Finding Home (Build-A-Pack #2)

Chapter Six

Holden

I spent the night in my bed, with Cindy as close to me as she could get. She sensed my distress, and I didn’t have the heart to shoo her away even when she draped her sleek self over my throat. The purring was soothing, I could admit that much.

I didn’t sleep, I… couldn’t. The memories I’d mostly tried to avoid for decades were invading my brain in a continuous barrage of horrors interspersed with some happier snapshots, as if to rub more salt, lemon, and vinegar into my wounds.

When the morning came, I staggered into the shower, then fed Cindy, and stared at my coffee maker for a couple of minutes. I didn’t feel like facing the world.

I took stock of myself, trying to find a reason to not go to work. To call in sick like I would’ve at my first jobs. Then it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be possible this time. Because werewolves didn’t get sick.

Letting out a bitter huff, I grabbed my phone. I saw there were messages, but I couldn’t look at those yet. First, I called Penny’s private number.

“Chief?” she answered, likely already at her desk at the station.

“Morning, Penny. I need to take the day off today. Can you make sure everything—”

“Absolutely. You leave it to me.” The kindness and warmth in her tone almost made me teary. I must’ve let out a sound, because she asked, “Everything okay?”

“No, not really,” I answered honestly, because she deserved it. “But I will be. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Everything good with the pack?”

I realized she’d heard the rumors about the attempted attack. Small towns and even smaller sheriff’s stations.

“Yes. This is more… private.” It was about the pack too, of course, only not completely.

“Say no more, Sheriff. If you can’t make it tomorrow, let me know.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Penny.”

“Talk to you later,” she said quietly, in an almost maternal tone.

“Yeah.” I ended the call and took the phone to the couch.

I sat down and curled up, then took in a deep breath and opened the text conversation I had with Brodie.

Rian told me everything or close to it. I didn’t know any of it. I’ve known him for a decade, but all I knew was that he lost someone he considers the love of his life.

I sighed and replied.

I didn’t think you knew. We’re fine.

In about thirty seconds, he responded.

Take your time. Rian is freaking out about your relationship with the pack. He hasn’t said it, but I know him well enough that he’ll suggest leaving if it will bring you back.

I need a bit of time. Don’t let him go. I have a lot of thinking to do.

Okay. You’re important to all of us, Holden. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.

I smiled slightly, feeling the love from him and the pack behind his words. I’d chosen the right people, for sure. Only I hadn’t expected such a blast from the past.

There was a separate message from Kye.

We love you and you should take all the time you need. But there’s also one thing I kinda need to let you know if you can hear it?

Frowning, I tried to think what it could be. Kye was a good, kind person. Fierce, too, and he was a natural in his role of alpha mate despite being a human. He wouldn’t be purposefully mean, but the fact that he was asking if I felt like hearing him out told me whatever he wanted to say had to be rough to hear.

Okay. What is it?

Again, the text came almost immediately.

You might not be ready to think about this from Rian’s point of view. But consider this: your brother was the love of his life. He’s now been around you for a while, watching you wear the face Hunter would’ve had, had he lived until forty.

I lifted a hand to my mouth, a choked up sound leaving me. I hadn’t even thought of that. I knew the innate sadness I felt from seeing myself in the mirror sometimes, thinking about Hunter in those moments and how he never got past his early twenties.

Every time I noticed crow’s feet on my own face, I knew only one of us would ever have them. The slight smattering of grays on my temples and chest hair were only mine. Hunter was forever young while I would continue aging, however slowly it would happen now.

I pulled a blanket over myself, and Cindy, having had her breakfast, came to sit with me. She started to bathe herself on the cushion next to me, and I knew she’d climb onto my lap as soon as she deemed herself clean.

Closing my eyes, I tried to see the situation from Rian’s perspective.

To me, he’d just been a young punk kid, one of my brother’s friends that I hadn’t realized meant more to Hunter at first. He’d mention “Ashton” in passing sometimes, but then we were both doing our own things, separated by the different paths we’d chosen after high school, and me still trying to stay in our parents’ good graces while they pretended Hunter wasn’t gay.

I read Kye’s text again.

Your brother was the love of his life. He’s now been around you for a while, watching you wear the face Hunter would’ve had, had he lived until forty.

Thinking back to the times I’d met Rian before, I wondered how he’d even managed to stay in the same room with me now.

