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ChapterThirty-One
ALEK
My abs burned as I completed yet another set of curls using the tree branch I was suspended from to offer a bigger challenge. I needed to hurt. To distract myself from the emptiness in my brain where memories of Sunday should live.
I’d already been out here for hours, taking my frustration out on my body, punishing myself in the only way I knew how. I’d seen the disappointment in her eyes last night. She hadn’t wanted to voice it, but there’d been a moment right before we kissed when I knew I had her. She was mine. And then she sealed herself away, as if she needed to protect herself from getting hurt.
From me.
It was absurd. Hurting her was the last thing I’d ever want to do, yet somehow I had.
Because I couldn’t remember.
“The ground wasn’t good enough for you? You had to assault this poor tree with your bulk?” Tor’s voice pulled my eyes open, and I saw him, the view of his frame distorted from my upside-down vantage point.
Swinging myself, I launched off the branch and curled into a ball as I spun, landing in a crouch in front of him. “Jealous?” I cocked a brow.
“Of what? Your fat arse?” He ran a hand down his flat abs and grinned. “We both know I’m the good-looking one.”
“I wonder if you understand what identical truly means? I suppose it must be hard for you after you allowed Moira to shear you like a sheep.”
He rubbed his palm over his jaw, the stubble already growing back. “I’m a fan of my chiseled jaw. And the ladies love the dimples you’re hiding under all that hair.”
I rolled my eyes. “As if you’d know anything about getting ladies. You’re perpetually single, you fucking monk.”
“As if you know anything about my bedroom habits.”
“I’ve lived in the room beside yours since we were teenagers, and before that we shared one. I think I’m privy to all your secrets, brother.”
“Do you now?” He began stretching, reaching his arm across his body. “So why are we punishing ourselves tonight? You already worked out this morning.”
“I’m missing so much, and I can’t get it back. You don’t know how that feels.”
Tor grabbed a log, lifting it high in the air and tossing it to me. “Don’t be such a pussy. You knew that when you agreed to go back.”
I threw the wood back at him with more force, but he caught it with no issue. “Knowing something in theory and living the reality are two very different things.”
He studied me, his expression not softening in the slightest. “Quinn told you the memories are gone. It’s past time you wrap your head around the fact you will never get them back.”
“You make it sound so easy. How am I just supposed to be okay not remembering so many moments with my mate? I feel like an outsider in my own fucking relationship. I don’t even remember possibly getting her pregnant. Who would be okay forgetting that?”
“Then make new memories, you idiot. Replace the void with something you can hold on to.”
“I did take her on a date last night.”
“See? There it is. You know how to do this. You’ve just been a lazy sod and never had to work for it before.”
“I’m not lazy. You’re the one who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to every morning session with Father.”
He chucked the log at me one final time, this one hard enough catching it made my teeth rattle. “You’re lazy where it counts. If she was mine... if I lost her like you did, I’d be a man possessed. I’d do everything I could to fall for her again. To prove to her that even without my memories, she meant the world to me.”
“I will. I am.”
“Are you? Looks to me like you’re out here licking your wounds instead of in there putting the work in.”
“I’m not her only mate, arsehole. I can’t monopolize her time.”
“Sure you can. You’re just too scared she’ll turn you away to fight for it.”
