket. It’s almost noon and we’re all starving.

I promised Cort I’d cook, and I need to marinate the steaks and peel the potatoes.

I wipe the back of my hand over my brow, shove my phone back in my pocket and head to the house.

When I walk inside, looking around with fresh eyes and no fear, I don’t hear Cortland come up behind me, pulling me back into his arms, kissing my neck. His shirtsleeves are shoved up, and I see the muscles in his tanned skin.

I see the marks, too.

Nothing more than a few scars from his nails in his skin, but my chest tightens all the same.

All this time I was hurting, he was too.

“I love you, little wolf,” he says against my neck. “So fucking much, you know that?”

I smile, letting the past go as I settle back in his arms.

“I love you, too.”

“Maybe we could name him Wolf?”

“We don’t know it’s a him, and that’s a terrible name.”

Cortland snorts as Storm jogs down the stairs. “Tell that to this guy.”

Storm lifts his middle finger, then runs his hand over his black hair.

“Besides,” I say quietly, “my friend Lyza is reading a book about a guy named Wolf that she wants me to read next. He’s a fucking psychopath.”

Cortland spins me around, pinning me to the wall as he runs his mouth over mine and I moan, my blood heating.

“Yeah, baby?” He bites my bottom lip, pulling it between us before he lets go, his eyes gleaming, his hands planted on either side of my head. “Well so am I.”

“Not true,” I tell him, my hands coming to his sides. “You have so, so many feelings.”

He grins, angling his hips against my stomach, so I can feel his erection. “You’re right,” he whispers, leaning down close. He trails kisses down my throat, biting my skin. “And they’re all for you.”