Chapter Eight
Bridger couldn’t go in.
Matt and Gina’s cars were both parked in the driveway, which meant Amelia’s parents were both home.
They were so close to him, yet they still felt fifty miles away.
The drive here had been eternal, but that was his fault.
Bridger had come up with excuses to stop and stall.
His truck needed gas—only no, it didn’t—so he’d stopped at a gas station to top off the tank.
Then he’d decided he was starving—only no, he’d just eaten—and he needed to stop at a sit-down restaurant.
A rest stop had called his name next, and he’d spent thirty minutes sitting at a picnic table immersed in memories of family trips with Matt and Gina.
He hadn’t seen them in a year, at least. Maybe longer.
He knew they didn’t blame him, but Bridger had always had his feet planted securely in reality. He was the reason Amelia wasn’t here anymore. He was the reason Matt and Gina didn’t have their only daughter anymore. He was the reason they would never have grandbabies.
So here he sat in front of their house, overthinking it all. He’d shown up here a hundred times to pick her up. God, they’d been so young.
Gina and Matt had eventually accepted him, and loved him for their human daughter, and that said something big about their character. If he was being honest though, their naivety about werewolves was one of the reasons Amelia had died.
Ten years without her felt like a hundred.
His phone vibrated, and he checked the text message that came in, his heart in his throat.
Yep, it was her. It was Kit.
Bridger sat up straighter as he read it.
I’m working another shift at The Mark tonight, but I get off a little early. 9:00 tonight. I was wondering if you wanted to grab a late dinner? With me? If not I totally get it! I just figured I would ask. You are interesting, Real Bridger.
He moved to text her back, but a knock sounded at his window, and he jumped.
Matt stood there, looking older than Bridger remembered, but his smile was genuine and familiar.
Bridger left his phone in the cupholder and got out, hesitantly.
“Come here,” Amelia’s dad murmured, holding his arms out.
Bridger gave him a hug. It was a quick, manly one, that included a couple rough pats on both of their backs. It was their way.
Matt released him and tilted his head toward the house. “Gina’s making lemonade.”
Bridger’s heart had been in his throat, pounding away, but at that, the tension released its chokehold on his nervous system.
They were okay with him being here. Of course they were. They had always been kind to him.
“How have you been?” Matt asked as he led him inside.
“Oh, you know. Living the dream,” Bridger murmured.
The second he walked through the door, he could smell her—Amelia.
It wasn’t her, exactly, but her clothes had always smelled like this place, so he had always associated her home as part of her scent.
Her mom was still using the same laundry detergent, and the smell of Amelia’s shampoo clung to the air.
Gina had always liked the scent of a shampoo Amelia used, and Amelia had gifted her some for Christmas one year. She must’ve carried on with it.
His senses were overwhelmed and he froze in the entryway as a dozen memories flooded him. Making out on the front porch. Getting busted by Matt once. A hundred times of jogging up those stairs after Amelia to hang out in her room.
Matt had stopped his advance into the living room and nodded at him sympathetically. “It’s okay. You always do this and it always settles down after a few minutes.”
“Yeah,” Bridger said thickly.
He couldn’t meet Matt’s eyes anymore. His guilt was endless.
His phone was sitting in his truck outside, filled with flirty texts from Kit, while his mate was long buried, and it had wrecked these nice peoples’ lives.
Matt gave him space and made his way into the living room, disappearing around the corner.
A few things had changed here. There was a new floral picture where Bridger and Amelia’s wedding picture had once hung, but their family pictures still sat in frames on the front windowsill.
The ache in his middle at seeing them suffocated him.
He’d been the lone werewolf in this family for years, and they had treated him like a son. Like one of them.
And he’d killed the most important thing in their world.
He’d done that. His love had killed her.
He ran a hand down his short scruff and looked longingly at the door, considering the escape that would get him out of these awful feelings.
At that moment though, Gina, Amelia’s mom, came around the corner, her arms outstretched. Bridger gentled the hurricane that was on a path of destruction inside of him and hugged her gently.
“It’s so good to see you,” Gina murmured, emotion thick in her voice.
“I’m sorry,” Bridger said, his voice cracking on the word.
