39. Cash
Cash
It turned out, Pa and I didn’t have much to say to each other. When I went to him, he squeezed my shoulders, gave me a little shake, and drew me into a one-armed hug.
“I’m glad you’re okay, kid.”
I didn’t know what he’d heard, but right then, there was no reason to hash through it all. I was okay. Maybe, I was better than I’d ever been.
I didn’t feel trapped anymore, and maybe one day I’d tell him everything that happened in California, but maybe not. Right then, it felt more important to look forward than back.
He and Evie came with us to Katya’s house.
His wasn’t big enough to host anybody, and while Katya’s wasn’t as big as the big house—or the replacement big house we’d started planning out before I’d fled with Evie—it was significantly more comfortable and I’d made her a rather large dining table, envisioning that with three sons, her family would grow and she’d need the space.
I was glad I’d made room, because the number of people who wanted to come by and ask Aleks questions, or just linger around in her living area and kitchen to hear what he had to say, was astonishing.
Frankly, it was overwhelming.
Katya and Leo bustled around the kitchen, preparing food and handing out iced tea, and all kinds of people gathered around the table.
I managed to nab some kind of spiced meatball and pop it in my mouth before my skin started feeling prickly and I went to sit in the living room instead, in the corner of the couch so I could watch everybody instead of being in the center of things.
Aleks was good at this. He smiled broadly at questions asked in good faith, and the way his lips thinned out and he held eye contact when matters turned serious seemed to make people feel like they’d been heard.
He had a good sense of people. I didn’t know how he managed it.
Pa came over and sat on the couch beside me, effectively blocking me from the crowd. When I caught his eye, I let out a little breath and smiled.
He reached over and squeezed my knee.
“Your mate seems like he was made for this.”
I choked on air. “He’s not—we’re not—”
My father arched a brow. “Cash, he practically declared his intentions in front of the whole pack.”
Heat flooded my face. “Yeah, but . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to make things harder for him, and we haven’t talked about, you know, mating or anything like that.”
That brow inched higher. “No, he just wants to live with you, and he scans the room about every thirty seconds to make sure he hasn’t lost sight of you. I assume this isn’t . . . new, since your trip?”
I swallowed guiltily. “Not exactly. I mean . . . we’ve been . . . years. It’s been a few years. But it wasn’t serious.”
Pa wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, doesn’t seem serious at all.”
“It wasn’t! Or . . . I didn’t think it was. That it could be. There were circumstances. And, well, look at him.”
Frowning, Pa glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. “Sorry, kid. I look at him and see a baby.”
I groaned. “That is not helping.”
He laughed. “He’s younger than you, and you’re my kid. What, you want me to think your mate is attractive?”
“No! Just—”
His frown returned, but amusement sparkled in his eyes. “I guess he looks so much like Katya that it’s hard to deny . . . ”
I buried my face in my hands. This wasn’t happening. “Stop it.”
He bumped his shoulder against mine. “Sorry, kid. Just teasing you. He’s a fine young man, but so are you, so what’s the issue?”
I dropped my hands in my lap and shrugged. “Just . . . you know how it’s been with the pack. It’s not like there are a ton of people with my inclinations who are just . . . open about it.”
“Under Grant and Reeve, that was true,” he allowed. “Can’t imagine Aleks having a problem with you liking him back though.”
“But what about everyone else?”
He shrugged. “They stay, he’s their alpha. They’ll have to get used to it.”
I pinched a fold of the outer seam of my jeans, just by my knee. “You don’t think it’s going to cause issues?”
He turned toward me, his face solemn and serious while my gut twisted.
“Cash, genuinely, we have much bigger problems to address than love. If that’s what we spend our time trying to curb and fix, instead of all that’s genuinely wrong in our community, we’ve fucked up again.
Life’s short, and you can’t live it waiting for everybody to be okay with you.
If you love him, you’ll make things better for him, not harder. I bet he’d say the same.”
He would, and I knew it.
I sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t . . . I didn’t know what we were doing, really.”
Pa shook his head. “Kid, I don’t mind. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to feel safe and happy. He gives you that?”
I swallowed hard. Nodded.
“Good. That’s all that matters to me.”
His eyes drifted toward Evie. She was talking to a girl about her age, and she looked wary. I smiled, because she looked like nobody so much as Viktor when someone was talking at him and he was disinclined to speak.
