Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
ETHAN
Beers around a campfire were becoming a regular thing for us.
“I fucked up.” Admitting it pissed me off. But I had, and he was the only one I felt comfortable admitting it to. I’m not sure how Rowan and I had become friends. He and I had little in common except for the insane women we cared about, but here we were.
Having beers in the middle of nowhere while I bitched about what a fuck up I was.
“Yeah,” Rowan agreed.
I let out a disgruntled snort. “Asshole.”
Rowan crossed an ankle over his knee. “I agreed because I’ve been in a remarkably similar situation.”
“It’s not the same,” I growled.
“Nothing is exactly the same. But I cared about a woman very much and didn’t step in when I could to keep her from stepping into the arms of another man.” He took a sip of his beer. “And I spent the next year watching him treat her like absolute shit and couldn’t do a single thing to stop it.”
“He’s obviously not treating her like shit.” And that made everything worse.
Moira looked healthy. Happy. She’d gained enough weight to fill out the hollows in her cheeks and erase the shadows under her eyes. She spoke more, talked more, and Cernunnos wasn’t even around her all the time.
It was making me insane.
Three weeks had passed since I knocked on her door and smelled the evidence in the air. It took everything I had not to launch myself at him and tear off his face.
The only thing to stop me was the knowledge that Moira had given me exactly what I asked for. She stopped giving too much of herself when I wouldn’t give her anything of me, and someone else stepped in and offered her what I couldn’t.
“She’s not in love with him,” Rowan said.
My attention snapped to him. “What.”
Rowan sighed and set his beer on the ground.
“It’s only been three weeks. Moira has been single for years.
She’s never been the kind to rush into anything, and a relationship with the former fae king is one she’ll be wary of for a while.
Not to mention he’s her best friend’s dad.
I’m not saying it won’t happen. Things are rolling in that direction, but right now, without giving too much away, they like each other. A lot.”
“That doesn’t make me feel much better.”
“It means you’re in a better situation than I was,” Rowan grumbled. “There’s still time.”
There really wasn’t. “Nothing has changed for me. I’m still the same man I was when she told me to get the hell out of her house. She deserves everything but I have nothing to give.”
Rowan nodded. “Then it seems like you’re shit out of luck.”
“Thanks, friend,” I said dryly.
Rowan shrugged. “Look man. You can be pissed off all you want, but Moira did nothing wrong. She’s an adult in an adult relationship that’s going well.
As much as I hate to admit this, because I don’t care for Evie’s dad all that much, he’s good to her.
Moira is thriving around him. As far as I’m concerned, she did the right thing.
She deserves more than you’re giving her.
If you want her, you have to take the steps to be the man she needs.
If you aren’t willing to do that, you need to let her go. ”
In the past I might have lunged across the fire and choked the younger Lord, even knowing he was right. Time and wisdom had mellowed the hell out of me. Make no mistake. I still wanted to choke him, but only because I was mad at myself. “Easier said than done.”
“You can still be her friend. Moira doesn’t have enough of those. But you can’t push her boundaries. Not now and not anymore. One thing Moira has always been is loyal to the bone. If you press her too much, you’ll lose her completely.”
I tipped my beer up and finished it. “Not sure I can do it.”
“You know what you need to do. Either way, you’ll make the right decision.”
I sat there staring into the fire long after Rowan had packed up his chair and walked home.