She heard words coming out. “You can stay, you can go. Do whatever you want.”
Had she really just said that to him?
“Okay.” She thought she saw a faint spark of hurt in his eyes. And he turned and walked away.
* * *
Austin stood by his pickup truck, at the end of the parking lot, and told himself that it was better this way.
He didn’t know why he’d told Savannah’s mother that he was her boyfriend, or why he’d come here tonight.
He guessed he just wanted one last good night. One last good time. Because even if he survived to bring Roy back, how long could he survive the devils plaguing his own mind?
And he wasn’t surprised that Savannah didn’t want him to stay. Why would she? He wasn’t offering her anything. He’d told her he was leaving and never coming back.
Wistfully, he looked over at Laurel, who was standing next to Jessamine by the bar now. Jessamine said something to her mother, and her mother lightly flicked her on the head, then ducked. Jessamine pretended to try to smack her mother, and Laurel grabbed her in a fierce hug. Jessamine wriggled out of it, pretending to look annoyed, but then she shot her mother a look of such pure love that it hurt Austin’s heart.
The only time his parents had ever touched him…well, his father, when he was around, had broken Austin’s bones over and over again, which had hurt like a bitch even if Austin did have super-healing.
And his mother had never, in his memory, hugged him. Not once.
Other pack members had tried to help, when Lloyd wasn’t around. The pack healer, Anita – her mother Sue would take him aside and read stories to him while he sat on her lap. She’d pour her healing energy into him. It was the only reason he hadn’t gone feral as a cub.
He’d cried when Sue died. Only time he’d ever cried in his life. When his mother died, he’d just shrugged, popped open another beer, and returned to the game he’d been watching.
When his father died, he’d celebrated with a three-day drunk.
Maybe that had been a kind of mourning, in its own way, but not for the loss of a parent. It had been mourning for the loss of the cubhood he’d never had.
As he watched, a fox shifter walking past Jessamine reached out and pinched her butt. Austin snarled and started to move forward, instinctively, but Niall, covered with mud, was on the drunk fox in a heartbeat, punching the him in the face so hard he spun in a circle and went face down on the grass.
Then Niall and Jessamine exchanged high fives.
They were family. They’d do anything for each other. They drove each other crazy, but they’d die for each other.
He’d never have that.
He’d tried to bond with Tully’s pack, he really had. They’d done everything they could to make him feel at home. They invited him to every meal, to every pack party. They watched out for him like one of their own. They always had his back.
They felt like friends, but they didn’t feel like family.
If he had a family, it would be something like this. This crazy, ridiculous little bunch of foxes.
No pretensions, no putting on false airs. And no dressing up for dinner and sitting at a twenty-foot-long dining table set with thousand-dollar gilded place settings, like his brothers Cliff and Grant did with their mates.
Oh, their mates were okay. They were nice women – down to earth, sweet, strong, loyal. But they moved in a world that didn’t have space for him. Both of his brothers’s mates had made a point of inviting him to pack gatherings, to christenings, to cub showers. They’d sent him pictures of their cubs.
He just couldn’t bring himself to visit Hidden Hills very often. Too many ugly memories. Every time he set foot there, he felt the ache of broken bones ghosting through his body, and his late father’s taunts echoed in his ears.
This here…this felt like home should feel. At least how he imagined it would feel. Scrapping, torturing each other, teasing each other, but when push came to shove, every single one of them would be willing to take a bullet for each other.
As he watched, Jessamine and Laurel, arms around each other’s shoulders, started singing “American Pie” at the top of their longs. They were terrible. They were so out of tune. How do you mess up “American Pie”, for heaven’s sake? But the crowd joined in, roaring their approval.
His heart ached with envy.
“Hey!” Savannah yelled. She was heading towards him across the parking lot, with a hesitant look on her pretty face.
“Hey,” he said back. She stopped when she reached him and just stood there in front of him, hugging herself and avoiding his gaze.
