Page 110 of Pack Frenzy
A flare of humor loosens her mouth. “You mean the s’mores? Yes. We committed marshmallow crimes.”
She bumps my hip with the blanket. “Felonies, sure—but I’d be a repeat offender.”
“‘Good,” I say, and let it sit there like permission.
“I liked the rest.” I keep my eyes on the water because looking at her mouth means remembering how it parted for me last night, how she tasted, the small sound she made when we kissed. “You?”
Her eyes flick to mine, fast and honest. Citrus brightens her scent, revealing her nerves.
“I liked it. I just…” She rubs a thumb along the mug seam.
The silence stretches. I wait, every instinct screaming to push, to demand she tell me what spooked her yesterday. To fix it.
But I’ve learned—barely, recently, painfully—that not everything responds to pressure. Some structures need space to settle before you can add weight.
So I wait. Even though it feels like holding my breath underwater.
“I’ll miss this place. The beach. I thought I’d forgotten how it felt to be near it, but it’s the opposite. It’s like something remembered me.”
I track the line where the tide has redrawn the shore since last night. “We can come back,” I say, because it’s true and because I want her to know it. “As often as you want. Even just a weekend.”
Her shoulders drop a little. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She tucks the blanket closer.
“Sabrina would’ve loved it,” she says suddenly, voice thinner on the name. “She always said she wanted a place where you could hear the ocean in your sleep. I used to tell her that was a dumb requirement, because what if you snored? She’d say, ‘Then the ocean has to deal with it.’” A brief laugh. “She would’ve loved last night. The stupid jokes. The fire. The stars trying to photobomb us.”
I move closer, eliminating the distance between us in one deliberate step. Grief doesn’t need fixing—it needs something solid to lean against.
My parents taught me that. What they didn’t teach me was how to stop myself from wanting to burn down anything that makes her hurt. That’s not protective—that’s the kind of territorial Alpha bullshit that gets people suffocated.
So I don’t touch her yet. Just stand close enough that she can reach for me if she needs to.
She sips. “Did your family do trips? Like this?”
“Not like this.” I let the steam blur my view for a second, then blink through it. “We were skiers.”
Her head swivels. “Skiers?”
“Born on the mountain, basically. I learned right after walking. Without poles.”
“No poles?” Her eyebrows climb. “Show-off.”
“Poles are a design crutch,” I say, because I can’t help myself, and she groans into her mug.
“You’re impossible. Okay, fine. Skiing family. So… cabins and hot chocolate and those wool socks and thermal underwear.”
“All of the above,” I admit. “My dad believed in ‘if you can stand, you can ski.’ Mom believed in hot chocolate before your fingers stopped working.”
“Maybe that’s the next vacation then.” She nudges my calf with her toes. “You can teach me how not to die on a mountain covered in snow, and I’ll teach you that s’mores on a stove count.”
“They don’t.”
“They do if you’re patient.”
I meet her eyes. “Then you’ll have to show me how that works.”
