A single word.
“Explain.”
Judah is pressed against the wall beside the refrigerator, as far from the direction of Mason’s scent as the cramped kitchen allows. He’s breathing through his mouth and his hands are shaking so violently I can hear his knuckles scraping against the plaster behind him. His jaw is clenched tight enough that I’d swear I can hear his teeth grinding from three feet away.
He looks like a man trying to hold back a tidal wave with his bare hands.
Phoenix’s gaze flicks from me to him, assessing. Whatever she sees makes her lips press into a thin line.
“You.” She points at Judah. “Are clearly useless right now.” The finger swings toward me. “So you. Talk. I want the whole story, from the beginning.”
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Because where the hell am I supposed to start? With the summer we were fifteen, when I realized that my best friend was in love with his other best friend and neither of them had figured it out yet? With the summer break after Mason’s senior year, when they came back from a camping trip looking like someone had died?
With the August morning that I showed up to Mason’s house only to be told by his mother that he left for college the night before?
Phoenix’s eyes narrow. The gold flecks in her irises seem to pulse with impatience.
“I’m waiting.”
Right.
Then I start talking, because someone has to, and Judah is currently incapable of stringing two words together.
“The three of us grew up together,” I say. “Me, Judah, and Mason. Inseparable since elementary school. I was the foster kid the Daniels family took in when I was fifteen. Mason was our next-door neighbor…”
I trail off. My throat tightens around the words.
Phoenix’s eyes narrow. “Mason’s parents live in Florida.”
“They retired there a couple years ago.”
Her head tilts to the side as she studies me. “So what happened?”
“The summer after Mason’s senior year.” The words come out rougher than I intended. “They took a camping trip tocelebrate Mason’s graduation. Last adventure before he left for NYU on a full scholarship.”
Her expression has softened, just a touch, as if she already has some idea what’s coming. “And then?”
“His heat came early…and I guess the rest is history.”
I glance at Judah. He’s not looking at me. His eyes are fixed on some middle distance, focused on nothing, seeing everything. The tendons in his neck stand out like cables.
“Mason left for NYU two weeks later.” The old anger surfaces despite my best efforts to keep it clinical. I can feel it crawling up my throat, bitter and hot. “No goodbye to me. No real goodbye to Judah. Just gone.”
The kitchen goes quiet. Even the old house seems to hold its breath, settling around us with the particular stillness of a structure that has witnessed too many secrets.
“Judah spiraled,” I continue, and my voice has gone rough at the edges now. Can’t help it. “I held him together while barely holding myself together, because Mason wasn’t just Judah’s omega. He was my family too. The first real family I ever had.”
Something hot pricks at the corners of my eyes. I blink it back, hard.
“So yeah.” I shove my hands into my pockets to hide the way they’ve started shaking. “I’m still angry. At Mason. For leaving without a word. For not trusting us enough to explain.”
I force myself to meet Phoenix’s gaze, knowing what I’m about to say might be the nail in the coffin of her opinion of me.
“Even knowing there might be more to the story than I understand—even knowing that I don’t have all the pieces—I’m still angry. And that’s probably not fair. But it’s true.”
