Page 35 of Same Difference
“Right.” He cast a frown at her, and there was worry there in the whiskey-brown color of his eyes. “You aren’t scared of me, are you?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m just thinking.”
“About yesterday?” he guessed.
She offered him a nod and stared straight ahead at the snowflakes that fell in front of the truck, illuminated by his high beams.
He grew quiet as they climbed the winding road to Rogue Pack territory. As he parked in front of the dilapidated cabin, he said, “Are you sure you want to stay here alone?”
“Yes.” She inhaled deeply and forced a smile. “I’m sure. I need it.”
He ran his hand down the facial scruff on his jaw. “I could go wolf tonight and make sure you are all right.”
“I’m not yours to worry over anymore.”
He huffed a sound and shook his head, averted his attention out his driver’s side window. “I still care. I’ll be worried all night.”
Delta shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. “I think that’s part of the consequences. I think you have to sit with that feeling until it goes away. And it will. You will move on with someone else, and so will I, and someday our two-month pairing will just be a funny story that the Pack makes fun of us for.”
“No one will make fun of us,” he said.
“I bet you a thousand dollars they will. Have you met them?”
“I’ll punch them square in the dick if they do.”
She giggled and wrung her hands under his coat. “I wish you would’ve been yourself from the very start.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“I do think we will be good friends. It’ll just take time.”
“Friends,” he murmured, still looking out his window.
“Thank you for chopping wood for the stove. And for working on the roof,” she said, gesturing to the tarp that covered the roughed in parts. “And for bringing over the furniture. And for buying our food at that bar earlier. I’m grateful but it has to stop, you know? You can’t keep coddling me, Nathan. I won’t grow. Hey,” she said, brushing her fingertips against his arm that rested on the console between them. “Are you listening? I really want to grow.”
“I know,” he rumbled. Those gold eyes swung to her and were accompanied with a sad smile now. “I probably need to do some of that too.”
“Growing?”
“Yeah. Growing.”
Her heart hurt. This was another goodbye, in a way. It was them having mature conversations about moving forward instead of lashing out at each other.
The break-up felt so real now.
“I should’ve had more talks like this with you when I had you,” he said.
Movement caught her eye, and she watched a bunny hop lazily through the snow on the edge of the woods. “Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. I made mistakes too.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t even know how to talk to you. I just got quiet. I just didn’t know how to get around the walls, and then I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was building my own.”
“Why did you want to leave your Pack so badly?” he asked. “I never understood that part. You had a good Pack. You’re close to your dad. You had friends there. I remember seeing you sitting with a bunch of them when I first saw you. You’d already broken up with Decker, and you were good, so why did you do an Arrangement? It seems so extreme.”
Delta shrugged. “I’d never considered it before you showed up.”
“What?”
