Page 74 of Trick Knot Treat

I go home and get changed, pulling on a hoodie and jeans before escaping the shared house and heading for the spot that has become the place I go when I need to be alone.

It’s a quiet spot up the river. There’s a path that snakes its way around, but few people know about it. So, there’s almost a guarantee I will be alone.

Sure enough, when I stop my furious hike, I find the empty clearing. It’s surrounded by cliffs about twelve feet high in almost a circle, with just one spot for the entrance and a couple of naturally flat boulders that are good to lay on and contemplate life’s injustices.

I climb up onto the highest and lay down, staring up at the gum trees and slither of sky I can see. My head is so messed up, all of the things I want colliding with the things I should be doing. The expectations of how I was raised versus the future I can’t stop dreaming about.

Being around Clint is getting harder; my heart screams at me to choose him, while my head tells me everything we’d both stand to lose. The pain it would cause our families. Zaire, Khione, and Felix have made the decision to fight my own wants almost impossible.

It’s inevitable now.

“Hey, dumbass.”

I wrench my head to the side so fast I think I pull a muscle. I sit up, crawling to the edge of the boulder, and looking down.

“Gian?”

He bounds lightly up beside me and sits down, reaching up to unbutton the collar of his pristine black shirt.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, shocked. He’s got a head of thick black hair that always looks good, and everything he wears costs more than everything I own. We might not live close to each other, but my older brother is easily one of my best friends.

“Come to kick some sense into my baby brother’s head.”

I flinch and sit up. “Ah, did Mum call?”

“Yes, and the whining didn’t end until I literally hung up on her.” He rolls his eyes and grins at me. “You naughty, naughty boy.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, you should be.” He stares at me. Gian has this way of looking at you and making you feel like you are only ten years old and you’ve been caught out raiding the cookie jar. It’s part of what makes him an amazing lawyer.

“Don’t give me that look,” I growl.

“Talk to me, then. What’s going on?”

I close my eyes, blocking out the sight of him. “It’s Clint.”

A blow to the head has me lashing out, shoving his arm away from me.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“You know how I feel about this,” Gian says flatly.

“Yeah, you’ve made it clear,” I snarl at him. I want to resent him, but I can’t.

“So, you’re just going to make that poor alpha suffer forevermore? How long until he stops waiting for you?” Gian’s cold and cruel advice always hits hard.

I stare at Gian, feeling my heart drop and the sick feeling invade my chest that always comes when I think about losing Clint. The birds call, and all around us, it feels empty when I think of a world without him.

“Mum-”

“Can jump off a damn cliff. You know, if you didn’t have such a bleeding heart, you would have been living with Dad and me, and you wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“I never would have met him, and knowing him is worth it,” I whisper.

I snap my mouth shut, but it’s easy to speak the truth around Gian, it always has been.

“So, you have rebelled, and you live away from home, you are a cop, and I know she hates that. Dad is so proud of you, by the way. He’s gleefully telling all his old mates that he has a lawyer and a cop for sons and everyone better be grateful he didn’t have a third son who became a judge. Taking over the judicial system one sperm at a time.”