Page 49 of The Wrecked One

“Yeah, I told her to leave you alone,” Sam commented, standing next to me now.

“Not that,” Oliver remarked in a deep voice. “You shouldn’t have come here at all. To this house.” His mouth tightened into a grimace, and he shut his eyes as if still submerged in whatever hell he’d been in inside that nightmare. “You’re supposed to be with Mason, getting better, living your life. Moving on. Not here with me.”

“What?” I about choked on the four-letter word as it sputtered free from my lips. Mason?! “Is that really why you texted him that day? You want me to be with him?” My heart rate picked up speed at his implication. “You expected I’d go running into his arms and just forget you? Forget what we had?”

“What we had wasn’t real.” Oliver bowed his head.

“You don’t mean that. You can’t even look me in the eyes and say it.” And I won’t cry, dammit.

“I do mean it.” He slowly lifted his head, meeting my eyes as if to make a point. “Every word. Someone rewrote the plot of your life. It was never supposed to turn out this way. You two belong together. If you’d just stayed with his team and never joined ours, everything would be just fucking fine.” His lips parted, teeth showing, nearly snarling those last words at me as if I was his enemy. The bane of his existence.

“No.” I refused to listen to this. To any of it. “You’re upset. Trying to push me away. And it’s not going to work,” I reminded him, my arms now flailing in the air.

“He loves you, Mya.” He stood and righted the table while growling out a curse. “Go back to him. Be with him. Live your life and forget me.” He stalked closer, ignoring his father’s presence and bore a hole right through my heart with his piercing gaze.

Finding the courage to talk, telling myself Oliver was hurting and in pain, I reminded him, “He never told me he loved me, and?—”

“Well, I don’t recall telling you, either.” His forehead tightened, and his eyes narrowed as he shredded me with that one line. Then he walked out, Scrappy following close behind him.

My shoulders jerked as the front door thudded shut, and I did my best not to fall to my knees at his rejection. “Where’s he going?” He was shirtless and barefoot again, just like yesterday morning.

“He converted part of the shed to his own private space. He usually cools off there after a nightmare.” Sam’s hands settled on his hips as he eyed me, a touch of empathy passing over his face.

“I need to go out there. Talk to him.” Determined, even though I was pantless and shoeless, I started for the door.

“Don’t do that.” Sam’s words had me putting on the brakes. “He’s not himself after those nightmares. He’s still in that dark place where everyone is an enemy and everything hurts. He needs time to cool down.”

Dark place. Enemy. Everything hurts. Fragments of Sam’s words echoed through my mind on repeat, further obliterating my already shattered heart. “So, I should let him run away again? Like I did in Singapore?”

He closed one eye, tipping his head slightly. “Now, I don’t think you let him do anything. My boy did what he felt he needed to do. That was not your fault. None of what happened is on your shoulders. Or his.”

I heard his words, but they didn’t absolve me of my need to make things right for Oliver.

“Trust me when I say you don’t want to talk to him. I’ve been on the receiving end of that mouth of his when he’s in one of these moods, and it hurts.” He touched his chest. “In my case, I deserved his venom. You don’t. Then he’ll regret it, feel bad, and?—”

“You know,” I cut him off, unable to bite my tongue, “for someone who walked out on his family, you seem to care a lot about Oliver’s feelings.” Now I was the one spewing poison. But he left his son, and that had to have hurt Oliver. How could it not? And anyone who hurt that man was naturally an enemy of mine. So, what right did he have to care now?

He stared at his open hands the way I’d seen Oliver do a time or two since showing up at the cabin, as if there was blood there no one could see but him. “Just because I walked out on my family doesn’t mean I stopped giving a damn about them. Same holds true for Oliver. He left you, but he still cares about you.”

I knew he cared about me, that much was obvious. But what if . . . “Am I ever going to get through to him?” Damn the doubt. I wanted to blame it on my lack of sleep, but I wasn’t so sure I could.

“I didn’t take you for a quitter. Based on what I’ve heard from Oliver, that’s not really a word to describe you, now is it?”

Forcing myself to look at Sam, I relented with a nod. “He talks about me?”

“You kidding?” His smile took me by surprise. “The boy never shuts up about you.” Gesturing toward my bedroom, he added, “Now, go get some sleep, so you’re ready for that knock at your door in a few hours. He’ll be coming to apologize for his behavior, trust me.”

It was still hard for me to believe he knew Oliver so well after walking out when he was in high school. Well, unless Oliver hadn’t told me the full story. Clearly, he hasn’t.

“He’s also embarrassed you saw him like that, on the floor and struggling.” He tipped a shoulder, then tacked on, “Men aren’t so great at handling that emotion.”

Yeah, I know that. Been around enough alpha types in my life. But Oliver had nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about.

That still didn’t stop me from wanting to yell at him for suggesting I should be with Mason, discounting everything we’d had together.

“He’s just scared, Mya.” Sam’s sad tone pulled my attention away from my disappointed thoughts and back to his tired eyes.

“Of what?”

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