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He nodded.
“Mom chose a dildo-shaped urn,” I said, not even trying to sugar-coat it. It was what it was. “That was probably more than I needed to see.”
He smiled softly. “I think that’s kind of sweet.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Noping all the way home on that one, Wes, and I don’t want to hear any different.”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. He was an incurable romantic, and always had been since the moment I’d met him. And my parents weren’t his parents, so maybe the slightickfactor here didn’t exist for him.
“Plus it’s pretty funny, really.” He chuckled, his eyes sparkling. “Who knew they evenmadethose?”
“I don’t think I actually wanted to know that.” I rested my sunglasses on my head, and Wes took one look at me before pulling me into a tight hug.
“Aw, honey,” he said. “I know.”
I had no real idea how much he understood. My feelings were too complicated for even me to sort through.
I hadn’t started unpacking everything yet. Not really. The initial stages of grief were tough enough. I was just getting through each day.
“Do you need a ride back?” If I knew Wes, he’d probably run here in wolf form. There was something playful about him that reminded me no one should be stuck in the office all the time, and he took any opportunity to live outside human constraints, running free as often as possible. He was good for me, and he was an excellent PA.
He was one of those friends where it felt like I’d known him my whole life, even though it had only been since I started my job. We’d just clicked from day one.
He grinned. “Yep.”
I grinned back, feeling a degree of levity for the first time all morning. “Let me just wait and say goodbye to Mom.”
We were silent for a moment.
“Jo?” Wes broke into my thoughts.
“Yeah?” I looked back toward him.
“How would you feel about…” He blew out a breath and hesitated as he pushed his hand through his hair.
It was the closest toawkwardthat I ever saw Wes get.
I waited, though. He wasn’t done. He scanned the distance, his eyes flashing with his wolf.
He changed take, altering the start of his question. “Don’t you just want to run away from it all? Run and just howl out the pain?”
“I…” I stopped. What could I say?
My chest was so heavy, as though someone had filled me with lead. The sadness had built up and it couldn’t get out. I couldn’tletit out.
It was like I didn’t know how. Like I was missing a step.
I rubbed a hand over my chest as I thought about it, trying to ease the ache there, and Wes nodded, his expression thoughtful.
“You can feel it,” he said. “It’s the need to let go. Your wolf can do it for you.”
I shook my head. Running and howling? I rarely bothered with either. Dad hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to his shifter side, and Mom had been the same. Sometimes I saw her wolf flash in her eyes like I’d just seen in Wes, but it was rare.
I had very few memories of Dad shifting, but there had always been something special in those moments when his huge wolf dwarfed my small one as we stood side-by-side. We hadn’t done that in years, and now we never would again.
Another wave of loss rolled over me, and I blinked away fresh tears.
“It’s a pack thing,” he clarified when I didn’t say anything else. “We’re shifters. Our wolves need chance to mourn, too. Sometimes, at a shifter funeral or even sooner, one of the things the pack mourners do is shift and gather around the deceased and howl their sadness.”
