Page 43 of Forgiving Her First Love

“Joke’s on you. I’m going to expense it,” Logan said.

“The joke is on them.” Sophie thumbed at Reid and Emma. “They have a houseful of kids to wake up to. Thank you for that, by the way. Oh wait. The joke is on me,” she realized with a groan. “I have a nine-year-old’s birthday party tomorrow. That’s going to be loud.”

“We have played this so smart, Em.” Reid looped his arm around his wife. “It’s Logan’s day with Storm. See you at seven, bro. Oh wait. I’ll still be in bed.”

“We promised the kids you’d make pancakes,” Emma said over her shoulder. “But Imogen is a great helper. She hardly ever gets eggshell in the batter anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Logan said as they reached the spot where the Fraser driveway split off from the lane that led to Sophie’s driveway and the rest of the houses along the flats behind the bluff. “You kids go home and have some of that loud sex you like to have. I’m sure Delta has learned to sleep through it.”

“Why does he have to ruin everything?” Reid asked Emma as they started up the hill.

She said something that made him chuckle, but Sophie didn’t catch it.

The night closed in around her and Logan as they continued along the lane.

Despite the glow off her phone, Sophie staggered when her foot turned on a small, round rock.

“Okay?” Logan caught her elbow.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not as drunk as me?”

“I outweigh you by fifty pounds and I train for nights like this.”

He didn’t actually drink that much. He often had a beer with Gramps at the end of the day, but not always. If he did, it was usually just the one. As far as she could tell, he didn’t drink at all if it was his shift with Storm.

“How drunk are you?” he asked in a tone that instantly made her cautious.

“Not sober enough for whatever you’re thinking about suggesting.”

“I don’t want sex.” He sounded insulted. “I wondered if you were going to remember something if I say it.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

He stopped and turned off his flashlight. Her own glowed in a circle around her feet as she stopped to look at his silhouette.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was low, but firm and sincere. Powerful enough to shake the ground beneath her feet.

“For?” She braced herself, not sure she wanted to know. Not sure she wanted to go all the way back to that. Not now. Not ever.

He drew a breath and slowly blew it out. His head turned so he looked out to where the wind was coming in off the water and the sound of waves washing against the shore was a steady rush.

“For hurting you. For taking advantage of the way you felt about me. It’s no excuse to say that I needed to reinvent myself away from here, but that’s what it was. That’s why I didn’t want you to come with me. My screwed-up relationship with my father—with my whole family—was never yours to fix so I shouldn’t have turned to you when I was looking for ways to avoid him back then. That was childish and selfish.”

“It was.” She folded her arms, trying to tamp down on the ache that was rising in her chest like a breaching orca.

“It was him,” he said in a rasp. “I knew that’s how he behaved. He never thought through to the fact that he was hurting someone, but I went ahead and did it myself. To you. I told myself our situation was different because…”

She stopped breathing, instinctually bracing against whatever he was about to say.

“I didn’t believe what you felt for me was love.”

That went into her heart like a hot, sharp blade.

“How could it be?” He continued softly. “You were young and too removed from the real world to know there were far better people out there. I didn’t feel lovable, Soph. Not good enough for any kind of love, especially not the kind you were offering.” He squeezed the back of his neck. “So I let myself believe your feelings were immature and superficial. That way, hurting you wasn’t such a cruel thing to do.”

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