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I’d tried talking to her casually while we waited for the race to finish.
Nothing.
I’d tried to loosen her up with a few winks and smiles.
Still nothing.
I was even wearing that God-awful shirt she’d made. I didn’t give a flying fuck about being the champion—though beating Declan at chopping wood was something I’d never let him live down. I cared that she put the time and effort into making the goddamn shirt.
Still not a damn thing.
As the party picked up, trying to talk to her became harder. I had to choose between mending ties with the pack and attempting to win my wife over. Unfortunately, the latter had to take a back burner.
And I fucking hated it. It didn’t sit right with me, but Genevieve was the long game. The pack wouldn’t wait. I had to win them over, so I stuck with the pack leaders. I made nice. I listened to conversations and participated. I dodged questions I refused to fucking answer.
I almost had fun.
Almost.
Because through all of it, my every single fucking thought was with the woman on the back porch watching me silently from the shadows. She clutched an unopened bottle of water to her chest as she did. Every once in a while she’d fade into the house, but I never had to wonder if she’d return. She always did. She didn’t talk to anyone, and no one talked to her—the fuckers. It was as if no one realized she was right there. Even Nolan was so absorbed in entertaining pack children that he didn’t seek her out.
She deserved better. So much better.
I wanted to be the one to make her feel included—to make her feel like she belonged. I fucking hated the goddamn wall between us. How was I supposed to get through to her?
That thought rolled on repeat around my mind as I strummed Cole’s guitar and muddled through songs with him and Axel. We took requests from pack members, fucked around with making-up bullshit, and hunkered down in one spot for the night.
With campfires across the lawn, music in the air, and the smell of marshmallows everywhere, the Byrne leg of the Fall Games was a quiet wrap-up. Lucas and Finn were up to shit, but when weren’t they? Sam had long since vanished in the forest, and I was positive we wouldn’t see him again any time soon. Nolan eventually found his way to Genevieve and hung out on the porch with her—though his presence never deterred her gaze in my direction. Isla joined them, leaving only to return with more snacks than any reasonable person needed. Raven fell asleep in Declan’s lap, leaving him, Cade, and Roan to talk quietly around her. Maverick was passed out in a hammock while Alice and Danica had gone to bed hoping to be on the road early.
This quiet, easy kind of gathering was nice—more than nice. I could get used to it. I wanted to get used to it. This sort of thing made the prospect of being back in Cedar Harbor less intimidating.
When an opening came to change the song, I seized it. I’d probably regret it, but I still fucking seized it. There was a good chance music would be the only way to get her to genuinely listen to me. Music had always been that for us. Lazy days of me on my guitar or slow dancing in the kitchen as we sang together.
Over the years, the song I latched on to changed as new music was released. But that last song… fuck, that last song I sang to her. That song stuck with me. It haunted me.
The look on her face as she recognized it shattered me. Eyes wide and glassy, jaw clenched and body tense. Yeah, she was listening to me now.
And fuck, I’d made a mistake, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. I put my whole damn heart and soul into singing for her. My gaze never left her. I watched little-by-little as her walls began to crumble.
But the woman behind those walls wasn’t the Genevieve I knew. No, this woman was deeply hurting and broken—mirroring how I felt inside. My heart lodged in my throat as I struggled to force myself to keep going.
For the first time, I realized Genevieve and I weren’t fighting different wars. We were fighting the same fucking one. The same pain. The same memories. Ours was a battle only the two of us could understand.
And maybe, if we stopped fighting each other and began to fight together, we could fucking heal through this shit. We could fucking breathe again.
Both of us.
We both needed it.
And for a fraction of a second, it was me and her. There wasn’t a damn other person around us. But that moment was fleeting as she closed her eyes and forced out a shaky breath. With a fake smile, she excused herself from whatever conversation Nolan and Isla were having around her.
I watched my wife disappear into the house, and it took everything I had not to toss the fucking guitar and chase her down.
I didn’t last that fucking long. I couldn’t. I made it through one more song before excusing myself to hunt down Genevieve. I couldn’t just leave her like that. Protecting the broken woman behind the perfected facade was all I fucking cared about.
“Genevieve?” I whispered as I stood outside the room she’d been in before. Maybe it was her room, or maybe it was Raven’s. I hoped to hell it was Genevieve’s because I didn’t know how else I’d find her.
I laid a hand on the door and shut my eyes, dipping into my wolf senses and searching for any scrap of her I could find. I’d take fucking anything at this point. I couldn’t hear her, but that cinnamon-sugar lotion filled my lungs as I breathed in deep.
