Chapter Thirty-Seven
BILLIE
Blush & Bloom stands dark on the small, happy road. It’s always held vibrancy, a vivacity that mirrors its owner. I carefully don’t think her name, not trusting myself to finish the walk to the shop if I do. But today it’s as dreary as the cloudy sky, as deflated as a balloon left adrift and caught in a tree.
I edge around the front of the shop and around the alley, sliding the key I still have into the back door and letting myself in. The shop’s dark back here, too, and I realize she isn’t here. Even though the shop’s supposed to be open, that it’s Wednesday and she typically is meeting with custom clients, there’s no one here at all. I swallow the emotion trying to swell up and slowly walk deeper, flicking on the work room’s lights and checking the coolers. I drop into my old routine with startling ease, and it has me even more twisted and confused.
I’d paced around her apartment all day yesterday, desperate for her to come back so I could explain to her why I need this to be a secret, why I can’t stand the idea of figuring out how to be a Beta inside of a pack while everyone watches me fall on my face over and over again. How I don’t know if I have the resilience tobe that vulnerable for it to possibly blow up in my face all over again.
But she never came back.
I pull the binder from under the counter, pretending in full that I’m just here working like any other Wednesday, like the last month hasn’t happened. I’m just Billie, using work to avoid my thoughts and feelings again. I slowly build orders and fill the coolers, prepping stems and filling out a new wholesale order from the better of the suppliers. The day inches closer to noon, but I don’t dare stop for food, terrified of what my brain will do when the tedium of arranging flowers no longer distracts me.
Around one, the bells above the door chime.
I frown, setting down the peony I’ve been trying to spin open with little success. Even though I’d turned on the lights and unlocked the front door for deliveries, I hadn’t flipped the sign over from closed. Heavy footfalls echo off the hardwood. Nerves instantly claw up my throat. I walk to the front of the shop, my hands shoved in my pockets to keep them from trembling.
I stop, shocked, when I realize it’s Timber.
His gaze swings to me, an eyebrow slowly rising. Then he leans against the window overlooking the street, his shoulders hunching as he crosses his arms.
“I came to see Carys,” he says after a long silence.
I swallow, trying to wet my mouth. “She isn’t here right now.”
He nods, looking down at his shoes before rubbing his neck.
“Carys is the most loyal person I’ve ever met,” he says, seemingly out of nowhere. My stomach twists. “I’ve known her all my life. I held her when she was only a couple days old, right after they’d gotten back from the hospital. Not sure you knew that.”
I slowly nod. Carys had mentioned it on Halloween, actually. It felt like an entire lifetime ago now.
He rolls his lips together, his eyebrows furrowing, then he sighs.
“I watched her grow up. Watched her figure out how to navigate the world, how to reach for what she wanted even when she was scared. Watched her present as an Omega only a month before she moved over a thousand miles away to a brand new state for school.” He blows out a breath. “I tried to keep my own life separate when she got into high school. Ares had helped rebuild my life after an Omega wrecked it, and I hadn’t liked how much it felt like I was failing her. She’ll deny it, of course. That’s who she is. But I wasn’t there for her when she probably needed me.”
Confusion digs deeper.
“Okay?” What in the world did any of this have to do with me?
“So now I’m making sure I help her out where I can, even if she doesn’t know it.”
He pushes off the window and slowly walks around the room, taking in the various plants on the shelves and the arrangements in the coolers. He pulls a sunflower from one of the pots of water and traces one of the petals.
“Helping her?” I ask, trying to figure out why he’s still here if he came to see Carys.
He blows out a breath. “I’m so shit at this,” he mutters. He rubs the back of his neck, looking at me before focusing on the flower in his hand again.
“Scent matching is intense,” he says after a while. “It smacks you across the face and pulls your heart right out of your ribs. And that’s if you’re halfway prepared for it. If you’ve been on suppressors and have dropped into a heat that’s about three months later than it should have been? It’s like being pushed out of a plane with no parachute.” He drops the sunflower back into the bin. “I’m not saying it as an excuse. You have to decidefor yourself if what they did was malicious. But I’ll tell you this: these instincts, they’ll drive you mad if you aren’t careful. Hell, even if you are, sometimes.”
“All right,” I offer when he doesn’t continue.
He picks up a different flower, a black iris, and twirls it in his hand, then grabs a couple more. He pulls out a twenty and drops it onto the counter.
“When I talked with Carys in October before she met you—all of you, really, though she’d seen Rhett around before going to school out west—she said she wanted a love she didn’t have to question. Something that she would know from the beginning was real and wild and worth it. I told her she would, that when she found the person or pack, she wouldn’t have to guess about it. Maybe it’s fate. I don’t know. But you justknowsometimes. Even if it’s with people you never thought it could be.”
He calmly wraps the three stems of iris, the paper practical if not pretty, and then stalks to the door.
“Like I said… Carys is the most loyal person I know. She gets it from her dad. Most assistant coaches move on after a few years, taking promotions and larger paychecks, but I know he won’t. He loves this team, this organization. Carys is the same way. She loves hard and fierce and without restraint. She values every single person she meets, views them as real and special, vital to the world around them. She’ll never use and abuse. I don’t think she’d even know how, to be honest. The people she picks are damn lucky to have her. I know I am, at least.”