The girl wanted to know more about California, where she’d been and what had happened. It probably sounded grand, when you took all the terror out of it.
Pa propped his head in his hand. “Think she’ll make a friend?”
I shrugged. “Probably one day.”
Evie’d kept to herself a lot, but I hoped that wouldn’t be the case much longer.
Pa stayed out late, and after a while, Evie softened up, but it was time for bed. They left, and I stayed.
I . . . wasn’t sure where to go. I had no doubt whatsoever that I could sleep on this couch if I wanted, but mostly, I wanted to touch base with Aleks.
The adults lingered long past midnight, even after Leo and Katya went to bed. Viktor, the most defensive of the lot, was the last to go upstairs, and only after everyone else had left.
Finally alone, I met Alek’s eye from across the living area. We held it for a few seconds before we both laughed. He looked as exhausted as I felt, but I had no idea how he was even upright after talking for so long.
He came over to the couch, dragging his feet a little. When he sat, I turned so my back was against the arm of it. I tucked my socked feet between his legs, my toes wiggling under his far thigh as he stroked his hand up the front of my calf and circled my knee.
The impulse rose to tell him that we didn’t have to rush, that I could be patient, and I’d support him no matter what. But really, Pa was right. I hoped he knew all that and maybe it’d be better for me to just . . . go with this. For now.
If we faced problems, we’d face them together, but there was no sense borrowing trouble from tomorrow.
“Does Katya cut your hair?”
He blinked at me, clearly not expecting that question. “Sometimes, yes. Why?”
“Do you think she’d cut mine?” I tugged on a lock of it behind my ear.
I’d never paid much attention to my appearance before, and this sort of thing didn’t really matter to me, but Aleks and his family always looked so nice.
I still didn’t know how he kept his hands so soft when I knew he worked plenty hard enough to earn some blisters.
“If I’m going to be hanging around here more, I guess I should . . . look more the part.”
My hair had gotten scraggly even before Evie and I had fled, and though I’d shaved, I didn’t want to look rough enough that the pack questioned Aleks’s sanity just for having me at his side.
Well . . . they might do that anyway . . .
Understanding dawned on his face, and he grinned. He was so fucking beautiful it stole my breath.
Then he reached out and ruffled my hair. “Oh no, Cashutka. You will let me cut your hair. It will be very good. You will like it, but I will do it.”
Turned out, I liked the feeling of Aleks’s fingers in my hair, so while heat rose in my cheeks, I took a deep breath. “Okay, yeah. You can cut my hair if you want to.”
Truth told, he could do just about anything he wanted with me.
His grin widened, and his fingers curled around the nape of my neck to pull me in for a kiss.
He leaned back while I was still stunned, thinking about more.
“Bath?” he asked.
Dazed, I blinked. “Um, sure.”
Somehow, he seemed more awake now than he had with everyone around demanding his attention. The smile on his face made my heart flutter.
It turned out, Katya had put a pot of water on the fire to boil before going to bed, and Aleks was the one to carry it outside now.
There was a wash basin by the water pump, and he filled it, mixing water with the pump with the boiling water from inside.
He turned it with his hand before standing back. “Is good, yes?”
I dipped my hand in and smiled. “It’s good.”
He went in for towels while I stripped bare and sank into the warm water. The way it was positioned, beside the wrap-around porch, it looked out over the overhang and across the whole valley.
When he came back, he stripped down too and slipped into the tub behind me.
Once he was settled, he drew me back with an arm wrapped around my front, his hand splayed wide against my chest. I sank against him with a sigh, content to be held like that even while he attentively ran the soap bar over my skin.
I probably should’ve returned the favor, but fuck, it was nice to have him close. I felt warm and sleepy and safe, and I didn’t really want to move.
“I’m happy to be home,” he mumbled in my ear.
I dropped my head back on his shoulder so I could look at him from the corner of my eyes. “Me too.”
I’d never expected that to be the case. There were things here that I loved, people that meant the whole world to me, but this was the first time it’d really felt like my home. Now that I knew what else was out there, what I’d said no to when I was just sixteen, it all made sense.
I fit here. I had a purpose.
And maybe part of that was letting Aleks’s hand keep drifting wherever it wanted to go.
He’d left the soap behind, but it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out how his touch affected me. His palm slipped down my stomach, and he wrapped it around my cock. I jumped, my breath catching, and I felt his satisfied growl behind me.