Page 81 of Bad Wolf

Her breath hitches. “Dates? But…it…it’s been a really long time, Ace.”

Her calling me that, in such a soft way, soothes away some of the pain I’ve been harboring. It’s a balm over all those cracks I’ve done a shit job of trying to fill.

“Yeah, a date withTheKnox Madden.”

Her eyes snap to mine.

“Wow, number nine,” she deadpans, “I see none of this apologizing and forgiving has made a dent in your ego.”

“No, darlin’. Ego still well and truly intact,” I say with a grin.

“Pulling out the embedded southern charm. What a douche move,” I hear my cousin, Theo, chirp.

She laughs a free sort of sound and it’s like the weight of that one night, that one awful night and six years of hurt have finally been taken off her shoulders.

I can’t help it. I eat up the final two feet of distance and pull her into my arms.

“This was all I wanted, for you to know the truth. To know I could never do that to you, and yet in reality, I don’t know where to go from here.”

I get what she’s saying. This is merely an opening for us figuring everything out, but I know we’ll get through it. Together.

“It’s all gonna be okay.”

“You promise?” Her big bright eyes blink up at me. Blue today, definitely blue.

“Cross my heart,” I promise like we’re in tenth grade again.

“What is happening right now? Are we playing this game or what?” Jack asks the boys who were distracted by my piss poor attempt at a reconciliation.

I belt out a laugh and kiss Wren on the head when she finally smiles. Then I strip down into just my boxers balling everything up, hand it over to her, and dive into the pool.

Wren and I have a lot of catching up to do, but it can wait another couple of hours.

“Okay, Jackie Boy, what are we playing?”

CHAPTERTWENTY

WREN

Knox droveme back to Scott’s apartment as the sun was setting. I watched that big beautiful orange ball of burning gas submit to the horizon, taking with it a weight so heavy, it was a miracle I hadn’t been crushed under the force of it.

If nothing else, I can now live wrapped up warm in the knowledge that at leastin theory,Knox has forgiven me.

Forgiveness. A word so complicated, the feelings and emotions behind those eleven letters can take over your entire being. Great love stories have been written about the path to love through forgiveness. Jane Eyre, Far from the Madding Crowd to name two of my favorites. And now? Maybe mine.

With the music on low and the roar of the engine rumbling through the car, Knox moved us carefully and swiftly through the late evening traffic with a small, satisfied smile on his face, and I felt the most happy and relaxed I’ve been in a long time.

But now as he pulls up in one of the few spaces for this apartment block, my stomach fills with nerves.

“So…” he grins.

“So,” I say, twisting my body to mimic the way he’s looking at me.

He grins some more and then stifles a laugh.

“I do not know what to say right now,” he tells me.

“That’s okay, I don’t either,” I admit.

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