“Apparently not you.”
Michael's jaw tightened. “I don't need a babysitter, Daniel. Especially not one who thinks he can show up unannounced and tell me how to live my life.”
“I'm not telling you how to live your life.”
“Really? Because that's exactly what it sounds like.”
“I'm telling you that you're going to collapse if you keep this up.”
Michael pushed off the wall, took a step toward me. He was shorter than me by several inches, softer around the edges in the way humans were, but there was nothing soft about the way heheld my gaze. “You come into my house. My house, Daniel. The place where my wife died. And you stand there with your Alpha judgment and your wolf senses and you tell me I'm not handling things the right way. How exactly would you handle it? If it was your house? Your wife's blood on the floor?”
“I wouldn't handle it,” I said quietly. “When Claire died, I took apart the pack house with my bare hands. Tore down walls that didn't need tearing down. Broke things just so I'd have something to fix. Grief doesn't make sense, Michael. It just makes you move.”
Something shifted in Michael's expression. The anger didn't disappear, but it made room for something else. Something that looked almost like recognition.
“You never talk about her,” he said. “Claire.”
“No. I don't.”
“Why not?”
Because it hurts. Because thirteen years isn't long enough to make the memories feel like memories instead of fresh wounds. Because some part of me is terrified that if I start talking about her, I won't be able to stop.
“Because some things are easier to carry when you don't put them into words.”
Michael was quiet for a long moment. His heartbeat had steadied, I noticed. Still too fast, still running on exhaustion, but calmer than before.
“Anna made lists,” he said finally. “For everything. Grocery lists, to-do lists, lists of lists. She had this whole system, color-coded and organized, and I used to tease her about it. Said she was the only person I knew who needed a spreadsheet to buy milk.”
His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, kept going.
“Now I open the fridge and I don't know what to buy. I walk through the store and everything looks wrong because she's notthere to tell me we need eggs or that the bread's gone stale. I can rebuild a house, Daniel. I can't rebuild the part of my brain that knew how to function because she was handling everything I couldn't.”
“So you drink instead.”
“So I drink instead.” Michael laughed, bitter and broken. “Don't worry, it's not as dramatic as it looks. I'm not going to drink myself to death. I just... the quiet gets loud sometimes. Beer helps make it softer.”
“There are better ways to make quiet softer.”
“Yeah? Like what? Tearing down walls?” He raised an eyebrow. “I'm doing that too, in case you hadn't noticed.”
“I noticed.” I looked around at the half-finished room, the careful repairs, the evidence of weeks of work done by hands that should have been resting. “You're doing good work.”
“I'm doing adequate work. My hands won't stop shaking long enough for good.”
“Then let me help.”
Michael blinked. “What?”
“Let me help. With the renovation.” I shrugged, tried to make it casual. “I'm not useless with a hammer. And you need sleep more than this trim needs finishing.”
“Daniel.” Michael's voice had gone strange. Careful. “You're the Alpha. You don't have time to play contractor for the grieving widower.”
“I have time for whatever I decide I have time for. That's the privilege of being Alpha.”
“That's not...”
“Michael.” I took a step closer, and something in the air changed. Charged. “You can argue with me. You can tell me to leave. You can throw things at my head if it makes you feel better. But you're not going to convince me you don't need help, because my wolf can smell the exhaustion on you from acrossthe room. So either let me help, or give me a good reason why I shouldn't.”
