Page 19 of Same Rogue
His phone vibrated in his back pocket with a text. Bridger pulled it out and read the message. It was from Kit.
I’m sorry. I would never try to replace anyone. We both lost our minds tonight. Also, I don’t do that. What we did. I’m not a one-night stand girl. I just didn’t want you thinking that about me.
He’d hurt her. He had. He’d seen it written all over her face when he’d been leaving. She was staring at him through that mirror, and her eyes held such shock and sadness, and that’s how he’d known she didn’t usually do one-night stands. She didn’t have to tell him that and he wouldn’t have assumed.
God, he felt ugly on the inside.
He’d really left her like that. Fucked her and left her, and this woman had a heart. He could tell.
Bridger heaved a sigh and wished it was him that died instead of Amelia. He wished it all the time.
He swallowed around the lump in his throat and threw his truck into gear and sped out of the parking lot. He needed to get away from here. Away from Kit. From the hotel. From Coeur d’Alene. From Idaho. From planet Earth.
He wished he could drive and not stop until his mind was washed clean of everything. He wished he could get rid of all his memories and start from scratch.
Amelia had escaped the pain, and he was stuck with his head underwater.
There were moments tonight that felt like he could breathe for the first time in years, and that was so scary. It was so easy to get addicted to that air. Kit wasn’t for him. She was just a way to resuscitate him back to life just enough to know how good things could be when he was pushed underwater again. Kit was a way to double his suffering.
He drove with the window down and no music the entire way back to Rogue Pack territory. When his headlights lit up the gravel road to his house at the back of the clearing, he could make out the kid of the Pack, Bay, working on his truck.
Bridger frowned and checked the clock. It was 3:30 in the morning. He pulled to a stop near his truck, and Bay looked up, and turned his headlamp off. He sauntered to the truck and leaned on the open window. “You okay?” Bay asked.
“Yeah, why?” Bridger asked in a harsher tone than he’d intended.
“You missed my game.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Kid.”
“It’s okay! Bridger, it’s okay. You just never miss them, and you didn’t answer my texts, so I was worried.” Bay frowned. “Where’s your shirt?”
Bridger twitched his head toward the passenger’s seat. He couldn’t lie to a werewolf. Bay might be a seventeen-year-old,but he could tell the truth in a tone just as well as the adult werewolves here. He was clever.
“Did we win?” Briger asked.
“Nah. The boys looked tired tonight. I tried to hype them up, but they were just dragging. We lost by one freaking field goal.”
“Brutal,” Bridger murmured.
“Yeah, my dad was pissed.”
Bridger huffed a laugh at imagining Tabian lighting up the team at halftime. He was now one of the strength trainers for the high school football team. Bay trained with them and acted as an assistant coach. He was the hype guy. The humans wouldn’t let him play human sports yet. Bridger kind of got it, but it sucked seeing Bay on the sidelines when he really knew he wanted to be playing on the field with his friends.
“Go to bed, boy,” Bridger said. “I’m okay.”
“Swear?” Bay asked, reaching out his pinky.
Bridger sighed and hooked his pinky with the boy’s. “I swear I’m going to be all right.” Whatever that meant.
“Okay. I’m glad you’re back home. Love you, Unc,” Bay said as he made his way back to his house he lived in with Tabian and Tru.
He was a good kid.
“Love you too, buddy.”
He watched Bay make it inside safely and then eased his foot onto the gas and made his way to the back of the clearing, to his home.
Big old fancy modular home with a big front porch with one chair, one table, one potted plant. One shade umbrella. He got out and made his way inside. One chair at the table. One recliner. One silverware setting on the table. One coffee mug waiting for a single cup of hot joe in the morning. One towel by the shower, one toothbrush, one person for all this space.
