There's another bench. Small, simple, built from reclaimed wood and sanded smooth. Positioned near the workspace, angled so whoever sits can see both the plants and the path beyond the glass.
Calder's work. Solid. Built to last.
My throat tightens.
Juniper appears from beneath a shelf, tail high. She winds once around my ankles then leaps onto the bench. Her purr is a low rumble, steady and unbothered.
"You approve, huh?"
She sits, regal, eyes blinking closed while upright.
One moment, I’m alone with Juniper and my thoughts, rain drumming on glass, the next Calder stands in the doorway, rain-dampened and still wearing a dark jacket over his usual henley, droplets caught in his hair. Gray eyes find mine across the greenhouse, searching, uncertain in a way never seen from him before.
"Can I stay?" he asks.
"Yes." I watch him step inside, hang his jacket on a hook, and move to the far workbench.
The air is different from before, charged, connected through my heat.
"Thank you," I say finally, wanting him to look at me. "For the bench."
He pauses, doesn't turn. "You needed somewhere to sit while you work."
"It's perfect." A beat of silence. "For the notes too."
His hands still. "You scared me," so quiet I almost miss it.
My breath catches.
He turns then, gray eyes steady despite the vulnerability in his voice. "Hearing you through that door. Knowing you were…" He pauses. "You were right to choose it. But it scared me."
It takes all my willpower not to go to him and fold him into my arms.
"I'm not going anywhere, Elowen. Whatever you decide, whenever you're ready, I'll behere."
"I know."
Tyler arrives as the rain tapers to mist.
He pushes through the door with two paper cups and that easy grin. "Room for one more?" He sees Calder across the space, and his smile shifts. "Or two, apparently." He glances at the cups. “Here, take mine.”
"There's room." Calder smiles. “Keep the tea, I’m a coffee kind of guy.”
Something has shifted between them too. A camaraderie that wasn’t so clear before. I guess that’s what happens when you share an omega’s heat from a distance.
Tyler hands over a cup. "Thought you might need this. Good stuff from town, not campus sludge."
The scent rises, honey and chamomile, exactly what I would've chosen.
"You remembered."
"I pay attention." He sits down on an upturned crate, comfortable in his own space. "Lila says you're a legend."
"Lila exaggerates." I sip the tea.
"She said you’d say that."
The door opens again, and Julian steps through, adjusting his jacket, hair fuzzy from the mist. He takes in the scene—bench, crate, far table—and recognition flickers across his expression.
