Page 118 of Secret Shifters Next Door

“What gives you the right, after a decade and a half, to say that? Why do you get to decide whether or not our story is over? You gave up that right when you left me crying that day and walked out of my life.” I was growing more pissed by the second. Every word that came out grew in volume. “You must be delusional if you think you can just pick me back up like none of it ever happened. You broke me open. All that I was spilled out that day. I’d given you all of me, everything I had to give, and when you walked away, I thought I was broken.

“I told myself, if I gave everything to someone, every ounce of love and hope? If I did that, and they still walked away, then there had to be something wrong with me. I was the problem. I’d caused it to happen.”

I clamped my mouth shut to keep me from saying more. I’d already said too much. My face went red, knowing I’d let him too far in, that I’d revealed things I’d never even revealed to myself. I couldn’t let him know any more about how thoroughly he’d devastated me. Right then, I couldn’t take another moment in that house. I had to get out.

I stood, leaving my mostly uneaten food behind, and turned to leave. Steff, who had been frozen by my speech, now jumped up and got between me and the door. He wasn’t close enough to touch, but I could still feel the heat radiating off his body.

“I won’t force emotions on you. I do want my intentions to be clear.”

I met his gaze, almost chained to his eyes. I forgot any words I was going to say as he went on.

“Even if I can’t have you the way we once were, then I can at least try to get forgiveness. At one time in my life, you were my entire world.”

Tears welled in my eyes, and I fought down the sob that wanted to build in my chest. “If I was your world, then why did you destroy me?”

Steff’s face fell; horror, regret, and sadness masked his face. I waited for several seconds to see if he had an answer. It seemed he didn’t. He had no answer. I had to get out of there. I brushed past him and burst out of his front door. I fought the urge to run and walked as quickly as I could.

As I opened my front door, a single word was called from next door. “April?”

I slammed the door before I heard anything else he said. Through a haze of tears, I punched in my code for the alarm. Then I turned off all the lights and slid down my wall. Sobbing uncontrollably.

FOURTEEN

STEFF

When Kellan texted me to say Aiden had would be going to the baseball camp, I was both excited and a little confused. I was happy the boy was going to get extra coaching and help with fundamentals. At the back of my mind, I was still bewildered that he’d trust me. It was like he and Kris had both, sort of, forgiven me. I was happy with that fact, but it had come on so quickly that I was caught off guard. Maybe it really had been long enough for old grudges to die. It left me hopeful that I could do the same with April.

Things had not gone as planned the night before. In fact, it had been a disaster. If anything, it had possibly made things worse between us. My bear had been almost inconsolable for hours after she left and its misery had caused me to only get three hours of sleep.

It was the first day of the camp, and I had to pick Aiden up at nine so we’d be there when it started at ten. I had a few minutes to stop by the office and check in with the guys to see if they found out anything about the unlisted number that kept pestering April.

I got there just before eight-thirty, and the other three were already in and working. Blayne was in the little computer lab wehad set up in the back. We had a large computer screen mounted on the wall, and I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what he was working on. The screen was split and on one side were thousands of rows of numbers, the other side was a digital map of the US and Canada. There were a dozen different red bullet points scattered across the map.

“What’s all this?” I asked, stepping up beside his chair.

Blayne glanced up and smiled grimly. “This is your lady friend’s problem.”

At my bear’s grumble, I shot Blayne a questioning look.

“Those calls? Every one of them has been made from a burner phone. Totally untraceable.” He pointed at the map. “Those dots are where each phone was registered. Other than that, I have no way of finding the guy. This wasn’t some horny fan making a spur-of-the-moment attempt to get April to send him a tit pic. This was planned. I’ve basically blocked any unknown numbers from getting through to her phone since I can’t figure out what’s what. Hope she’s cool with that. Her manager was, so…” He shrugged.

I didn’t like the sound of that. The idea of some weirdo doing all this to try to speak with April? It smelled like desperation, need, and psychosis. As though I didn’t have enough to think about.

“Thanks. Let me know if you get anything more on the guy.”

Blayne turned back to his computer. “Will do.”

I headed to Miles’s office next. I usually worked in the office most days, but in reality, I could work from anywhere. I needed to remind him that I’d be working remotely for the duration of the baseball camp, since I’d be there most of each day.

I knocked on his doorframe, and he glanced up. “Hey, man. What’s up?”

“Just reminding you I’ll be coaching baseball for the next two weeks. I won’t be around a whole lot and didn’t want you to think I was skipping out of work.”

Miles leaned back and spread his arms. “Dude, you own 25 percent of this place. I’m not your boss.”

I stepped inside and sat down. “Yeah, I know, just wanted to let you know.”

“Okay, cool. Whatever. Let’s talk about real stuff. How’s it going with your new plan? With April, I mean.”

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