“I have to work eventually. The spring festival...”
“Can wait a day.” Milo’s fingers scratch gently at my scalp. “The town will survive without you for forty-eight hours.”
“But...”
“Tessa.” Ben’s voice is firm but gentle. “You just formed three pack bonds. You’re allowed to take a break.”
Through the bond, I feel their certainty. Their commitment. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together.
“We’ll be here,” Elijah adds quietly. “When you’re ready to go back. We’ll be here.”
I close my eyes and let myself sink into their warmth.
We spendthe day doing nothing.
It’s harder than it sounds. I keep reaching for my phone, for my clipboard, for anything that will let me be productive. Ben confiscates my phone after the third time I check my email. Milo hides my clipboard somewhere I’ll never find it.
“You’re twitching,” Milo observes around noon.
“I don’t twitch.”
“You’re definitely twitching. Ben, is she twitching?”
“Like a caffeinated squirrel.”
“I hate both of you.”
“You love us.” Ben grins. “It’s literally in your brain now. I can feel it.”
Through the bond, I feel his smugness, affectionate and teasing. I send back a wave of exasperated fondness, and his grin widens.
“This is going to take some getting used to,” I admit.
“The bond?”
“The... feeling each other. All the time.”
“It gets easier,” Milo says. “More natural. Eventually you won’t even notice it. It’ll just be like having another sense.”
“How do you know? You’ve only had the bond for twelve hours.”
“I read a lot of romance novels.”
Ben throws a pillow at him.
By evening, the panic has faded. The need to be productive has quieted to a manageable hum.
Maybe this is what rest feels like. Maybe this is what having people to lean on feels like.
I’ve never really known before.
That night,we pile into Elijah’s bed together.
It’s big enough, barely. A California king with a headboard carved with mountain peaks and pine trees—of course he built it himself—and we have to arrange ourselves carefully. Elijah on the outside because he runs coldest. Ben next because he’s a furnace. Me in the middle because they all want me close. Milo on the other side with his hand tangled in mine.
“We should get a bigger bed,” Milo says.
“This bed is enormous.”
