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“It wouldn’t have made a difference. I was so far gone it wouldn’t have worked. I don’t think I could remember a single conversation I had between the funeral and me going back to school.”
“The distance between us felt like it was going to go on for eternity,” he admitted. “That’s why I came about the letters.”
“Did you read yours before tonight?”
“No, of course not,” he said firmly. I believed him. Lake was never a liar. “I was already struggling, but when my parents were talking about you going to a new school, I couldn’t let you walk away without having some kind of bridge between us.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said. I couldn’t tell him everything, but I gave him at least a watered-down version. “It gave me something to look forward to.”
“Me, too,” he admitted.
The moment hung between us. It was too heavy to break right away.
After another log had burned down to nothing I broke the silence, ready to keep going.
“So, do you have an apartment in town?”
“I stayed at the inn at first while I tried to find a job. Before, I only ever worked as a journeyman and got my hours in to get my license. Once I was licensed, I had to do it all on my own. It was a little bit harder.” He let out a small chuckle.
“Lakewood is a small town, too, I’m sure that didn’t help.”
He nodded. “It is, but that’s what I like about it. I was in the Raven’s Nest, and they had a bulletin board of local job listings and flyers. One of them was for a group that was working on renovating homes, and they needed a licensed electrician they could consult with regularly. It was constant work and long term, I couldn’t pass that up. So, I gave them a call, and it was the best decision I’d made in a long time.”
“Are they good guys?” It was nice to know he had someone in his corner when I wasn’t there for him.
My chest ached at the thought of him wallowing in his own grief, alone, knowing his mate left him, too.
I swear someday this guilt was going to eat me alive.
“The best, actually,” he said. He had on a genuine smile and lit up as he talked about them. “Micah was the first one I met; he had a house that he lived in alone and he worked on flipping houses in town and the surrounding ones. He was working with his business partner, Collin, for a while. Then Collin and his pack had a baby, and he needed to step back. So, Micah brought on a few more guys to help keep the business going. That’s where Drew and Riven came in. None of them were electricians, so they needed one more.”
“It worked out then,” I said, committing every smile and the way his eyes danced with emotion, to memory.
“When I talked to them, we all kind of hit it off. We worked on that first house together. It was so smooth that we made a ton of plans going forward. When Micah found out I was living at the inn he demanded that I come stay in the spare room at his house.”
“That’s awesome. It sounds like you found a pack.” I swallowed down the bile rising at the thought. He’d found a pack and until this moment, I didn’t realize how uneasy that made me feel. I’d been consumed by Everett so much I’d let Lake fall to the back burner. It was my own doing. My jealousy was unfounded.
“We never really called it that,” he admitted. “We are in some ways. They know my past, and they’ve all got their own shit.”
“Doesn’t everybody?” I questioned.
He gave me an eye roll and squeezed my foot that was still resting in his hands.
“So, tell me about school and the game you were working on.”
“School was fine. It’s a pretty male-dominated industry, but the program is pretty diverse. Every class we had all kinds of projects directed at one single game. You start the early stages of game development in the intro classes, and then it progresses over the years until you’re ready to submit it for your final project. Some people in the program have used that to land amazing jobs.”
“What, that’s awesome,” he grinned. His enthusiasm was reminiscent of the Lake I remembered and I found myself spilling more, wanting to see that smile stay in place.
“I’d already gotten my undergrad in, so I just need these two years of work to catch up, and I’ve already done a lot of that. I took a lot of classes. My advisors tried to deter me, but burying myself in work was the only way I knew how to live.” I glanced down at my hands, still avoiding him. He was getting tired of it from the small sigh he let out.
But Lake wasn’t giving up.
“How about friends?” he asked. He was scrutinizing me so hard that I felt like I could shrink under his gaze. He was going to see through all my lies like no one else could.
“I had some. We hung out, did happy hours, celebrated after classes ended, things like that.”
“Do you know anything about them?” My eyes widened, and I looked up at him. His face was etched with lines of concern.
