Chapter Twenty-three
W e’re all silent on the car ride back to our place. It’s nothing special, just a place to lay our heads until we’re able to win Lila back.
If we’re able to win her back.
Ty is practically catatonic as he sits beside me in the backseat. He’s not handling this well.
Not that I expected him to. Not after the way he fell apart over the last few years.
Especially not after how broken he was when Bria told us that Lila was our fated mate.
I just wish I knew what to do to make this better for him—for all of us.
Carter pulls into the driveway and turns off the car.
None of us move.
Likely, they all feel as I do. We don’t want to enter the empty house before us.
“We need to get Ty inside,” Aidan finally says, opening his door.
That gets me and Carter moving. I lean over Ty to open his door, helping Aidan maneuver him out of the car before following suit. By the time we shuffle up to the house, Carter is holding the door open for us.
Unsure of what else to do, I nod toward the living room. Aidan and I manage to get Ty to the couch before sitting him down.
He just sits there, staring off into space, and I fucking hate it.
This is breaking him in a way that I don’t know if he’ll be able to come back from.
“Ty?” Aidan asks softly, shaking the other man’s shoulder, but Ty doesn’t pay him any attention.
“Fuck,” Carter curses as I drop onto the couch beside Ty. Aidan takes his other side while Carter sits on the coffee table in front of him. “Ty, I need you to come back to us. I know things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, but she didn’t say no. There’s still a chance she’ll forgive us.”
Ty blinks, slowly turning his head until he’s looking at Carter. “There’s an even better chance she won’t. I can’t live in a world where Lila isn’t mine, Carter. I won’t. ”
Pain radiates through me, making me feel like I’ve been punched in the chest.
Surely, he’s not saying what I think he is.
But even as I try to assure myself of that, I know better. Ty won’t survive losing Lila, and I don’t think I’d survive if I lost both of them.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears threatening to spill over.
“She’s meant to be mine, and if I can’t have her, then I have no reason to live.” Ty’s voice is void of all emotion.
“Damn it, Ty, what about us?” Carter demands, slamming his clenched fists into the table he sits on. “We’d be devastated if we lost you.”
He just shrugs. “You’d be fine. All I do is drag down the pod, anyway.”
“You do no such thing, Ty,” I tell him, grabbing his hand and bringing it to my lips. “I love you so much. We all do. I don’t want to think about a life without you in it.”
“I think I’d like to lie down,” is his only reply, though he doesn’t attempt to stand.
My eyes are wide as I glance between Carter and Aidan, both of them looking just as worried as I am .
“Aid, why don’t you help Ty to the bedroom? Maybe take a nap with him?” Carter phrases it as a question, but I know it’s not. He’s afraid to leave Ty on his own, a fear I share.
Aidan nods, helping Ty to his feet. “You know what? A nap sounds amazing.”
All I can do is watch as he leads our lover from the room before turning my attention back to Carter. “What the hell are we going to do, Carter?”
“I don’t fucking know.” He runs his hands through his black hair before tugging at the strands.
It’s never good when our man with a plan does not know what to do.
“We have to figure out a way to pull him out of this. There’s no guarantee that Lila will forgive us, and I can’t lose them both. We can’t lose them both.”
He scoffs. “Don’t you think I know that? We’ve already almost lost him more than once over the last few years. I don’t know how to make this better for him. Especially since I understand. I don’t want to live in a world where she isn’t ours, either. ”
“Yeah, but the difference between you and him is that you’re not practically threatening to kill yourself if you lose her.”
Carter jumps to his feet, kicking the table away from him as he curses. Rage radiates from him. Rage and fear—never a good combination.
I stand, moving over to wrap him in my arms. He struggles against me before the fight just goes out of him. His body shakes moments before I make out the sounds of his sobs.
Fuck. We’re really falling apart, aren’t we?
I can’t remember the last time I saw Carter cry, and it breaks my heart to see one of the men I love falling apart. It’s bad enough with Ty, but I’m used to his emotional outbursts. He’s always been the one who feels everything deeper than the rest of us.
But Carter? He’s always been our rock.
Straightening my shoulders, I know it’s my turn to step up. It’s time for me to be the rock for my pod mates.
As much as I’d like to fall apart like Ty and Carter are, there has to be at least one of us who keeps their cool. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, but I’m damn well going to try. I’m going to be strong when my mates can’t be .
I don’t know how long we stand there, with me holding Carter as he cries, but eventually, he quiets. Neither of us moves—at least not until Aidan steps back into the room.
