Page 12 of Knight Life In Vegas

“Now, now, it’s all right. Clothing can be cleaned. Did you get hurt by the glass?”

He shook his head.

“That’s the important part. What’s your name?”

“Sammy,” he said with a hiccup.

His mother watched from a safe distance, ready to step in, but otherwise letting her son handle the interaction. I couldn’t let my eyes linger on her for more than a second. Too many questions surged up, along with longing I remembered like a whispering echo but thought I would never experience again. She wasn’t for me.Couldn’tbe for me.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sammy. I’m Beau. Try to be more careful. Not everyone you run into will be forgiving.”

Sammy nodded. “Please don’t leave. I’m sorry. Maybe my mom can wash your clothes and you can stay.”

I ruthlessly shoved down the mental image of disrobing for that golden-haired goddess. “It’s better for everyone if I leave.”

I got back to my feet with a pop of my knees and patted Sammy’s head before maneuvering through the crowd as far away from Charlotte as I could manage in order to reach my son.

“You’re going?” Bryce asked the moment I came upon him.

“Yes.”

Hurt flickered in his brown eyes—the exact same shade as his mother’s. He looked so similar to her I was punched breathless every time I saw him. I couldn’t help it, but Bryce didn’t deserve that reaction. I used to love how much he resembled Emily. The two people I cherished most in the world were practically twins separated by almost twenty years. After she had died, looking at him was a particular sort of agony I didn’t know how to cope with.

“If I’m feeling up to it, I’ll come back later, or tomorrow. I think I must’ve eaten something contaminated on the plane.”

It was a lie, of course, though I was definitely feeling queasy now.

“Well, thanks for at least showing up.”

“Thank you for inviting me.”

Coward that I was, I offered him a handshake instead of a hug, turning on my heel to leave a moment later.

I managed to make it around the corner in my vehicle before my eyes blurred too much to safely drive. I pulled over, my chest tight and my throat burning. Emily would hate the man I’d become without her. I’d spent years after losing her wishing I’d been the one taken instead. I didn’t know how to exist in a world that didn’t have her next to me.

We’d been best friends growing up across the street from each other, had dated all through high school, totally unprepared for her to present as an omega and go into heat when she did. She’d ended up pregnant with Bryce and we’d been bonded to each other before our nineteenth birthdays.

But we’d been happy. Blissfully so, for almost a decade afterward.

Until she got sick.

I shoved it all down. The only way I could get through things was to not think about it. I knew it wasn’t healthy, but that was what I did.

I took myself through a breathing exercise until I could finally see again.

“Get your shit together,” I snapped at myself.

I didn’t know how to do this. The only place I had a handle on things was the business world, and my son had made it exceedingly clear I couldn’t treat my relationship with him the same way. It would’ve been so much easier if I could. Business was cutthroat with clear rules. Parenting? That was a waiting game to see exactly how andhow badlyyou’d fucked up your kids. At least I hadn’t ruined Bryce to the point that he couldn’t be happy with a pack.

Things might have been different for me if I’d had one. Our pain would’ve been shared, but I wouldn’t have wished that on anyone either.

A knock on the window scared the shit out of me and I turned to see Sammy’s face pressed to the glass, his mother and I assumed a younger brother standing on the sidewalk.

“Are you okay?” Sammy asked through the glass.

I rolled down the window. Dread snaked through me as Charlotte’s lemon meringue scent floated into the car toward me. “What are you all doing here?”

“Mommy’s taking us on a walk to tire us out,” Sammy replied.

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