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Abe must hear something in my voice because I’m instantly crushed against his chest. “Fuck, Pearls. I’m sorry.”
I soak up the embrace. I’ve been pushing people away for over a year. Not wanting touch. But now that I’m cracked open, now that I feel again, it’s incredible to be held.
It’s also just incredible to experience this pain. This grief. This loss that I held at bay for so long.
Rather than fight it, I lean into it. Let it soak through me. No, that’s not right–it’s coming from the inside out. I’m emitting pain.
And the pain is wonderful. Because it’s me. It’s mine. I’m alive and in pain and actually grieving the loss of my mom.
“No, it’s good. I’m finally feeling it. God, for so long, I thought I was broken. Possibly a horrible daughter. Now I know I was just in an emotional coma or something.” I pull back and look up at Abe.
He cradles my face in his large hands and leans down to put his forehead against mine. “You’re not broken.” He murmurs the words, his breath feathering across my lips. “You’re perfect as you are, Lauren Sterling.” He brushes his lips over mine, then kisses each of my cheeks and my forehead. “The way you grieve or don’t grieve is your own. It’s not right or wrong. It can be in your own time. It seems to me like you had to hit pause on grieving because your dad was a selfish bastard and tried to kill himself.”
A gully opens up right in the middle of my chest. The enormity of our father’s suicide attempt–the terror it provoked in me that I might lose both parents–hits me, threatening to swallow me like a sink-hole. I cling to Abe to stay present. To not disappear again.
“You’re not broken,” Abe murmurs again. “Do you still believe that?”
“When I’m with you, it feels like I could climb out of the wreckage. Like I’ve been in a car accident, and I hit my head. I dreamed the last year away. And now, suddenly, I’m awake. I can see that I’m still trapped in the broken pieces and parts, but I could climb out.”
Abe slides his hand to the back of my head and grips my hair, surprising me with his change from tender to masterful. He lowers his lips to my ear. “When you say things like that, I want to fucking consume you,” he growls.
He pulls away, and his canines glint in the moonlight coming through the window.
A shudder of recognition goes through me although I don’t know what I’m recognizing. My body reacts with a flush of heat. A clenching between my legs. A thrumming need to return to that bedroom.
Wolf-yips sound from a different direction this time.
“Fuck,” Abe mutters, taking my hand. “I need to get you home.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lauren
I wake up late and roll out of bed. My body is sore in all the right places, and I’m surprised to feel a little zip in my step, like the awakening I experienced with Abe last night is still present. I feel alive, even after the adrenaline rush of jumping off a cliff and being chased and tied up by a hot guy has worn off.
If I was feeling guilty about being out with Abe after the way Luke and I left things, it dissolved when I came home last night and realized Lincoln and Luke weren’t even home yet. Apparently, they found a great party in Tempe and stayed for it.
After a long shower, I dress and head into the kitchen. My dad sits at the table by the wall of windows that overlook the mountainside. He’s still in a bathrobe, despite it being close to noon.
I kiss his temple. “You’re not dressed.”
We had an agreement–he’s supposed to take care of himself, which includes showering and eating.
“It’s a weekend.”
“True.” I pour myself a bowl of Golden Grahams and sit down across the table from him.
“I saw a bear this morning.”
“You did?” My skin prickles. Are there bear shifters? Is that another species in Wolf Ridge that I didn’t know about?
Nah, probably not. I remind myself to ask Abe.
I have so many burning questions for him. Last night he put his number in my phone, so I could tell him when I wanted to throw him off a cliff again. I feel that little pop and fizz of excitement when I think about texting him later about the bear. Or about seeing him again.
“It looked like a grizzly, but that seems unlikely. I was reading up on it. Grizzlies used to be native to the Grand Canyon area, but they’re now endangered, and Arizona hasn’t made a plan for reintroduction. In fact, the state was being sued by the Arizona Center for Biological Diversity for not putting a plan in place.”
I gape at my father. It’s the first time he’s taken an interest in anything in longer than I can remember.
