“Eric?”
“It matters,” he says. “I know it does. I didn’t grow up like everyone else, and it’s all about experiences, right? That’s what we are. The sum of our experiences. And mine are so…” He trails off and rubs his mouth with his free hand. “Fuck. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Everyone’s experiences are different. My upbringing was nothing like yours or Will’s or Petra’s. But yes, yours was more different. I’m not sure where you’re going with that, though, so you need to give me a hint. Are you worried I see you differently, knowing your past? You do remember that you told me it before we got together, right?”
“Yeah. I just…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know where I’m going with it either. I’m just…” His fingers tighten around mine. “Stuff. You know?”
“About the case?”
He walks in silence for a few steps, and then says, “You’re okay, right? With moving in?”
That throws me. I haven’t even thought about it—we’ve been too busy with the case, and it has felt no different from before, moving from house to house. Maybe it’s different for him, not just having a guest but sharing his home.
I say, carefully, “You weren’t counting on cohabitation when you got Storm. If it’s not what you want—”
“No, I’m fine with it.”
“But if you aren’t, you can say that. I’m not going to freak out and interpret imminent relationship doom.”
He glances over. “Are you fine with it?”
“If I wasn’t, I’d tell you. You will, too, right?”
“Course.”
“Until Storm’s old enough to switch between houses. Or until one of us decides we need our own place. It’s not like down south, where I’ve given up my lease. It’s easily undone if it doesn’t work.”
“Yeah.”
He’s looking straight ahead again, and I feel like I’ve made a mistake, but I have no idea what it is. I’ve bent over backward to make sure he doesn’t feel trapped. Neither of us has lived with anyone before, so it seems that giving him space is critical. Keep it simple. Keep it flexible. Let him know there aren’t any strings or expectations.
“Anyway, back to what I was saying,” he says. “I just wanted to set the record straight about what Ty said. It’s disrespectful to my birth parents, suggesting they raised me poorly. They didn’t. I had clothes. I could talk just fine. They kept to themselves, but they were settlers, not hostiles.”
“I know.”
We walk a little farther. Then he blurts, “I don’t know why I didn’t go back. I tried, at first, but I gave up, and I don’t know why. I have excuses, in my head. I didn’t quite understand what had happened. I was angry when they didn’t come for me. Lots of excuses but none of them good enough to explain why I stayed.” He rolls his shoulders. “Fuck, I’m in a mood. Ignore me.”
“I don’t want to ignore you, Eric.” Deep breath. Push forward. “I’d like to know more. It’s a complicated situation, and I know it still affects you.”
“I don’t want it to.”
“But it does. Maybe if you talked, it’d help.”
He says nothing more, and we walk the rest of the way in silence.
* * *
I don’t see much of Dalton after we get back to Rockton. Part of that is workload. He has his own tasks to do. Requests for help with minor stuff have slowed—people recognize we’re too busy for it. But there’s still enough to keep Dalton gone into the evening. It’s then, though, as night comes, that I begin to feel I’m being deliberately avoided.
I’m in the station when Dalton brings Storm over. He says since it seems I’ll be busy for a while, he picked her up from Petra’s. Then he leaves again, and I’m left wondering if I’ve done something wrong there. Is he insinuating I’m ignoring our puppy? That doesn’t seem like him—our job comes first.
When it’s almost ten and he’s still gone, I begin to wonder if he’s at home waiting. I take Storm back to an empty house, no sign he’s been there since we left that morning. I putter around for a while. When Storm needs to go out, I take her as far as the back deck, staying on it while she does her business.
Then I play with her. I’m on my hands and knees, rolling snowballs at her when a distant pack of wolves start their night song, and she zooms into my arms. She’s shaking, but as I hold her, she finds the courage to listen, ears perked, nose working. I’m holding her, my face buried in her fur as I whisper to her and she alternates between licking me and listening to the wolves. They stop, and as I start to roll another snowball, I see a figure in the window, and I give a start.
It’s Dalton. Just standing there watching.
Even when he sees I’ve noticed him, he doesn’t come out right away, continues watching as I roll another snowball for Storm and laugh as she skids and tumbles to catch them, only to have them vanish with a chomp of her jaws.
The door opens. Dalton comes out.
“Um, boots?” I say, pointing at his stockinged feet as I sit up. He just keeps walking, his expression unreadable, and when he lowers himself to the deck, Storm launches at him, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. His hands go to the back of my neck, and he pulls me toward him.