Page 65 of Pack Frenzy
“I have very expressive eyes. It’s not my fault people respond to them.”
I snag a piece before they can demolish the whole plate. “If we get kicked out of here, I’m blaming you.”
“Please. They love me here,” Eli says with absolute confidence. Then, quieter, just to me: “You good?”
I nod, because I am. Or I’m getting there, anyway. And that’s enough for now.
We tap our glasses like it’s champagne, and a puff of sugar dusts the table, glittering in the light. Rowan nudges the dessert plate a careful inch toward the middle—equidistant from all of us.
After the fourth time, Eli goes for more; Rowan slides it back half an inch, a silentpace yourself.
“Rude,” Eli mutters, already smiling. “It’s calledsharing, Rowan. Look it up.” Cassian snorts, reaching for his glass. “You mean the kind that ends with someone in the ER.”
“Semantics,” Eli says, grinning wider.
Cinnamon hits my tongue, warm and ridiculous, and the knot in my chest loosens just enough to let air in.
At another bite, Eli catches me licking sugar off my thumb and looks away too late, ears going faintly pink. The sight of it does something traitorous to my stomach—this brilliant, vibrantman who’s been nothing but kind to me, who held back at the table like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to want me.
I’m in so much trouble.
Cassian’s grin is pure mischief next to me—he definitely noticed Eli’s reaction. I pretend I’m oblivious to both of them, but the warmth pooling low in my belly says otherwise.
After we pay, Eli over-tipping again, because apparently, he tips like he’s never had to count coins, we wander through the shops lining the boardwalk.
The evening’s gone soft and purple, twilight settling over everything like a blanket. We drift from storefront to storefront with no particular destination, just the pleasure of being together, of having nowhere else we need to be.
Rowan buys a jar of local honey from an old woman who calls him sweetheart until he looks like he’d rather face armed combat. The tips of his ears go red, and he mumbles something that might be thank you, clutching the jar like a shield. I bite back a smile, charmed by this crack in his usual composure, this glimpse of the man underneath the careful control.
Cassian picks out a baseball cap that saysCaptain of Bad Decisionsand puts it on backward, striking a pose that should be ridiculous but somehow isn’t. It shouldn’t work; the cap’s absurd, and the pose is worse, but he makes it charming anyway, this willingness to be silly for the sake of making us smile.
Eli finds a tiny plush penguin in a tourist trap and immediately names it Churro, tucking it into his jacket pocket so just the head pokes out. “He’s our mascot now,” he declares with absolute seriousness.
“I wasn’t going to ask,” Cassian says mildly.
“You were thinking it.”
“Was I?”
“Loudly.”
“And before you ask, yes, he’s coming back to the cabin with us.”
“Our cabin,” I say without thinking, and watch something flicker across his face—surprise, then pleasure, then that careful hope again.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Our cabin.”
And I can’t stop smiling. Can’t stop feeling like maybe, possibly, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
We browse the shops along the strip. A bell-jar jellyfish lamp blinks pink at me from one window, and I almost stop, but then Cassian’s hand brushes the small of my back, guiding me forward, and I forget about the lamp entirely.
There’s a stack of smooth pebbles in another shop that are cool when I touch them, satisfying in a weird way, but nothing calls to me like that postcard already did. I’m good with what I have.
“Who’s ready for a carnival?” Eli asks, already grinning.
Cassian checks the time. “It’s pushing four. We should dump the loot and feed Jess something that isn’t fried joy.”
“Especially since there won’t be anything healthy at the carnival.” Rowan shakes his head, but there’s a brightness in his eyes.
