Page 192 of All Packed Up

“Oh, I’d like to see your tiny ass try,” Grif challenged.

“Ugh!” Wendy groaned, stretching her arms out and clenching her fingers as if she could strangle the alpha with her mind. “Why are you like this?”

“Because you like it,” he said simply, before turning his back and disappearing through the front door. He heard Nic’s laughter carry through before he puffed out a cloudy breath and made his way to Nic’s sharp ride.

The lights flooded the drive and part of the back of the house, lighting his way as he walked toward the driver’s side. He slid in the soft seat and cranked the car, turning the heat on max before he slid back out. The cold chased him back onto the porch just as the front door opened.

His favorite beta stepped out, pulling his right arm through a jacket before tugging it tight around him.

“If you hate the cold so much, why don’t you move somewhere warmer?” he questioned. At one point Griffith had imagined the both of them escaping to some warm paradise together. Silly. But that was the kind of shit his mind had supplied him in the years he’d been behind bars.

Nic leaned his forearms against the banister and waited until Grif was a warm, solid presence beside him before he spoke. “You shouldn’t come,” the beta warned, ignoring Griffith’s earlier question.

He didn’t like the way his heart stumbled over a beat at the resignation in Nic’s voice.

“I don’t care. I’m doing it anywa—”

“I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself for me again!” he snapped, voice low but harsh. Nic shook his head, sucking at his teeth in frustration. “Why… Why are you so adamant about being there for me? Why are you so… good?” Nic groaned, running his hands through his hair.

“Are you seriously upset right now because I’m being too emotionally mature?” Grif asked. Nic was upset, but he was upset about the wrong thing.

Nic lifted his head, watery eyes fixed in a glare. “Well, it sure seems that way, doesn’t it?” he asked.

Griffith couldn’t help the wave of affection that threatened to drown him just then, and he wrapped an arm around the beta’s shoulders.

Yeah. The thought of this beta walking out of his life again?

Nah. Not happening.

This time Griffith would follow.

He tugged Nic into him a little harder for a hug, not relenting until the stubborn beta wrapped his arms around him too.

“Stop internalizing it,” Grif murmured by Nic’s ear.

The beta froze in his arms. “I don’t know what you mean,” he lied.

“I mean the guilt you’ve clearly got eating away at you,” he pushed. Nic tried to wiggle out of his embrace, but Griffith held on tight, pressing a hand to the back of Nic’s head and holding him in place. Nic’s heart raced so fast and hard Grif could feel it against his own chest. “Getting caught—listen to me,” he demanded when Nic tried to wiggle out of his grip, voice slipping into a bark. His voice never rose above a rough murmur, but the slight command was there all the same, and Nic finally stilled, finally had to listen to him. “Getting caught was not your fault, and neither was anything that happened after.”

Nic was silent for a long time. Too many breaths to count, and Grif began to wonder if he should repeat his words again. The beta did have a hard head…

“How can you say that?” he finally squeezed out. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been caught in the first place.”

“Says who?” Griffith challenged. No one had run that night over in their mind more than himself. Some nights it’d been all he could think about, keeping him awake until the morning light cut across his cell in a harsh line.

“What do you mean? Says everything.” The beta’s voice dipped into a whisper. “We both could have made it through the fence. I should have known…” Nic went from trying to push him away to tugging at his shirt. “I should have known what you were doing the moment you kissed me. I… I should have stopped you somehow.”

Griffith’s heart ached at the pain in Nic’s voice. “Nic… you couldn’t have known because I didn’t want you to know. I made that choice. Not you. I stepped out in front of them, you didn’t push me. Stop acting like you did.”

“I destroyed your life, Griffith!” he choked out, hands fisting in his shirt as he dropped his forehead against Grif’s collarbone.

Grif snapped his teeth and pulled back, meeting Nic’s gaze. “Stop saying that,” he growled, pressing Nic into the banister. The alpha folded his hands over the rail, trapping Nic in with an arm on either side of him. Grif stared into those sad amber eyes.

“You don’t get to take that sacrifice away from me, because it was worth making. All of it. Because it brought you right back here. To me. Where you belong.”

Nic let out a half sob, half laugh that tore at Griffith’s chest. “What about Wendy?”

“Well, goddammit, she can belong too, I guess. You brought her with you, aren’t you a pair at this point?”