“What are you doing?” I bark. “We can’t leave Ty alone.”
Aidan holds his hands up in surrender. “He’s passed out. I’ll go back in there for a minute, but I need to know what the plan is. We’re losing him.”
“We’re losing everything,” Carter says with a sneer. “All so we could save the damn realms. Fuck the realms. Why do we have to lose everything to save the fucking day?”
Aidan’s eyes widen as he stares at his stepbrother in shock. “Carter?”
Carter shakes his head, pulling away from me to stalk over to the window, ignoring us.
“We’re all having a hard time.” I sigh. “I’ve been trying to figure out what we can do, but I’ve got nothing.”
“I think Ty needs to see someone—a doctor or a therapist or something,” Aidan says with a sharp nod. “A person who works with people who lose their fated mates or are rejected by them. ”
I nod slowly. “That’s a good idea. I’ll start looking up names of people and try to get him an appointment as soon as possible.”
“Maybe we should all see one,” Carter admits as he turns back to us. “Clearly, we all need some help. Let’s see if we can’t find someone we can all see, but Ty is the priority.”
Aidan’s smile is tight as he heads for the kitchen. “That’s probably a good idea. We don’t know how this is going to go. There’s still a good chance that she’ll reject us. If it already hurts this much, I can’t imagine how much worse it would be with a rejection.”
My hand goes to my chest of its own accord, rubbing lightly. I don’t want to know what it would feel like to be rejected by Lila. I’ll do anything I can to keep that from becoming our reality, but there’s only so much we can do. It’s really all up to Lila.
“I’m just grabbing a few bottles of water and some snacks. Something tells me it’s going to be hard to get Ty out of bed any time soon,” Aidan calls over his shoulder before disappearing from view.
Deciding there’s no time like the present, I head for my room to find my laptop. I’m surprised when Carter follows me .
I drop into my computer chair and open the laptop before glancing at my lover. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t think any of us are okay.” He scoffs. “I just need to be close to you all. Maybe once we’re done, we can join Aidan and Ty in bed?”
“That’s probably a good idea. We need to surround him with our love—remind him we love him just as much as we love Lila.” I turn my attention back to the computer and begin my search for anyone who might be able to help Ty.
Two hours later, I have a list of people and start making phone calls. I don’t have any luck with the first four places, but I’m finally able to get Ty an appointment tomorrow at the fifth place. When I explain what’s going on, the receptionist, whose name is Terri, also schedules us a group session for next week.
“It sounds like Ty is the one that needs the most help, so we want to get him in as quickly as we can,” she says. “Dr. Gregory always leaves appointments open for just this reason. I assume the rest of the pod will join him tomorrow?”
I glance at Carter, who just shrugs. “We can if that’s what Dr. Gregory thinks we should do. ”
Terri hums. “It would be best if all of you come, just in case. Dr. Gregory will want to speak with him alone first. Depending on how that goes, she might ask one or more of you to join her—especially if he won’t talk to her. But don’t worry about that right now. There’s no reason to borrow trouble and add more worries to your plates. Dr. Gregory is one of the best. We’ll see you tomorrow at ten o’clock, okay?”
“Thank you, Terri. You don’t understand how much better this makes me feel.”
She laughs. “Oh, honey, I assure you, I know exactly how you feel. I met Dr. Gregory as a patient. For now, you just focus on your pod mates, and we’ll see you in the morning.”
I say my goodbyes as I stand up. I walk over to Carter and help him to his feet.
“Let’s go cuddle in bed, yeah?” I ask him, wrapping an arm around his waist.
He leans into me for a moment before nodding. “That sounds amazing.”
While we each have our own rooms, none of us sleep in them. We all sleep in the master bedroom and leave the other rooms for when we need some time alone. Right now, I don’t think any of us should be alone—not just Ty .
We pile into the bed, with Carter choosing the other side of Ty while I climb in behind Aidan. There’s a movie playing quietly on the TV as Aidan strokes a hand through Ty’s blond hair.
“Did you get him an appointment?” Aidan whispers.
I nod, pressing myself against his back and throwing an arm over him. “Tomorrow morning. We’re all going to go in case he needs us. Then next week, we have a group appointment.”
He snuggles back into my chest without pausing his movements, sighing. “Good. That’s good.”
I can’t bring myself to look away from Ty, my fingers finding his arm and resting there. I notice Carter is also touching him.
I’m so afraid of what Ty might do, and what that’ll in turn do to our pod.
Hopefully, Dr. Gregory will be able to help, because I don’t know what we’ll do if she can’t.