Page 80 of Pack Frenzy
Brunch was a crime scene.
Rowan and Cassian treated the “all-you-can-eat” sign like a dare, and the buffet lost. Three plates each. Four for Cassian if you count the mountain of bacon he referred to as “structural.” Jess laughed so hard she snorted orange juice, which I’m pretty sure counts as a baptism around here.
Now it’s three in the afternoon, and the cabin is quiet but for the soft chorus of two Alphas sleeping like they’re bears in hibernation.
They made it as far as the living room and surrendered: Rowan stretched on the couch with one arm over his eyes like the sun offended him personally; Cassian draped sideways in the recliner, boots off, a throw pillow crushed in a death grip.
Jess disappeared to her room with a paperback a while ago. So she’s either reading or napping.
Even though the Alphas just ate, I know they’ll want dinner, even if we eat much later than normal. I check the fridge for anything that might be healthy since we’ve screwed up any nutritional food since we got here.
The radio on the counter murmurs from a local station, the kind that plays songs with real instruments and a DJ who sounds like he wears knit hats on purpose. I keep it low. No point waking anyone.
I lean into the fridge and take inventory: baby greens, a lemon the size of my fist, a leftover heel of sourdough, cherry tomatoes rolling bright and smug, two chicken breasts I can treat kindly, or not at all if my charges remain comatose. There’s a little jar of capers I forgot I’d bought when we stopped for supplies, and half a cucumber in a Ziploc. Good enough to make something edible and healthy.
A floorboard creaks softly in the hall as I wipe down the counters.
Not an Alpha. Their footfalls are heavier, the air changes first, like pressure. This is lighter. A hush and then a doorway: Jess, shoulder tucked into the frame, thumb holding her place in the paperback. One of Rowan’s sweatshirts hangs to her mid-thigh; bare legs, warm skin. Damp hair says she showered, and I am not at all thinking about steam on her collarbone.
“Do you ever stop cleaning?” she asks, smiling.
“Occupational hazard,” I say. “If I leave Cassian alone with crumbs, he adopts them.”
The radio shifts into a low-piano intro, something slow and honest. Her scent threads through the kitchen—vanilla, a hint of coffee, skin warmed by the shower. I file the details away like I always do: catalog first, analyze later.
“How are the food casualties?” she asks, nodding toward the living room.
“Nonverbal,” I say. “Both. Rowan mumbled something about ‘never speak of waffles to me again.’ Cassian is currently spooning a pillow.”
She laughs, bright and unguarded, and I feel the cabin tilt a degree toward the right.
We move around each other easily as I set the cutting board down. She reaches automatically for the towel at the oven handle, folds it into a neat square, and sets it beside me. Small domestic grace notes. The sort of thing you only notice when you’ve been starved for them.
“You okay?” she asks, soft, like she knows the question has weight.
About Meredith. About the way the kitchen hums, and the bedrock under my ribs shifted a hair this morning when Rowan took his ghosts out into the fog and came back breathing.
“Define okay,” I say lightly, then honestly: “Better than yesterday.”
She studies me for a beat. Not searching for cracks—just…seeing. It’s disarming, being looked at without a verdict attached.
“If it helps,” she says, “I like that he told me about Meredith. I think he needed to hear himself say it out loud.”
“Yeah.” I pick up the lemon and roll it beneath my palm. It’s way too early to start making dinner, but I like the prep. Gives me something to do besides pull her into a bedroom with me and see if she’s okay with that side of me that loves women just as much as men. “He did.”
We fall into a quiet that isn’t empty. The radio DJ says something about “a song for slow afternoons by the water,” and the music swells, a warm guitar line braided with piano and a woman singer who sounds like she’s been loved enough to fray at the edges.
Find myself swaying while I lay the knives out for later.
“You dance?” she asks.
My mouth curves. “Of course. My mom made me take three years of ballroom when I wanted to be Fred Astaire in tap shoes.”
“You would have been terrifying with a cane.” She leans on the counter.
“I still could be. Just haven’t found a cane that fits me.”
Her smile is contagious. “Wow. Trying to picture you in a tux with a top hat and a cane, dancing.”
