Page 64 of Unclench Me Softly

Someone exhales soft. There’s a shift in posture, the faint whisper of cloth brushing cloth, a single sigh like surrender.

And just for a moment, an actual, honest, breath-suspended moment, they all drop into it.

Even Jax. His eyes close. His breath slows.

And that’s when I realize, wildly, stupidly, against every law of reality and masculine resistance, I may have actually created stillness.

Not metaphorical. Not sarcastic. Not pretend-you’re-meditating-while-planning-dinner kind of stillness.

Stillness.

Real. Actual. Sacred.

I can feel it settling in the space between us like fog, thick and quiet, the kind that makes you wonder if this is what peace sounds like when it finally stops posturing.

Jax isn’t smirking.

Miles isn’t analyzing.

Jonah isn’t interrogating me with his eyes.

Seb is breathing like he’s in the middle of a decade-long nap.

And Asher is glowing. Quiet. Peaceful. Absolutely radiating Fox Cub achieved enlightenment in a moss nest energy.

“Yo, Bliss! You got a thing!” Toad shouts.

I flinch. Everyone opens their eyes. Miles makes a sound that might be a sigh, or a suppressed curse. Jonah lifts a brow. Jax immediately lies back on his cushion like this is a matinee performance.

Toad pushes through the entrance flap with a cardboard box the size of a small altar, held awkwardly under one arm and slapping against his hip as he walks.

“There’s like six of these,” he says, “And I swear one of ‘em made a noise when I hit a bump.”

I blink. “What.”

“Delivery. Addressed to this place. You. And a bunch of dudes. From... Ashleigh?” Toad says.

Asher’s face lights up like the sun. “That’s me! Well, technically Asher, but sometimes the shipping forms autocorrect.”

I stare at him.

He beams. “I got us gifts.”

“Gifts,” I repeat, as if that will slow down time and make sense of anything.

“For Stillness Day,” he says, already bounding across the dome to help Toad with the other boxes. “And to honor our cubs being fully rewilded. It felt like the right time for meaningful objects of quiet support.” He starts handing out boxes.

Miles’s is sleek and black, wrapped with a tiny sage-colored ribbon.

Seb’s is heavy. He lifts it like it’s made of stone and doesn’t even flinch.

Jax’s comes with a warning label.

Jonah’s is minimalist and matte, with a small wolf sticker.

And mine is bigger, wrapped in velvet with a little wooden tag that says:“For Bliss, One who guides, even when winging it.”

I might cry.

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