Page 88 of Perfect Alpha

“We’ll get through this, Cade. Somehow. I don’t know the way forward from here, and we obviously can’t go backward. But I just can’t think about it anymore today. I only want to think about Hannah.”

“I miss her,” he whispers. “So fucking much.”

“Me, too. She was your sister, but she was like my sister, too.”

“I know that. Hey.” He tilts my chin and makes me face the emotion storming in his eyes. “Hannah told me to tell you that she loved you. In case you ever doubted it for a minute, she thought of you when she was dying.”

“Oh, God,” I cry, my knees buckling as the depth of my love for the best friend I’ll never see again rolls through me.

“My whole family loves you,” Cade whispers.

I squeeze his shoulder before I duck out from under his arms. “Are you going to lie on the couch or in bed?”

He winces. “Couch. It’s closer.”

I follow him into the living room and create a makeshift bed with pillows and blankets. He strips down to boxer briefs, and I purposefully avert my eyes, not needing a reminder of how magnificent he is. I help him get settled and then start a fire in the woodstove to remove the depressing chill from this house.

“I’ll be back with dinner, okay?”

“You’re the best,” Cade replies.

With tears pouring down my cheeks, I head to the kitchen with the heat of his gaze searing my back.

Chapter 31

Cade

Lifeisimpossibletodescribe.

I’m not going back to my practice until January because I have to find a new normal and start a routine that works for me and Aidan. It’s such a weird state of flux where nothing makes sense.

There was never any question that I would legally adopt my nephew, but now it’s a matter of going through the paperwork, which unfortunately involves his biological father.

It gives me crippling anxiety to think Duncan might have more legal rights to a kid I helped to raise and that he’s never even met, but I tell myself it will be fine.

Why would Duncan suddenly want anything to do with Aidan now?Regardless, I want to get the adoption process completed as quickly as possible. I lost Hannah and Victory, so I can’t lose Aidan, too.

Sometimes, I’m functional and can go through the motions of life. But other times, I just sit on the couch and stare into the fire, losing half a day without even realizing it.

The phone rings, snapping me out of my melancholy state. Bobby is calling and I answer on the third ring, surprised to find that it’s nearly 6 p.m.

Apparently, today is a day I lost.

“Gavin’s here, too,” Bobby tells me, and I recognize the tinny sound of being on speakerphone.

“What’s up, guys?” I ask. “Don’t you have a game today, Bobby?”

“It’s Tuesday, man,” Bobby replies. I’m not surprised to be mixed up because all sense of time and space has vanished. “I’m home until Sunday.”

He’s going out on a limb for me, and his coach is making exceptions to all the rules. I couldn’t be more grateful, but expressing it results in him telling me to shut up.

“You’d do the same for me,” he says.

“In a heartbeat,” I promise.

“We were just wondering if you want to swing by for dinner,” Gavin offers. “Or we could come by and bring takeout.”

“We really just want to use your hot tub,” Bobby explains. “We’re busting our balls and breaking our backs getting ready for the next round to go to market.”

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