Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
CHRISTIAN
Christian was sorting his laundry when the door opened. Dave stood in the doorway, and Christian couldn’t see his expression against the light behind him.
“Took you long enough,” he said, and jammed a last dirty T-shirt into the bag in his hand. “You want to get breakfast?”
Dave came in, closing the door softly. “Just like that?” he asked, and Christian didn’t know what the tone in his voice meant. “You’re going to pretend you didn’t say what you said?”
Fuck, that was what it meant.
“I’m sure you and Blondie were just doing some hippie bonding crap,” he said, too fast, hefting the laundry bag like it could shield him from Dave’s expression.
Because, in the past hour, he’d realized how fucking boneheaded he’d been. Dave would tell him if he was going to leave him. He’d never hide it. That wasn’t who Dave was. Christian was as sure of that as he was that Canada couldn’t make whiskey worth a damn.
“Justin.” Dave’s voice had an edge to it unlike anything Christian had heard from him before. “His name’s Justin.”
Christian flinched. Of course Dave remembered the guy’s name. Of course it mattered enough to correct him. And somehow that stung worse than anything else, so he let the bitterness speak for him. “Glad one of us made an impression.”
Dave sighed, and it seemed like his whole body slumped. “I don’t want to do this right now,” he said, then paused. “You know what? I don’t want to do this, period.”
Christian’s heart stopped. “You—” He stared at Dave. His heart started again, but it felt like it was going to slam out of his chest. “You don’t—”
But he couldn’t get any further. Dave didn’t mean it. He couldn’t.
Dave made a helpless-looking gesture with his hands. “I need some space.”
He reached out and picked up the car keys from the desk. And then the door was closed again, shutting out the daylight and leaving Christian in the gloom. Alone.
Christian stood frozen for half a second, cold all over. No. Dave didn’t get to do this to him.
He yanked the door open, following fast.
“Dave,” he said, and his voice came out too loud. “You don’t get to just—” He broke off, unable to say the words.
Dave stopped, but didn’t turn.
“What?” he asked, but he didn’t sound confrontational. He sounded weary down to the bone.
“You don’t get to do this,” Christian spat. “You don’t just walk out. And what about Jesse’s pack? We’re supposed to be looking into that.”
Dave looked at Christian then, and the sad smile on his face was the worst thing Christian had ever seen. “That’s what I was talking to Justin about,” he said. “We’ve got our answer—we can go home.”
That sickening thing was happening with Christian’s heart again as everything he thought he knew was yanked out from under him. “I thought we were staying here.”
Dave gave a shadow of a laugh, but there wasn’t the slightest bit of humor in it.
“Yeah,” he said, as though Christian had confirmed something for him. “That’s because you didn’t think about what I want. You never do.”
He turned away and opened the car door. Without so much as a glance at Christian, he was gone.
DAVE
Dave headed out to the cliffs. He needed space and peace to sort through the noise and anger churning through his head. He’d kept an even emotional keel all these years by working at it every single day, and in the space of a few hours, Christian had overturned everything.
He frowned as he pulled off the road onto the faint track they’d followed before. It hadn’t just been the last few hours, though, had it? That had been the flashpoint. It had been building for the past few weeks, maybe months.
And if he was completely honest with himself, maybe it had been even longer than that.
Because he knew Christian loved him. That should be enough for him, only somehow it wasn’t.
He wanted Christian to tell him. He longed for Christian to say the words without needing to be prompted.
To show him, just once, that he came first—not out of obligation but because he wanted him to.
It was only when the bumpy ground in front of him shimmered and blurred that he realized there were tears in his eyes.
He was out of the car before he knew it, striding toward the ledge they’d found, desperate to drown out the thoughts in his head. He thought about shifting. His wolf surged up with a rush of heat and muscle, desperate to run, to leave behind the choking weight of human feeling.
But it wasn’t enough, not today. He could run for hours and still come back to the same place—still be the one reaching out first, still be the one holding steady for both of them.
And maybe that would be okay, if he didn’t feel so alone in it sometimes. If he didn’t ache so badly to be chosen back.
It wasn’t Christian’s fault, the way he’d been shaped by the life he’d lived. Dave knew that. And he knew, too, that walking out like this had probably undone years of work. Every small kindness, every quiet reassurance—gone in a single slammed door.
He wavered for an instant, thinking he should go back now and try to pick up the pieces of the mess he’d just made.
But something in him resisted. He didn’t know if it was anger, or grief, or just bone-deep weariness.
But whatever it was, it told him clearly—not yet.
Not until he could face Christian without letting everything fall apart again.
He continued on along the edge of the cliff, squinting against the low sun in the clear fall sky.
CHRISTIAN
Christian stood with his back to the door until he could no longer hear even the faint suggestion of the car engine.
And then he stepped away from the door and crossed the room to pick up the bag of laundry he’d dropped at some point.
Because he had to do something. He didn’t just fold when life got tough, no matter how much life wanted him to.
So Dave had finally had enough of him? Fine. It happened. People always left. He always gave them a reason. But Dave… Dave had tried, longer and harder than anyone else. And Christian had still fucked it up.
As that fucking social worker had told him, he didn’t make it easy for people to like him, let alone love him.
Compromise, she’d suggested. Yeah, right.
Compromise meant being what other people wanted and losing the only thing he had—himself.
He’d lit out of that group home before he’d had to see her again.
Compromise that, you sanctimonious asshole.
Laundry bag in hand, he headed out to find somewhere to wash his damn clothes.
And then stopped dead in the doorway as he realized—Dave had taken the fucking car.
How the fuck was he meant to find a laundromat without it, let alone get to the fucking fight tonight?
And why the fucking fuck was there no one in this goddamn parking lot spoiling for a fight right now?
Lost, he turned back to the room. To their room. He stood in the doorway, clutching the bag like it could anchor him. But it didn’t. Nothing did.
As he saw one of Dave’s fugly shirts thrown across the seat of the chair, it hit him. It slammed into his gut until he was gasping, lungs spasming as he tried to breathe through the grief that seized him. Dave was gone.
No more tea-drinking to complain about, no more slow, lazy Sunday mornings together in their bed. Because there was no “them” anymore.
And unlike every other time, Christian didn’t think he could recover from this. He’d taken hits before, a lifetime’s worth. But this one felt fatal, somehow.
He folded into the corner and stared at the place where Dave had been, but nothing in the room looked right anymore. Just emptiness, where the center had been ripped from his world.
DAVE
Dave reached the path down the cliff sooner than he expected. He’d been so caught up in his thoughts he hadn’t even noticed where he was. The track was barely more than a line scuffed into rock, and as he started down it, his mind was still caught in an endless loop.
He was certain of two things. He loved Christian, and he wasn’t going to live here. If Christian really couldn’t bear being part of the Elk Ridge pack anymore—and he still didn’t know where the hell that had come from—they could move somewhere else. But it wouldn’t be here. It would be—
His foot skidded on loose gravel.
He pitched forward, heart in his throat. Don’t hit your head. Don’t hit your head. He tried to throw his hands up, to twist, catch himself, but he was falling.
His shoulder clipped rock, jolting him sideways, and then the ground was hitting him again and again. Dust and rock spun around him in a blur.
And then, finally, everything went quiet and dark.