“Wait, slow down. What happened?” I say. “Are you serious?” And then: “No, no, don’t worry. I’ll sort it out. I’ll be there, okay? Give me a day or two.” Then I hang up and stare at Chris with an expression I’ve carefully arranged into something that reads as reluctant rather than desperate.
“Clio’s in a bit of a state. She had a horrible breakup,” I explain. “I think I’m going to need to cut this short. She really needs someone there.”
The table goes silent.
Chris studies me. Not the amused look, not the quiet contentment from five minutes ago, but the one from when we were kids and he could tell something was wrong before I’d said a word. “That was fast,” he says. “You’ve barely been here a week.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You said you were staying longer this time.”
“I know I did.”
“Addi.” He says my name the way he used to when we were younger and I was about to do something he could already see was going to go badly. “You know you can actually talk to me. Whatever’s going on with Clio, or whatever’s going on with anything, you can say it.”
“She needs me there. It’s not a big thing. I just don’t want to leave her on her own when she’s…”
“She’s what?”
I take a breath. “Going through relationship stuff that went really bad. I’ll explain later when I know what’s going on.” Which is not untrue, exactly. Clio is always going through some stuff and telling me about it. It’s one of the things I love about her.
Chris is quiet for a moment, Hannah taking a small bite of her cake as if trying to pretend she’s not here with us. Then he says, “Think about what I said with you moving back here.” He pauses. “We could actually be in the same place again. Be around each other. I thought maybe this trip was the beginning of that.”
I need that too, so badly. That’s the maddening part of this. I came here partly because I wanted that and partly because I was going to ask for his help. Now I can have neither because I’ve already spent a week in this town, and if I’m right about the man across that street, then I’ve already spent too long drawing a line from Los Angeles to Whispering Grove, straight to my brother’s door.
Hannah’s hand finds mine on the table, and she doesn’t say anything, just rests her fingers there for a moment. I’m stupidly grateful for it because it means she’s not looking at my face right at this particular second.
Chris has a pack. He has Hannah. He has two packmates who are woven into his life, into this business, into this town. And Hannah, I realized last night when I caught the four of them whispering in the kitchen, their faces wearing the most private, tender expressions I’ve ever seen on any of them. She is their world, and they finally get a chance to start a new family together.
I’m not going to be the thing that shatters that by bringing whatever is following me through the door of this life they’ve built, sit down at their table, and ask them to absorb it. Chris would say yes without blinking, and he’d mean it. And that’s exactly why I can’t ask. Because the answer would beof courseand then the problem would be his too, and his Omega’s, and his pack’s, and this town’s, and I would have taken the best, most peaceful thing I’ve seen in years and turned it into collateral damage.
I can’t do it. I just can’t.
“I’ll come back,” I say, and I make myself hold his attention when I say it because I need him to know I mean it. “I give you my word. Once things settle down with Clio, I’ll return and we’ll actually do it properly. We’ll talk about the job thing and all of it.” I pause. “And honestly? I love this town. And it clearly suits you. Maybe there’s something in that for me too, eventually.”
He watches me for a long moment, then the corner of his mouth moves. “That supposed to be a compliment?”
“Absolutely. Don’t make it into a whole thing.”
“I would never.”
“You absolutely would.”
Hannah is still squeezing my hand, smiling, and looking between us like we’re the most entertaining thing she’s seen all week. I squeeze back and try to hold on to the feeling of this, the warm café and the snow outside and my brother across the table, so I can take it with me when I go.
Back at his place, I pack like someone who’s being timed.
I’ve always been methodical about packing. From years of work travel, I developed a system—everything rolled, toiletries in a specific order, nothing wasted. None of that system is happening right now. I’m pulling things from the wardrobe, cramming them into my bag, and doing a genuinely terrible job of it. I keep glancing at the window even though I’m on the second floor of my brother’s place and the backyard below is empty and quiet.
I stop with a folded sweater in my hands and let myself think it clearly, just once, before I keep going.
I came here for Chris. That was the real plan, underneath the visit, underneath the Christmas catch-up excuse. He knows how to think about danger in a practical way that I don’t, not yet, not properly. I came here because I needed his brain and to feel safe somewhere while I figured out what came next.
And then I got here and met Hannah. I saw this whole life they’re building together, and I understood, in a way I hadn’t let myself think about on the trip up, what asking for help would actually cost.
Nope, I can’t do that to them.
I zip the bag.