“You always say that when you come here and I always tell you I’m going to be mad at you if you say it the next time you visit us.”
He inhaled deeply and rested his cheek against the top of her head. Once upon a time, she’d been like a mother to him.
Gina eased out of his arm and tugged him toward the living room. “I made snacks.”
Bridger couldn’t help his smile as he followed her. She’d made him food hundreds of times. She was one of those humans that genuinely loved cooking and showing affection by feeding hungry people.
“What’s new around here?” he asked, searching for the start of a conversation that would peel the emotions from his heart.
“Oh, Matt retired a few months ago.”
“Gina says she hates it,” Matt said with a chuckle from where he was filling a plate with olives and cheese cubes from a board Gina had put together.
“I don’t hate it. He’s just here a lot. Like…” She arched her eyebrows at Bridger. “A lot.”
Matt laughed. “You would think she doesn’t like me anymore.”
“No, no, it’s not that. You haven’t settled into slowing down, so you have replaced your job by doing jobs around here, and you seem to think I need to do everything with you, and you are stepping on my time with my friends, and knitting, and sleeping in.
I retired three years ago, and I was accustomed to my relaxation time.
You wake up at 4:30 in the morning and think we need to have coffee together every day. ”
“I’m making up for missed time with you,” Matt teased.
Gina rolled her eyes and handed Bridger a plate. “I’m going to need to share custody of him with you,” she joked. “Please find jobs you need done on your Rogue property and come take him off my hands. Put him to work!”
Bridger snorted. “Deal. There’s a lot to do. We’re still building it up. What days do you want to get rid of him?” Bridger asked.
“Mondays are Bunko parties with the girls, and he has been hanging around bothering everyone with his stupid dad jokes. Take him away from here on Mondays. Please.”
It was all teasing, and they were laughing, but Bridger actually wouldn’t mind the excuse of seeing them more often.
They ate and drank lemonade, and talked about unimportant things, just little chats to catch up, always avoiding the elephant in the room until their plates were empty and their glasses of lemonade drained.
Only then did Matt get quiet and watchful. Gina followed suit. “What’s on your mind, son?” Matt asked.
He was a heavyset man with thinning hair, glasses, and eyes the same shade of blue as Amelia. The look on his face was genuine.
Bridger let out a sigh and set his empty plate on the table in front of him. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Too much, probably.”
“You are missing Amelia?” Gina asked.
He nodded. “Always.”
They both nodded in unison, their eyes full of emotion. It was Gina who spoke. “Bridger, we’re selling the house.”
“What?” he asked.
“We’re selling it. We need something smaller.
The only reason we kept this big old house all this time was for Amelia’s memories.
For her room.” Matt slid his hand over her thigh and looked at the ground.
Gina said, “Enough of our lives has been lived here. Our conversations still revolve around the loss, you know?”
And he understood. He wouldn’t be able to live in a place laced with so many memories and no way to make any more.
“We were going to call you and tell you,” Matt said. “We have just been putting it off. We went back and forth about it for a couple of years. I guess we were worried about you not having a place to feel her anymore. On days like today, you know?”
Bridger nodded, and wrung his hands, looking around the living room.
He and Amelia had watched so many movies from this exact spot on this exact couch.
He’d never thought about it being taken away.
He’d found comfort in knowing he could visit here any time he wanted, but that didn’t register until this very moment, when it was being taken away.
But…he really did understand.
“I met a girl.”
Gina gasped and put her hand on her chest.
He felt awful. Briger hung his head, unable to see the hurt on her face.
“Oh, Bridger,” Gina whispered. “I’m so happy for you.”
He jerked his attention to her. “What?”
Her eyes were rimmed with tears, but she was smiling. She looked…happy.
“Boy, it’s time,” Matt said. “You’ve tortured yourself enough. You’ve suffered enough. It’s okay if all of us still live. Not just wait to die and join her. I mean…live while we have life.”
Bridger’s heart felt like it was breaking apart in his chest. He hung his head again and stared at the multicolor of browns in the carpet.
“I don’t know if you would like her, or understand her,” he said in a choppy voice. “She’s not like Amelia.”
