‘What would Faye say?’ I thought, as the deeper instinct inside me told me over and over to kiss him. It was almost as though there was a magnet between us.

I pulled away, looking into his eyes, hoping he didn’t see the lust in mine.

“Why didn’t you write?” I asked. I’d promised myself not to bring it up, not to ask so soon, but deep down I needed to know. I needed that closure. Yes, my parents had informed his that he wasn’t allowed to go near me, and yes, they’d been ecstatic that his family had up and taken him away, but what about us? We could have kept communicating. He knew where I lived. He knew how to reach me.

I realized I had my fists clenched, and I let them go, breathing deeply in the moonlight.

“Write?” he asked, confused. “I wrote to you every week for a year, Lewis, and every week I sent them. Every fucking week!” he stressed, stepping away from me. I saw a brief flash of anger in his eyes. “I used to wait by my parents’ crappy door for some kind of response—a reply, anything—to let me know you were still thinking about me. Just one sign, and I would have run away and come back!”

“I didn’t get them,” I said quietly, a sick feeling washing over me. “The post here must have been bad. They must have got lost. They…”

“Don’t make excuses for them,” he interrupted, pointing back up to the house. “You know what happened. I think we both do.”

“Max…” I warned, but he kept going.

“They hated me. They always did. Of course they would! Why wouldn’t they? I was that pathetic Omega always hanging around the house. I wasn’t ever good enough to be your friend, and when they found out about…” He looked down and shook his head. “The minute they realized that there was something more going on with us, they couldn’t wait to ship me off.”

“That wasn’t…”

“No, damnit!” he shouted, kicking a metal can over. I watched it roll around on the floor and then looked back up at him.

We stood in silence, and I could hear his shallow breaths in the dark. He turned, resting on the windowpane with his hands and his head held low.

“They paid them,” he whispered.

“What? What’re you talking about?”

“Your parents. They paid mine to move… to leave. They wanted me gone that much. That’s why we left.”

I felt the anger rising inside me before I could stop it.

“You’ve got it wrong,” I said through clenched teeth. “They wouldn’t do that. They knew how much you meant to me.”

“Go and ask them!” he snapped. “Go on. They knew my parents were poor, and because your mom’s cousin worked in the bank, they knew how much they were in debt. The money your parents offered was way more than they needed. It was too tempting, and they were too desperate to refuse it.”

I looked over at him by the window as the sadness I could hear in his voice cut through me. Not only had my parents destroyed him, they’d done the unthinkable. They’d used bribes.

They’d paid my best friend’s poor parents to take him as far away as they could, and they’d made damned sure that his letters never got to me.

I opened the door of the garden house so hard that it almost flew off its hinges. Shit.

Max looked around to me, surprise in his eyes. He’d only ever known me to be the cool, levelheaded one, but not anymore—not since the wolf in me had matured—and now I was brimming with rage.

I walked out through the door, bounding up the large garden to the house.

“Wait! Stop!” Max shouted, scrambling after me. He held onto my coat, trying to pull me back, but I tugged out of his grip.

I had to find out for myself. I had to know. Did they really bribe the Parkers to leave?”

“Just go,” I said over my shoulder to him as again he tried to stop me. “I have to know the truth.”

“Just stop a minute!” he hissed. “What’re you going to do, huh? Stroll into the drawing room and ask for an audience with your mom? ‘Sorry mom, Max’s outside, and he said you bribed his parents?’ You really want to tell them I’m here? You want this to be over before it’s even begun?”

“What to be over?” I asked, turning to him. “You just got in the car and left. That was it. You didn’t fight. You didn’t try and stop them from taking you.”

“I was sixteen!” he shouted. “What was I meant to do? You think I could live here with your parents and their hate campaign?”

I tried to walk off again, but he held onto my coat and slipped on the wet grass, pulling me down with him.

We collapsed into a damp heap onto the floor, and I felt the anger disappear as we looked at each other, slightly shocked. And then, before we had a chance to say anything, I burst out laughing, a deep laugh erupting from the pit of my stomach. It took him by surprise at first, and then we were both laughing uncontrollably.

He slid towards me, and I took his face into my hands, the smile fading slowly from his still handsome features.

“Your parents, my parents, money, and separation—none of that is important right now,” he whispered to me. “You’re here with me, and that’s all that matters. I never thought I’d ever get this close to you again.”

I felt his breath on my face as my lips neared his, and then we kissed. I pushed him back slightly onto the grass, cradling his head, and I felt part of his body beneath mine. Just like old times.

“Don’t leave again,” I said, pulling away slightly. “I don’t want you to go....”

“Who’s there?”

The sound of my father interrupted me in mid-sentence, and we both looked up sharply. The garden light had been put on, and thankfully we were still too far away for it to reach us, but I could see him pulling on his jacket and my mother handing him a flashlight.

“Shit, let’s go,” I hissed, getting up, and we scrambled away laughing and falling into each other as I heard my mother shout to my dad.

“Honey, don’t go like that. Change first. You’ll have a better fighting chance!”

I looked over at Max to see if he’d heard, but he was still laughing, oblivious to what had just been said. Thank goodness. I wasn’t ready to explain that side of me. Not to him. Not just yet.