I didn’t have many recollections of the first time we met. He’d been introduced to me as a friend of Hunter’s, although I was pretty sure I’d gotten a vibe that Rian—Ashton—was more than that based on how smitten my brother had looked.

The second time…. I was scared as fuck. I’d never been as terrified as I was walking into the hospital ward to see the other half of myself, knowing he wasn’t going to make it, all the while having absolutely no information about the disease that ravaged him like it had so many others already.

I didn’t want to think of the moment of saying goodbye to Hunter, so I tried to realign my memory, to remember what I could about Rian in those moments.

He’d been devastated, but so, so brave. There’d been conflict in his eyes, but I’d thought then it was about whether to stay or leave. Now I knew it had been about whether he would try to save my brother. The question had been whether it would be Rian himself who killed Hunter instead of the disease.

The graveside…. The only reason we’d gotten the minister there was because he’d buried his own brother only days before and had decided it was his task to help the poor souls who succumbed to whatever it was that took gay men in such numbers.

It had been early days then, but the proof was already there of something much bigger than any of us had thought possible. To think that it only got worse?

Sighing, I rubbed my eyes and patted my lap. Cindy, either done with her bath or deciding to humor me, slinked closer, then settled into a cuddling position on top of me. She began to purr, and I closed my eyes once again.

I couldn’t remember if Rian and I had talked. If I’d even touched him that day. I must’ve hugged him, right? Or maybe not. Some part of me had wondered if he, too, had the disease. We didn’t know how it transmitted, so maybe I hadn’t even shaken his hand.

I was ashamed of the thought now, but it hadn’t been farfetched by any means, not at the time. I still remembered it being a big deal when Princess Diana held an AIDS patient’s hand about a half decade after my brother died. She had been endlessly kind when it felt like nobody else was.

After I walked away from my brother’s gravesite, leaving Rian there to stare at the hole in the ground that was yet to be filled, I’d been… empty. On some level, the emptiness had never quite faded. Even though we’d drifted apart a little, we were still twins until the day he died.

Throughout the years, I had often wondered what he would be doing now. What he would look like. Still identical or would the world have changed him somehow? But it had never been shocking to me. I’d known his face as well as my own and I could live with there only being one of us now.

Rian, however…. What must’ve gone through his mind when he’d recognized me that night when I stepped into the family room.

My eyes spontaneously filled with tears, and I swear I felt the pain I could imagine in him. Even if he hadn’t immediately thought of it, I still knew how I looked. I still held the echo of my brother in every movement my body made, in every word I spoke.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I exhaled the words messily, choking on the sob.

I might’ve doubted the “love of my life” claim from anyone else, but I’d seen how Rian and Hunter were together, even at the hospital seconds before they noticed me. Nobody existed but the two of them in that horrible, drab room.

Besides, even then, Rian had been older than any human could naturally age, so he’d known his own mind, even if Hunter had been still young. Hell, if Rian still said he’d loved my brother deeper than anyone else, I wasn’t going to question it.

Suddenly I couldn’t stop crying. It took me minutes and grabbing some tissues from the box on the coffee table—a move which made Cindy glare at me—before I realized I wasn’t crying my own grief. I was crying Rian’s.

That’s when I picked up my phone and asked Brodie to give my address to Rian.

Let him know I’m home all day if he wants to talk.

A few minutes later, a number I didn’t have saved texted me.

This is Rian. I’m meeting my donor at two. I’ll swing by after. Can I bring you anything from town?

I smiled. He was trying to take care of me, even after the shitty things I’d shouted at him.

Late lunch would be great, I need to get groceries tomorrow. Surprise me?

I can do that. See you around three.

I gently nudged Cindy off my lap and went to make coffee. Once I’d made myself a peanut butter and banana toast with the last almost too mushy banana I had left, I had my so-called breakfast and wondered how to spend time.

I was exhausted, which didn’t surprise me, but my mind wasn’t anywhere near being able to fall asleep. I decided to busy myself by cleaning the house until I felt like I could nap for a bit.

The house was sparkling, and the litterbox was cleaned to perfection by the time I realized I had a few more hours before Rian would get there. I went to take a shower so to not feel so grubby and ended up falling asleep on my bed after. At least I’d had time to pull on some underwear and sweatpants before my brain shut itself off.

