Page 58 of Rough

He stooped to pick it up. “Well, I didn’t mean it. I’m just an asshole with everyone. My job as alpha isn’t to be everyone’s best friend. I have to make decisions others might not like. But that’s me. You, Boyd? You’re the one with the brightest future. You could do anything. You proved it on the rodeo circuit, but I guess I always wondered when you were gonna start really living.”

My chest tightened painfully. I was starting now. For Audrey. If she would just take me back.

“Fuck off,” I muttered.

Rob chuckled and slapped me hard on the back. “So what are you going to do to win that female of yours back?”

What, indeed?

Wait… I turned and faced him head on. “Does that mean you’ll let me mate her?”

Rob scoffed. “I might stop you from fucking up your life with a human, but if your wolf chose Audrey, then I won’t stand in your way. Besides, there’s no way anyone could ever stop you from doing what you wanted to do. Especially not me.”

“You kicking me out of the pack?” I asked, but I already knew he wasn’t.

He rubbed the back of his neck and settled his Stetson back on his head. “You sure she’s your mate?”

I narrowed my gaze, and even he could hear my wolf growl. “Fucking positive. My teeth already came down to mark her. I’m telling you, I knew it the minute I saw her.”

“Lucky bastard.”

I had to wonder if his moon madness was affecting him. Was he searching for his mate and yet I’d found mine?

“If she’s your mate, then she’s part of the pack, too,” he stated. “Just as soon as you win her back. Don’t fuck this up again, fuck-up.”

I punched him in the shoulder. For once, I didn’t have the anger, the bad feelings when I stood with my brother. I felt… whole. So I replied with all the piss and vinegar of a kid brother. “Asshole.

25

AUDREY

Six letters.Boyd wrote me six letters.

They were all in my trash. Who was I fooling? I hadn’t taken out the garbage all week. If I was really done with Boyd, wouldn't I have burned them? Or never even brought them in?

I stared at the wastebasket.

Don’t do it.

Donotdo it.

My phone rang. Shoot. It was Marina. I’d been dodging her calls all week because I knew if we talked, I’d spill everything. I sent this call to voicemail as well. She was used to my work schedule and sometimes a lapse in responses, but I’d text her, let her know not to worry.

Because if I talked to her now, I’d bawl my eyes out. Other than the day we broke up, when I lost it out front, I’d been trying to hold that mess in. I’d done a good job of it, but I was like a pressure cooker, ready to explode.

I stooped and picked out the envelopes from the trash can. I’d had six days to think about it.

To remember all the tiny things. The gentle way Boyd put my glasses back on for me after riding the mechanical bull. The rough way he lost control with me when we had sex, as if he couldn’t hold himself back. The respectful way he always treated me—opening doors and escorting me home. But more than that because those were superficial things, I kept thinking about the story about his parents. How deeply he hurt over their deaths.

Most of all, I remembered how sure he was that I wasThe One. Whatever that meant to a wolf.

As much as I tried not to, I kept thinking about the fact that hewasa wolf. There were dynamics at play I didn’t understand. Their customs. The culture. He’d briefly mentioned how they operated in a pack and how his brother’s disapproval of our relationship would be a big problem for him, considering how much he already felt like a screw-up. While he was a grown man, he still had to take the pack into account when being with someone like me. Someone human.

He had used sex as a weapon. He’d used it to distract me from trying to figure out how a guy who had a sucking chest wound could be healed in such a short time. How his injury had completely disappeared in days. Well, probably sooner, but when the bandage had come off, his skin had been blemish free. Had everything we’d done been at his brother’s orders? Maybe he’d had to distract me, but perhaps he was the one who got distracted. Maybe he’d actually fallen in love.

Did wolves fall in love or was that all an act, too? I just didn’t know.

A heavy knock sounded at my door, making me jump back from the trashcan and shriek.