“I’m handling the pack fine. The council session tonight went well. Ask Aldric.”
“I’m not talking about the council. I’m talking about you. About your future. About who’s going to stand beside you when things get hard.”
I was gripping the phone tighter than I needed to. She hadn’t said Lorraine’s name once but I could feel it in every sentence, the shape of it pressing against the walls of the conversation.
“I know who I want beside me,” I said. “And it’s my choice to make.”
Silence. Then her voice shifted. Softer. Wetter.
“Your father chose wisely. He chose me. And we built everything together, Finneas. Everything. And then he was taken from me and I was alone. I’ve been alone ever since.”
My jaw clenched. My father. Always my father. The memory of him was the one thing I couldn’t argue with, couldn’t push back against, because he was dead and she was still here and I’d watched her fall apart after the funeral. Held her while she criedfor weeks. Took the crown at twenty-four, swore I’d take care of her, the pack, everything. Eight years of that promise sitting on my chest like a stone.
“I miss him every day,” she continued, voice trembling, and the sound of it went through me like a blade because I missed him too. Every damn day. “And all I want is to see my son settled. Happy. With someone who understands our world. Is that so terrible?”
“No, Mother.” My voice came out hoarse. “It’s not terrible.”
“Then why won’t you let me help?”
“Because I don’t need help choosing who to be with.”
“Finneas...”
“I love you, Mother. But this isn’t your decision.”
A long pause. I could hear her breathing on the other end, the slight hitch that meant tears, and my chest was so tight I couldn’t breathe properly. Every part of me wanted to give in. To say the thing that would make the crying stop, that would make her sound warm again, that would make me feel like a good son instead of the man who kept disappointing his widowed mother. I pressed my hand against my eyes and held my ground because Andrea’s face was in my head and her voice was louder than the guilt, barely, but louder.
“I trust you, sweetheart,” Margaret said finally, and the gentleness in it stopped me cold. No tears. No trembling. Just calm, quiet trust, from a woman who had never once in my life given trust without conditions.
“Thank you.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, Mother.”
I hung up and put the phone down and stared at it. She’d backed off. She invoked my father, invoked her loneliness, pushed every button she knew I had, and when I didn’t break, she just... stopped. Said she trusted me. Smiled in her voice and hung up.
That wasn’t how these calls ended. These calls ended with her crying until I agreed to something. These calls ended with me feeling like shit for weeks. They didn’t end with warmth and trust and a gentle goodbye.
I texted Luca:My mother just called. She was nice to me and said she trusted me.
He responded in ten seconds:That’s the most alarming thing you’ve ever texted me. Did she bring up Lorraine?
I stared at the message.No. Not once.
Luca:Even worse. Get ahead of this, Finn. I’m serious.
I should. I should call her back, push until she told me what was actually going on. Should ask Luca to dig into what Lorraine had been doing for two weeks. Should do anything other than what I did next, which was grab my damn keys and drive to Andrea’s place.
Her place was warm and smelled like garlic and something burning when I let myself in with the key she’d tossed me across the kitchen last week. “Don’t make it weird,” she’d said, and I’dpocketed it without a word because it was the least weird thing that had happened to me in months.
She was at the stove, phone pinned between her ear and shoulder, stirring a pot and talking to Mary. Buddy was lying in the kitchen doorway, chin on his paws, watching her with the devoted patience of a dog who knows food is being prepared. She’d been fostering him again this week.
“No, I can keep him another week. It’s fine. He only tried to eat my shoe once today, which is progress.”
She turned, saw me, and her face changed. The smile spreading, wide and real, the dimple showing. She held up one finger. “Mary, I gotta go. Yeah. Bye.”
She hung up and I was already crossing the kitchen, my hands on her waist, my mouth on hers before she could set the spoon down. She made a muffled sound against my lips and kissed me back, tasting like tomato sauce, and then pulled away.
