Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
It was like a sock in the gut, seeing him like this.
Defeated. Full of blame. Self-hatred.
“It is my fault,” he argued, taking one last pull of the beer before hurling it across his yard where it smashed across the concrete.
“I’m the one who came home,” he told me. “I’m the one who lived when I fucking shouldn’t have.”
He didn’t sound drunk. Even though I knew he was. He sounded stone cold sober. And serious.
Which scared the fucking shit out of me.
This was Kip. The real Kip. The one the smiles and the womanizing hid. The one falling apart at the fucking seams.
I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Don’t you fuckin’ talk like that,” I hissed. “You’re allowed to grieve them. Fuck, you wanna drown your sorrows, do it. But you do anything to follow them, that gets you an inch closer than you are right now, you’re dishonoring their memory. You may as well go and spit on their graves.”
“You be careful how you fucking talk to me, man.” Kip’s eyes were wild and cold, dangerous.
I didn’t back down. Even though I knew my friend was close to trying to beat the shit out of me.
“I’m not being careful when you’re killing yourself, Kip. I ain’t gonna judge any of the ways you deal with this. Until you do shit that hurts yourself. Hurts their memory.” I clutched his shoulder. “I’m not letting you go away, my friend.”
I saw his battle as he glared at me for a long moment. He wanted to fight me. Wanted to smash his fists against something, take out his anger somewhere. And I would’ve welcomed it if that was what he needed. I’d fight my best friend in the world while he was dancing with death if that meant bringing him closer to the land of the living.
But the prospect of violence left his eyes quickly, and his expression sagged. He was drained. Exhausted. Fucking haunted. It physically hurt me to see my best friend like this. Fucked with me.
“I don’t know how to do this without them.” Kip hung his head, voice breaking.
I reached out to grip his arm, squeezing it. “One day at a time, brother. One fucking day at a time.”
He stayed there, eyes on the ground for a moment, shoulders quaking from the force of his sobs.
“You shouldn’t be here with me,” he eventually looked up, sniffing. “You’ve got a woman to go home to.”
He didn’t sound bitter about that, though he had every right to.
“I do,” I agreed. “But she’s not going anywhere. How about we go inside and have a drink?”
Kip nodded, then I followed him inside, letting him distract himself by pouring drinks while I looked for the weapons in his house, unloading every one. Just in case.
NORA
I was expecting him to arrive, of course.
Alpha males were predictable when it came to that kind of thing. So I wasn’t surprised when he burst through the door of the bakery, expression thunderous, posture tight, and a furious energy that cut through the smell of cinnamon in the air.
I was making scones.
Cinnamon scones.
They were like a warm hug, made the place smell delightful, went wonderful with a pumpkin spice latte and fall breeze… and they required me to knead the dough enough to work out at least some of my frustration.
I was trying to be the woman who got angry when presented with betrayal but directed her anger outward, toward something productive. That seemed healthier than bursting into tears and eating frosting straight from the bowl like I really, really wanted to do.
The plan had been to ignore him. Which was incredibly immature and also totally ineffective.
It didn’t matter whether I looked up from my kneading or not, if I kept my lips squeezed shut and my eyes tight so no tears fell. Not when there was a pissed off alpha in the vicinity who wanted some attention.
“What the fuck, Nora?” Rowan seethed, grasping my waist and whirling me around, pressing me against the counter.
My hands were covered in flour, so it dusted everywhere, but Rowan didn’t seem focused on that.
He seemed focused on being mighty pissed off at me.
The feeling was mutual. My fury burned bright enough to momentarily distract me from the niggling pain in my stomach. This was not the longest one of my imagined maladies had stuck around, not by a long shot. My mind was a powerful thing.
“What the fuck, Nora?” he repeated, hands biting into my waist.
I’d seen Rowan angry. Scary angry. But that anger had always been directed at other people, not at me. And it was pretty darn intimidating to have it solely focused on me.
I almost wanted to shrink down. Submit.
Almost.
Instead, I thought of the woman at the door, the familiar way she’d spoken Rowan’s name.
I jutted my chin upward. “I’ve got scones to finish,” I replied coldly, not looking in his eye.