Page 13 of Puck of My Life

“I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

“It was a long time ago.” True, but that sentence didn’t convey the pain I carried.

He smiled, and my wolf pushed me to do something, anything other than letting him go. What I wanted was to close the space between us, press my face into Walter’s neck, and breathe him in until I stopped hurting.

But underneath the scent that was Walter was another smell, and it was woven into his suit. It belonged to another man, a human. I got a hint of cologne, shampoo, and dry-cleaning fluid, not that a human could pick up the latter. My wolf went from straining to get out to growling, saying he’d hunt the guy down.

This was the best night of my life, but it was also the worst. Walter was a grown man with a career and a life. He went and built that life with someone who wasn’t me.

“Are you okay? Did you have too much wine?”

I was swaying, and he grabbed my wrist. Our first skin-to-skin contact and it was after discovering he had a man in his life.

“I’m fine, but I should get back. The team’ll be looking for me.”

His smile faded. “Oh, right.”

I’d found my mate, and now I was pushing him away because of another man’s scent. But I needed to find out the truth before I tore my world apart for the second time.

I just didn’t know how.

10

WALTER

What was happening? Everything was going better than I could possibly have dreamed of and then… boom, it fell apart.

Back then, he hadn’t disliked me or wasn’t interested. He had family problems to deal with, and I respected that his family came first. I hated that for him, but I understood. He’d had to deal with so much at such an early age.

And then I touched his wrist, and suddenly he was leaving… again. Eight years ago, I let him. Had I known it would’ve meant not seeing him for years, I wouldn’t have, but I couldn’t change that now. I could, however, learn from that mistake. I refused to let him leave without at least telling me why.

“Archie.”

He froze.

“Please look at me.”

He slowly turned around.

“Tell me what I did wrong.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I thought we—I thought—why are you leaving? Tell me what I did wrong.”

“Nothing.” His voice was curt, his eyes looking just above mine.

“Then explain it. Explain what’s happening here, because I just—” And tears freaking started falling again. I didn’t want them to, but I couldn’t stop them.

“Are you dating someone?” His question caught me off guard. What part of our conversation had him thinking I was involved with someone else?

I chuckled out of nerves. “No. This will sound like a lie, but I swear it’s not. You ruined me for it. I’ve never so much as agreed to a date with anyone.”

“But that suit, it’s not yours then.”

I thought it fit well, but he wasn’t wrong about it being borrowed.

“I work for the local newspaper. I don’t have money for a nice suit. This is Louisa from work’s husband’s. He’s some big shot in the corporate world, and she was taking it to the dry cleaner after work and heard I needed one. She let me borrow it.”