Page 22 of Claimed By the Grumpy Shifter

"You don't sound particularly enthusiastic about them."

She sighs, pushing her salmon around her plate. "It's complicated. They're good people, but they have very specific ideas about what constitutes a successful life. And running a flower shop in a small town doesn't exactly fit their vision."

"What would fit their vision?"

"Corporate job, corner office, husband with a law degree, 2.5 children, and a house in the suburbs." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "They think I'm wasting my potential 'playing withflowers,' as my mother puts it. But in the same breath, they ask when I'm going to settle down and give them grandchildren."

The pain in her voice makes my chest tight. "You can't win."

"Exactly. I'm either not ambitious enough or too focused on my career, depending on which conversation we're having." She takes a sip of wine, and I can see her trying to shake off the melancholy. "What about you? Any family?"

My hand tightens around my fork, and I have to consciously relax my grip before I bend the metal.

"A brother," I say finally. "Jake. He's three years younger than me."

"Close?"

"We were." The words taste bitter. "Our parents died when I was fourteen, Jake was eleven. Car accident. We went into the system together, but..." I trail off, remembering the foster homes that couldn't handle two traumatized boys who were already showing signs of being different.

"That must have been terrible."

"We survived. Looked out for each other. Jake was always the smart one, the one who could charm his way out of trouble. I was the one who made sure nobody messed with him." I cut into my steak, memories flooding back. "We were all we had."

"What happened?"

The question I've been dreading. How do I explain that my brother tried to save me from myself? That he saw what I was becoming in the military and tried to intervene? That I was too proud and too scared to listen?

"He thought I was self-destructing," I confess. "After my second deployment, when I came home... I wasn't the same person. Jakecould see it. He kept pushing me to talk to someone, to get help, to deal with what I'd been through over there."

"And you didn't want to?"

"I couldn't." The admission comes out rougher than I intended. "I couldn't explain what was happening to me without revealing things that would have put both of us in danger. So I pushed him away instead."

Christine's eyes are soft with understanding. "How long has it been since you talked to him?"

"A few months. We had a fight in a parking lot outside some dive bar. He was trying to stage an intervention, and I... I said things I can't take back. Told him I didn't need him, that I was better off alone." I set down my fork, my appetite gone. "Haven't heard from him since."

"Do you regret it?"

"Every fucking day."

"Language," she says softly, but there's no real rebuke in it.

"Sorry. It's just... Jake was the only family I had left. The only person who knew where I came from, who understood what we'd been through. And I threw it all away because I was too stubborn to admit I needed help."

"Maybe it's not too late."

I shake my head. "You don't understand. The things I said, the way I left... Some bridges burn too completely to rebuild."

"I don't believe that." Her voice is fierce, determined. "Family is family. If he loves you, and it sounds like he does, then he's probably hoping you'll reach out just as much as you're hoping he will."

"What if I'm wrong? What if he's moved on, decided he's better off without his fucked-up older brother?"

"Then you'll know. But at least you won't spend the rest of your life wondering what if."

She's right, of course. I've been carrying this guilt and regret for months, letting it eat at me because I was too afraid to find out if Jake would forgive me.

"When did you get so wise?" I ask.

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