“Seven year-round.” Stone held my free hand around the cast. “We have volunteers and students from the university who help when they can.”
“I miss Hades and Persephone. Have you been keeping up with the Dogs of the Underworld IG?” I pulled out my phone and checked Insta. “This morning they’re playing on the beach.”
I showed him the pictures on my phone.
“They look great, don’t they?” he said with pride. “Look at Persephone sitting there like a little queen.”
“You’re actually a big softie, aren’t you?’”
“Don’t ruin my street cred.”
I kissed Stone’s cheek.
“C’mere, you.” He put my phone in his pocket, backed me against one of the many boulders that defined the path, and kissed me until I forgot where I was—who I was. I opened to him with a moan of submission that reverberated through my bones.
This man.
This man was made for me.
“You kiss with your whole soul.” He gasped and pressed his forehead to mine. “I love that about you.”
“Oh, wow.” My dick thickened beneath the mountain of clothing I wore.
“And I adore how flushed your cheeks are right now.” Stone looked gorgeous too just then. Sexy and louche and a little bit rough. “I want to keep you in this semi-aroused state all the time.”
“Okay.” I leaned against him. “I’m down.”
Happiness had chased away the hunted look he’d worn on the Blood Academy set. He no longer hid himself away as he had when he wasn’t working in order to minimize petty reactions to his scars. On his home turf, he relaxed his guard and opened to me.
I stared, transfixed by the change in him.
“I want your heart, little wolf,” he murmured. “What can I give you in return, I wonder?”
“Just this.” I leaned my cheek against his chest. “Just yours.”
“You already have that.” Stone kept his hand on the small of my back as he led me a bit farther into the trees. Surrounded by aspens, our path took us through round clusters of soapwort, thin spikes of purple salvia and minty hyssop. He focused the binoculars on the trees above us then handed them to me.
“There…” He pointed. “Look up.”
“What am I looking for?”
“See a bird with a black and white head, kind of a tan belly?”
“I don’t…wait. There it is.”
“That’s a mountain chickadee. We get a lot of those. They go see chick-a-dee-dee-dee. Hear it?”
“Someone should fire the writers.” I heard what he’d described. “Dialogue’s a little on the nose.”
“Smartass. You know what? If I had my way, I’d stay right here and never leave.” Stone looked into the branches above us, frowning. “I’d never face the outside world again.”
“Is something bothering you,” I asked.
“No,” he said too quickly. “Or maybe yes. I don’t know.”
“If you want to talk about it—”
“That’s my problem. I don’t want to talk about this. You know what it’s like. I put some unpleasant things off, and now it’s too late, and I have to face the consequences.”
“Things that get worse, like cavities?” I turned so my back was against his chest and used the binoculars to search for more birds. “What did you put off?”
“Technically, it’s never too late to do the right thing, so there’s that.” He rested his chin on my shoulder. “You know about this baby naming ceremony?”
“Ariel mentioned something to Molly.” He gently put my good hand in my pocket and held it there.
“Ari and Tag want me to be the baby’s guardian. I have no problem with that, except they’ve asked my ex-wife to be the other guardian. They're doing it on purpose.”
“To make you reconnect with Serena and your kids?”
“Probably.” He kissed my neck. “It’s an honor neither Serena nor I can refuse, but it means coming face-to-face for the first time in almost four years.”
“You didn’t tell me much about her. You said she remarried.”
“Yes, that's why she asked for the divorce. She’s much happier with him.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I walked away from all of them, not just Serena but my kids too.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I wasn’t…emotionally stable back then. I refused to get help. I don’t know why it was so hard to admit I needed it. I had anger issues. I was actually pretty scary.”
“But you’re not now. Didn’t you try to reconnect when you got better?”
He flushed. “I couldn’t face them.”
“How come? You’re not a coward where your feelings are concerned. Are you still afraid to see them?” I asked.
“Yes, because I put it off. And now there’s this ceremony.” He looked at his empty hands. “They might be better off without me. Serena’s new husband is a good guy. Their homelife is very stable. It’s way nicer than anything I could ever afford. I wonder if I’m being selfish to butt in on that when I have so little to offer.”
“Stone, you are a good guy,” I reminded him. “And they’re lucky to have extra adults who love them in their life. Talk to them about how you feel. Apologize. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“They thought I was a monster, Sebastian. Nothing has changed since then.”
“You big, sweet dumbass.” I wished I could put my arms around him. “You were hurt. They hurt your feelings.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m not proud of it.”
I laid my head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat.
He wrapped his arms around me.
“Kids say stupid things,” I reminded him. “They’re curious about how things work. Like your hybrids, they tear open your heart and claw at your nerves just to find out what you’ll do about it.”
“It certainly felt like that at the time.”
“When the kids pushed you away, they were testing you. They wanted to know if you’d fight for them. They wanted to see what could make you give up on them.”
“But I didn’t. I gave up on me.”
“I know that, but your kids probably don’t. Now they’re carrying around all these mistaken ideas because you left, regardless of why you did it. You told me: Dads don’t leave because of their kids. You absolutely have to find a way to prove that.”
“Jesus,” he muttered. “You’re so right.”
“You’re the one who said it.”
“What if they still think I’m a monster,” he asked quietly.
“Then you prove that you’re a monster who did not abandon his children.” Suddenly several birds shot into the air at once. I caught my breath. “What’s happening?”
He looked to the sky. “Something startled them. Look, see those red-tailed hawks?”
High above, the raptor pair rose and dove effortlessly, gliding across the rosy golden sky.