Page 96 of The Knotheads Next Door
He sits up, carefully extracting himself from Rowan's unconscious grip, and suddenly can't seem to look at her directly. "I'll start coffee," he mutters, reaching for his discarded sweatpants.
Rowan watches him go, hurt flashing across her features before she masks it. On her other side, Wells wakes with his usual precise awareness—one moment asleep, the next fully alert. He takes in the situation with a quick glance, his expression carefully neutral as he too rises from the nest.
"I should check my emails," he says, reaching for his phone. "The festival committee will be wondering where I've been."
Just like that, the spell is broken. The intimacy of the past five days receding like a tide, leaving behind only awkward awareness of naked bodies and complicated emotions.
Rowan pulls a sheet around herself, her earlier panic giving way to something worse—resignation. As if this retreat is exactly what she expected, confirmation of some deep-rooted belief that connections are temporary, that people always leave.
"It was just instinct," she says quietly, not looking at any of us. "Biology. Heat-madness. We don't have to... it doesn't have to change anything."
She's giving us an out. A way to pretend the past five days were nothing but biological imperative, to return to the safe distance of "temporary roommates" despite the fact that everything has changed.
Jasper pauses in the doorway, his back to us, shoulders tense. Wells busies himself with his phone, though I notice he hasn't actually turned it on. Both taking the easy path, the safe path.
Something in me rebels against this collective retreat. Against watching everything we've built together crumble before it even has a chance to solidify.
"No," I say, more forcefully than I intended. "It wasn't just instinct."
Rowan's eyes snap to mine, startled by my vehemence.
"It wasn't just biology or heat or convenience," I continue, reaching out to cup her face gently between my palms. "It was a choice. Every touch, every word, every moment we spent taking care of you—of each other. We chose that. All of us."
Jasper shifts uncomfortably in the doorway but doesn't contradict me. Wells's fingers have stilled on his phone, his attention clearly on our conversation despite his pretense of disinterest.
"You don't have to pretend it meant something," Rowan says, but there's a flicker of hope beneath the resignation in her eyes."I know what I am to you—what this was. A roommate in heat. A responsibility."
"Is that what you think?" I ask, genuinely pained by her interpretation. "That we spent five days making love to you, caring for you, holding you through the night because we felt obligated?"
Her cheeks flush at my blunt description, but she doesn't look away. "What else am I supposed to think? Jasper can't even look at me now. Wells's already mentally back at work. And you—"
"I'm still here," I remind her gently. "Still looking at you. Still wanting you. Not just during heat, not just because of biology. Because you're Rowan. Because somehow, in just a few weeks, you've become essential."
The raw honesty in my voice surprises even me. I hadn't planned to be quite so forthright, but something about the vulnerability in her eyes makes caution seem pointless.
For a moment, something soft and hopeful crosses her face. Then she shakes her head, pulling away from my touch as she struggles to stand, keeping the sheet wrapped tightly around herself.
"I need space," she says, and there's a plea in her voice that makes it impossible to argue. "I need... to think. To process. This is all happening so fast, and I don't know what's real and what's just... aftermath."
I want to protest, to pull her back into my arms and make her understand that what's between us—between all of us—is the most real thing I've ever experienced. But I can see she's overwhelmed, teetering on the edge of flight mode, and pushing now would only drive her further away.
"Okay," I concede, letting my hands fall to my sides. "Whatever you need."
She backs toward the bathroom, still clutching the sheet around herself like armor. "I'm going to shower. And then... I don't know. I just need to think."
Jasper steps aside to let her pass, his expression unreadable though his scent betrays the turmoil beneath his stoic exterior. He watches her go without a word, without reaching for her, though every line of his body suggests he wants to.
When the bathroom door closes behind her, the three of us are left in awkward silence, trying not to look at each other.
"Well," Wells says finally, "that went about as well as could be expected."
"Did it?" I challenge, frustration building. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you all just let her believe this was some meaningless biological event instead of what it actually was."
"And what was it, exactly?" Jasper asks, his voice rough.
"The beginning of something," I say simply. "Something real. Something lasting. And you both know it, even if you're too scared to admit it."
Jasper's jaw tightens, but he doesn't deny it. Wells's expression remains carefully blank, though his scent betrays a complex mixture of longing and fear.
