Wayward Son. Forever Marked: The Second Generation of the Marked Men, #4

She's the only girl he's ever loved. Zowen Archer has been in love with Aston Wheeler for as long as he can remember. She's perfect, except for the glaring fact that she fell in love with his best friend instead of him. For years, he loved her from afar with zero expectation. He told himself that as long as Aston was happy, his feelings for her didn't matter. However, Aston isn't nearly as happy as she seems.
And by the time Zowen figures things out, his life takes a drastic turn for the worse. Now that Aston is single and laser-focused on making up for the lost time between the two of them, Zowen is doing everything in his power to avoid her. He's convinced that if she never wanted him when he was at his very best, there is no chance in hell she could care about him now that he's at his absolute worst.
He's the only boy she's willing to wait for. Time has never been on Aston Wheeler's side. She spent too long pretending to be someone she was not. She lost herself in a first love that everyone, except her, thought was perfect. She wasted a lot of time trying to convince herself that she should be happy when she was anything but. She watched for years as the one person who made her feel like her true self drifted further and further away.
Finally, when she's ready to reach out and grab the one-of-a-kind love that Zowen Archer has always silently promised her, it's too late. Zowen is taken away, and when he reappears in her life, he makes it clear there's no going back to whatever they might have been. Good thing for Zowen that Aston is patient and doesn't mind waiting for him to have a change of heart. It's the least she can do after all the time he spent waiting for her.