"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.
I put my arms around his neck, rising to kiss him, expecting a light hello kiss, but when his mouth meets mine, it's a hard, deep one. I jump, startled, but he doesn't notice that either. He kisses me with a ferocity that reminds me of the snow shelter, when he found me in the storm. A wordless, desperate kiss.
I return that kiss, feeding my own worries and uncertainty into it, looking for reassurance he's okay, we're okay, everything is fine. I find it there, in that hunger that promises he's not withdrawing, not angry with me, just unsettled and looking for a way to work out his frustration.
I'm more than happy to give it to him, sliding my hands under his shirt, chuckling when he jumps at my cold fingers. When I try to pull away, though, he presses my hands to his skin. His eyes half close as I run my fingers over his chest. Then his own hands are undoing my belt and tugging down my jeans, the kiss never breaking. One leg free, and that's enough, and his fingers are inside me, making me hiss, his cool fingers against my heat.
I raise my hips and rock against his hand, enjoying before realizing I'm leaving things rather one-sided. I undo his belt and reach inside his jeans, but then he's moving up over me and he pauses, and I know what that pause means. I arch my hips in answer. His hands move to my hips and then he's in me, and it's like the kiss--hard and deep and a little bit desperate--and I reciprocate, beat for beat until another wordless pause, one I know just as well, and I grab his hips in answer, giving him the go, and letting myself follow until we're lying in the snow, panting.
His lips move to my ear, and I'm ready for some wry comment about the snow or the very confused puppy. Instead, his lips press against my ear, breath warm, as he says, "I love you."
I tense in surprise. Then I wrap my hands around his face, pull it over mine and say, "I--" But he cuts me off with a kiss. Before I can get my breath back, he's picking me up, along with Storm, and carrying us into the house.
He deposits the puppy in the living room and then carries me upstairs. Once we're in bed, I try again, lying on top of him, my face over his, and I get as far as "I--" before another kiss shuts me down.