“I've never claimed to be subtle.”
“No. You really haven't.” Michael leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, studying me like I was a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. “Can I think about it?”
“Take all the time you need.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then you say no. No hard feelings. The offer doesn't come with strings.”
“Everything comes with strings.”
“Not this.”
He held my gaze for a long moment, searching for something. I don't know if he found it, but some of the wariness in his expression eased.
“I'll think about it,” he said finally. “That's all I can promise right now.”
“That's enough.”
We stood there in the doorway, the evening light turning gold around us. Michael's heartbeat had steadied. His hands weren't shaking anymore. He looked tired still, bone-deep exhausted in a way that wouldn't fix itself overnight. But he also looked... better. Lighter. Like some of the weight he'd been carrying had shifted, just a little.
“Get some sleep,” I said.
“Get some yourself. You look almost as tired as I feel.”
“I'm an Alpha. We don't get tired.”
“That's the most obvious lie you've told all day.”
Probably true.
I headed down the porch steps, made it halfway to the truck before Michael called out.
“Daniel?”
I turned back.
He was standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the warm light of the house behind him. The house he was rebuilding with his own two hands, one nail at a time.
“Same time tomorrow?” he asked. “There's a lot more trim that needs doing. And I apparently can't be trusted with a hammer.”
My wolf did something that felt suspiciously like joy.
“Same time tomorrow,” I agreed.
Michael smiled. Real and warm and just for me.
I carried that smile all the way home.
3
LEARNING TO LAND
MICHAEL
The Hollow Pines Community Center gym had a smell you couldn’t scrub out if you tried—old sweat baked into rubber mats, disinfectant that only ever half-worked, and that faint metallic tang of pennies that always clung to a place where people bled for fun.
The fluorescent lights were already humming, too bright for six in the morning, turning everything a sickly yellow. The ring in the corner looked like it belonged to another decade—frayed ropes, canvas stained darker in patches that never truly lifted. There were ghosts in that ring. Not the supernatural kind. Just the ordinary kind. Men who came here to prove something. Boys who didn’t know what they were becoming yet.
