Impatient, she stood up and knocked on the wall hoping he would hear the thuds. He was knocking on her door within seconds.
“Everleigh? Is that you? Are you okay?”
She opened the door for him trying to be quiet. "Sorry to wake you. Can we talk somewhere?"
Like her, he was fully dressed but unlike her, he didn't look like he'd been sleeping in his clothes. He didn't look like he’d been to bed at all.
"Are you still awake?" she asked.
"Yes. I have not been to bed yet."
"What were you doing?"
"Thinking. Trying to wrap my brain and figure out how I can salvage the situation.”
"I feel like this day has gone sideways. Tell me again why you came back to Juneau.”
“Again?”
“Please. I need to hear it right now."
"I want to be with you, no matter what. You are more important to me than anything else in this world," Roman said. "You're more important than my pack, and you're more important than my position as Alpha. It's not that I don't care about those things, but you and Eliza are my priorities now, and that's how it should be. I should have never put the rules of my pack over my mate." He cleared his throat. "It horrifies me that I let what other people wanted and needed me to be sway me over what was best for my own mate. That should never have happened."
"No, it shouldn’t have," she said.
"The fact that it ever entered my mind is just absolutely terrible. Honestly, I'm shocked that you gave me another chance after I screwed the first time up so badly. I do appreciate it."
"Don't forget that I know what it's like to grow up in these repressive families. As a kid you are absolutely brainwashed into thinking that there's only one right way to do anything, and that everything else is wrong. I spent the first eighteen years of my life like that. So you won't shock me."
"I wish I could do it all over again."
"I don't see why we can't start fresh. There's no reason why we can't start over and try again. We've all done things that we’re not proud of. Like earlier today, I could have called you and found out what was going through your head. Instead, I lost my mind and went crazy. Just think – I could have run away and taken my daughter from her dad just because I didn't understand what it was that you wanted." She leaned into him. "When a simple conversation would've cleared that up."
"You panicked. You had reason to."
"It's really no excuse."
"If we’re competing for poor decisions, then I win today’s. I'm sorry that I thought you would take Eliza from me." She didn’t want him to think she would always think the worst of him immediately.
"It's understandable after how Sutton acted. I'm still going to try to get through to him and make him understand. Not to try and make you talk to him again, but just so he can quit damaging his own clan."
"It really does suck to have a family member that you love just absolutely not understand your point of view and not be willing to try and understand it. You would've thought I'd killed someone when he found out about Eliza. He acted so horrible that I never wanted her to even be around him.”
"You’re right. He spent way too much time listening to your parents rant and rave about pack rules. It got into his head. I changed my mind, so maybe it's possible for him to come around too."
"Yeah, but you're not nearly as stubborn as he is."
Roman chuckled. "I don’t know if you can give me much credit. It did take me falling in love with you and admitting that you were my mate to get me to come around. So maybe it will take Sutton finding a mate to get him to change too."
She gave a dramatic shiver. "That was me thinking of Sutton’s poor mate. I hope you can find someone to put up with his bullshit," she said. "Or I pity the poor female who becomes his partner."
"Can we lie down on the bed?" he asked. "You look tired."
"Yes. I had a nightmare. That's why I called you."
He laid down on the bed and stretched out his strong body and held out his arms. She crawled into his arms and the feeling was perfect. His relief was palpable too. She just spent so many years fighting against the system she was born into, and now she could finally take a breather
She wanted to talk more. But at that moment, she was too tired to listen. All she knew was that he was going to give their relationship another chance, and so was she. Her daughter would now have a father. They weren't going to have to go on the run. And she wouldn't have to worry about her brother anymore, because finally, for the first time in her life, she was going to let someone else help her. She wasn't going to try to do it all on her own.