“I know.” He brings our joined hands up, presses a kiss to my knuckles. The gesture is so tender, so unexpected, that my heart stutters. “But here’s the thing. You don’t have to figure it all out today. You don’t have to have a plan or a spreadsheet or a contingency strategy. You just have to let us show up for you.”
“Like you’re showing up now? With my car and my muffin and my to-do list?”
“Exactly like this.” He grins, and some of the tension breaks. “I’m not asking you to decide anything. I’m not asking you to commit to forever or figure out how a four-person pack works or any of that. I’m just asking you to let me help. Let me be here. Let me keep crossing things off your list and bringing you breakfast and making you roll your eyes at my terrible jokes. That’s all I want right now.”
I think about what he said at the cabin.I’ve wanted you for three years. Since the first time you walked into my garagewith that clipboard and told me my filing system was a disaster.
Three years. He’s wanted me for three years, and he’s never pushed. Never demanded. Just showed up, over and over, making jokes and fixing my car and driving through blizzards when I needed him.
“Okay,” I say.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Okay?”
“Okay. You can help. With the fundraiser, I mean.” I squeeze his hand. “And... we can figure out the rest as we go.”
The smile that breaks across his face is the brightest thing I’ve ever seen. Like the sun coming out after a storm.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“Too late. It’s already weird. We had sex for four days straight and now we’re holding hands on Main Street where the entire town can see us. Weird is our baseline now.”
I glance around. Sure enough, Mrs. Henderson is watching us from across the street, grocery bags in hand, a delighted expression on her face. Through the window of the general store, I can see Margie Winslow craning her neck for a better view.
“Oh god,” I mutter. “Everyone’s going to know.”
“Sweetheart, everyone already knows. You came out of a cabin after four days with three alphas. There’s a hickey on your neck the size of Texas.” He grins at my horrified expression. “Did you really think the scarf was hiding that?”
My hand flies to my neck. I thought the scarf was doing a reasonable job. Apparently not.
“I hate small towns.”
“No you don’t.” He tugs my hand, starting to walk again. “Come on. We’ve got a sound system to secure and a caterer to bully and about thirty other things on your list.”
He shoots me a sideways look. “We’re all in this together, you know. Me, Milo, Elijah. We’ve been talking.”
“Talking about what?”
“About you. About us. About how to do this without scaring you off.” He shrugs. “Pack stuff.”
There’s that phrase again. Pack stuff. The same thing Nate said about Seth and his pack. Compromise, communication, showing up for each other.
“We’re not a pack,” I say, but it comes out uncertain.
“Not yet.” Ben squeezes my hand. “But we could be.”
I don’t have an answer for that. Not yet. But as we walk down Main Street together, past the shops and the people and the small-town life I’ve built here, I find myself thinking about it.
About what it would mean to let them in. All three of them.
About what it would mean to not be alone anymore.
By the timewe get back to my office, it’s almost noon and half my to-do list is done.
Ben talked to Dave about the sound system—confirmed for Friday, no deposit required, “any friend of Ben’s” discount applied. He stopped by Amy’s catering and charmed Amy into finalizing the menu within the hour . “She said to tell you the mini quiches are to die for, and if you don’t eat more she’s going to start leaving care packages on your doorstep”. He even stopped by Mrs. Patterson’s house to pick up the stage diagrams she’d forgotten to bring over.
“You’re terrifyingly efficient,” I tell him as he drops the diagrams on my desk.
