“A few years?” she says with a gasp.

I can’t even swallow down the shame. “Yes. Sometimes in shelters, sometimes on the streets. Me and the strays, you know, we were the same. But a dog is just trying to live, trying to survive. I wasn’t trying to live. I was trying to die.”

And I almost did die. Charlie happened. Charlie died. It could have been me. It should have been me. But I can’t even bear to utter his name.

“Fuck,” she swears, and she surprises me by putting her hand on my arm and giving it a squeeze. “I had no idea. I knew you had issues, I mean, even just from being given up for adoption. But this? This…I can’t,” she trails off and shakes her head. “You’re just so fucking strong.”

I glance at her, frowning. “Strong?”

“Yes,” she says emphatically. “You’re strong. You’re brave. And maybe magic. How the fuck did you get from there to here, to right now? With your career and your Range Rover? How did that happen?”

I tilt my head. “It happened. It wasn’t overnight.” But it was overnight. One horrible night. “One day I just showed up at Jessica and Donald’s and told them I needed help. I begged them. On my knees I pleaded for them to save my life, to take me back. It was then that I finally realized I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. And if they were any other sort of people, they would have turned me away. I was never their son and they didn’t owe me anything. But they didn’t. They took me in. I went to rehab to get off of meth and other drugs. I focused my life on the physical. It happens a lot, you know, when you’ve abused your body so much that you want to make up for it. I became a fitness and health fanatic, and eventually joined a local rugby team. Rugby became my new obsession, you know? I had the speed, the strength, and that anger that I now know will never go away, and all of that combined was like a super fuel. I became really good, really fast. The rest is history.”

“Some history,” she says. “I had no idea. And I’m sorry that I didn’t.”

“I never wanted to tell you, obviously. I could have murdered Brigs for bringing it up like he did, even if his heart was in the right place.”

“I can see why you’d want to keep it all inside, but…isn’t that tiring? Doesn’t that hurt you, to keep so much of who you are hidden from the world?”

I shrug with one shoulder. “Maybe.”

“I’m glad you told me,” she says, shifting in her seat and running her hand through my hair. “I don’t want you to ever be afraid to be honest with me.”

“Even when it means you might run the other way?”

“I will never, ever run from you, Lachlan. I’ll only run toward you. Always.”

God, what I would give for that to be true.

When we finally get back to the city, I’m exhausted and emotionally drained. Kayla tells me to get in bed, that she’ll walk the dogs. I want to protest, but I can see in her eyes that she wants to do this for me, such a simple thing that means so much. She fucking cares about me. She’s not running away. I don’t even know how to process any of it.

I get into bed and force myself awake long enough for her to get back from the walk. I can hear her talking to the dogs in the other room as they settle down on the couch to sleep before they later move onto the dog bed or our bed. There’s something so comforting, so peaceful, about hearing her in there, shutting it all down and preparing for the night. In another world, a merciful world, it wouldn’t be the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. All these nights would stretch on and on and on, and she would fall asleep in my arms with all my darkness and all my demons and all my ugliness stored safely in her heart. In a perfect world, she would hold it there, away from me, so she could understand me better, so I would never be harmed again.

She would willingly harbor my truth inside her.

I would willingly let her try.

But the world isn’t perfect.

I just don’t know what kind of world we have now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kayla

“So are you sure no one is going to pull down your pants?” I ask Lachlan as we get out of the Range Rover. I have to admit, I’m nervous as fuck about seeing him play, though he doesn’t have to know that. Actually, I’m anxious about a lot of things, but he doesn’t have to know that either.

“No promises,” he says, and jerks his chin toward the massive stadium in front of us. “There she is. Home of Edinburgh Rugby.”

I have to admit, I was surprised this morning when Lachlan asked me to watch him practice. After the night we had last night, the dinner at his adopted family’s, and the stark confession in the car, I expected him to pull away from me, to put up barriers and increase the distance.

But that didn’t happen at all. He was hungry for me and extremely affectionate in the morning, and even though morning wood wasn’t uncommon in the last seven days that I’d been in Edinburgh, this time there was something different. I felt he wanted not to just possess my body but everything that came with it. The way his gaze burned me was akin to the greatest thirst.

Obviously, I had no complaints. After what happened last night, I needed to feel closer to him myself.

I can’t lie. What he said scared me, and while I thought I had him figured out at least a little bit, the whole being addicted to meth and living on the streets completely took me for a ride. It was far, far worse than I ever could have imagined, and my heart broke with every single heartfelt, raw word that came out of his mouth. No wonder he was so intense, so broken, so misunderstood. The man had gone through hell and back, and even though he rose like a phoenix from the ashes to become the man he is, that smoke still clings to him. I can smell it.

And that’s what scares me. It’s the fear that it’s not all over. Because how can it be over? How can a person go through all of that and just brush it off? You can’t. Not even with the best therapy and the best medication can you ever get over being abandoned, adopted, on drugs, homeless. It’s one terrible thing after another, and just the fact that he’s alive and well has me completely dumbfounded.

But I don’t want to live in fear for him, and I don’t want to believe that he could slip up at any moment, even though I’m not naïve enough to ignore certain things, like his relationship with alcohol. I want him to keep being strong, powerful, noble. A proud beast. I want him to not be ashamed of who he was because it’s only made him the amazing person that he is. Though I know he thinks the opposite, learning the truth about Lachlan made my respect for him go through the roof.

And now, now I really understand his passion for the dogs, for rescuing the “bad dogs” who are cast aside and forgotten. He literally was just like them, depending on the kindness of strangers.

Yet here is, and here I am, about to head into the stadium where I’ll witness just how he pulled himself out of the rubble.

“Now I must warn you,” he says to me as he slides a key card into one of the back entrances. “You might fall asleep. We’re not going all out quite yet. I’ll be working on my sidestepping today, especially since I have a tendency to just plow through people.”

“Oh, I know,” I say brightly. “I read it on your Wikipedia page.”

He groans. “I have one of those?”

“That only means you’ve made it.”

“Bloody hell. Anyway, I can’t really run people over anymore without risking injury to myself, so that’s where the sidestepping comes in handy.”

“Will I at least see you in a scrum?” I ask as we walk down a dank, cement tunnel toward the lit green field at the end.

“Nah. As the wing you just watch the scrum. Wait and see what happens.” He gives me a wry look, pursing those lush lips together. “Don’t you remember any of that rugby I taught you?”

I laugh sharply. “Let’s be honest. I was just trying to flirt with you, maybe get a good feel of your ass.”