I woke up to Cindy swatting my face. “What?” I grunted, catching her paw.

Then I heard the doorbell and practically fell out of bed in my haste to get up. I stumbled out of the bedroom and bumped my bare shoulder against the doorframe.

By the time I got to the front door to wrench it open, I must’ve looked crazed.

“Well… this is a look,” Rian blurted out, looking amused and confused.

I frowned, then ran my fingers through my extremely messy hair. I grimaced. “I took a shower and passed out. Sorry you had to wait. Cindy smacked my face to wake me up.”

I stepped back to let him in and noticed three things at the same time: his hair was short, none of the vibrant red showing, he looked flushed in a way that told me he’d just fed, and he had a bag from my favorite café in the next town over.

“How did you know?” I asked, trying to figure out how he could’ve known.

He walked into the kitchen and put the bag down, then glanced at me, smiling. “I might’ve stopped by the station and asked… Penny, right?”

I blinked at him, probably looking owlish as hell as I tried to comprehend what he was saying. “You… went to ask Penny?”

He shrugged as if it was the easiest thing to understand. “Yeah. I figured she’d know where you got your favorite lunches.” Then she looked at me more carefully and swallowed hard. “Could you maybe put a shirt on?”

I looked down at myself and jolted. “Oh, shit. Sorry. Give me a second.” I retreated into the bedroom to find a shirt.

“So, you must be Miss Clawford,” I heard Rian say when I was coming back.

She chirped at him, then headbutted his shin as if she’d known him her whole life.

“She’s expanded her services into a doorbell alert system now,” I said fondly, and went to the treat cupboard.

She noticed, let out a mew, and abandoned Rian in favor of the Dreamies.

“Ah, I see how it is.” Rian smiled as he watched me toss a handful of the treats toward the living room.

“She can fit under the couch and loves to hunt them,” I explained as I put the bag away.

Her claws scrabbled against the hardwood floor, and I glanced at Rian who was smiling at her antics.

“You cut your hair,” I blurted out as I went to my coffee maker.

He made a humming sound, then chuckled quietly. “Isn’t that what everyone having a bit of a mental breakdown does at one point or another in their life?”

I put a pod into the machine and turned it on, then glanced at Rian. “Is that what happened?”

He sighed and slid onto the stool I had by the small island. I had my breakfast there sometimes.

“No. Not really. I was tired and needed a change.”

“Do you want coffee?” I asked, gesturing at the machine that was spitting out the rest of my frothed milk. I replaced the capsule with the coffee one and continued to make mine.

“Yeah. If you have a good espresso?” He smiled easily, clearly pleased that I’d noticed he sometimes drank a bit of coffee just because he liked the taste.

“Oh yes.” I bought the good stuff in pods, knowing a couple of my colleagues who might drop by loved it.

By the time I had our coffees ready, he’d unpacked the bag of lunch I’d forgotten about. It was my favorite Caesar salad and some garlic bread. There was also a piece of chocolate cheesecake.

I blushed ever so slightly. “This is… a lot.”

To my surprise, Rian looked sheepish and tugged at one of his short curls. “Well, at the café, I might’ve asked what you got if you’d clearly had a rough day.”

I leaned my hip against the island across from him and closed my eyes for a moment. “You went to my work to ask where I got my favorite lunch. Then you drove for thirty minutes to get to the café, where you specifically asked for someone who knew what I liked on a rough day?”

As I opened my eyes, I saw the trepidation in his.

“Y-Yes?” He was clearly not sure what I meant by my question.

I shook my head, unable to hold back my stunned expression. “I don’t know why you’d do this for me. Not after what I said to you last night.”

Rian reached over the island and put his cool hand on top of mine. “Holden, you weren’t wrong. I should’ve done more. Tried more.” Before I could object, he squeezed my hand. “And more than that, you’re Hunter’s brother.”

The tears suddenly brimming in his dark hazel eyes let me know exactly how much looking at me hurt him. Even though I wasn’t sure it was the best idea, I rounded the counter and pulled him into my arms.

He clung to my T-shirt as he buried his face against my neck. Without thinking, I tightened the hold I had around his back, and pushed my hand into his curls, holding him as close as I could.

Neither of us spoke for many long minutes. Instead, we quietly sobbed, grieving the man we’d both loved so, so much.