“So?” Gina asked. “Is she nice?”
“I think so.” Bridger shrugged. “It’s new. There was some mix-up, and some paperwork got crossed, and we ended up paired, technically. We’re having that dissolved, but I keep finding reasons to see her and talk to her. My wolf settles near her.”
Gina’s smile was back, and her eyes were so full of tears, Bridger couldn’t look at her for more than a second at a time. Crying women broke something inside of him.
“I’m the reason you can’t have grandbabies,” he uttered thickly.
“Yeah, you are,” Gina said without skipping a beat.
Fuck, his chest hurt so badly.
“You haven’t had any, so we have no one to spoil.”
He frowned and dragged his gaze to her. “What?”
“You are the one keeping us from having grandbabies by not settling down and having babies,” Gina said.
It didn’t compute. “But…I meant from Amelia. She was your daughter.”
“And she always will be. And to us, to our hearts, you will always be our son-in-law, even if you remarry and have official in-laws, it won’t change the way we feel.
We will still be asking to meet your mate and babysit your babies if you ever have them.
We’re going to want to go to their sports, and their awards ceremonies.
Kindergarten graduation. We want to be there taking pictures when they’re all dressed up for the school dances.
You’re what we have left of Amelia, Bridger, and you have paid such a beautiful homage to our daughter by the way you have lived your life, and kept her memory safe, and come to see us and stayed in our lives.
You pay her homage by loving her still, and I bet you will always carry love for her.
But she wouldn’t want you to live your life alone. She wouldn’t. You know she wouldn’t.”
“I don’t even know if this woman wants kids. It’s new,” he said. “I’m going to pick wrong. She’s nothing like Amelia.”
“Does she like you back?” Matt asked.
He nodded. “I think she does.”
“Does she want to spend time with you?” Matt asked.
Bridger remembered the text Kit had just sent him, asking him to go to a late dinner with her tonight. “Yes.”
“More than I can say about my wife,” Matt joked, and Gina smacked him playfully on the arm.
“Then I think step one is you spend time with her and figure things out. Figure out how you feel.”
“And then what?”
“And if you keep liking her more and more, well, we would like to meet her,” Gina said. “We’ve talked about this over the years and hoped you would be able to move on someday. You’re the kid we have left, Bridger. We still want to be a part of your life.”
Fuck.
Bridger’s eyes were burning.
He swallowed a lump in his throat and shook his head as he tried to figure out what to say. “I thought I was going to come here and tell you this, and you would be upset.”
“No. We’re happy for you. Really,” Gina said, and he could hear the truth in her voice. “It’s been ten years, Bridger. We’ve paused life long enough while we were healing up. It’s time to get on with it. We’re trying to find our way through figuring that part out too.”
“I’m sorry,” Bridger said again. “It’s my fault.”
“You couldn’t have known she was doing that. You couldn’t have known, Bridger,” Gina said thickly.
“She was trying to be Turned into a werewolf because of me.”
“For you. She was misguided. Never once did I hear you ask her to Turn for you. Never once,” Matt reiterated.
“I heard you shut down every conversation about it and remind her that you loved her just as she was. Human. You had no way of knowing she had tracked down a werewolf to Turn her. None of us had a guess. I wish she wouldn’t have done it.
Hell, I wish the Turn had taken and she was a werewolf right along with you, but she wasn’t meant for it.
That’s not on you. You would’ve never been okay with her doing that.
I know you, Bridger. Her death isn’t on you, and we won’t hear anything else about that.
It’s guilt you are placing on yourself to make yourself suffer more, but it isn’t yours to take.
That’s not your fault, Bridger. It’s not.
You taking her decision upon yourself isn’t fair to Amelia’s memory.
She engaged in an act of love that didn’t work out. The decision was hers. Not yours.”
And he didn’t know why, but something loosened inside of Bridger that had been so tightly wound all these years. There was an enormous wave of relief at having this frank conversation with her parents. It was as if Gina and Matt were releasing him from the shackles he had placed himself into.
They were giving him the key to free himself.
Bridger nodded and tried to speak past the thickness in his throat. He had to try twice. “Okay.”