I laugh, and it comes out a little wet, and I press the back of my wrist against my mouth.
“Now.” Something shifts in him. “I’m going to tell you one thing, and then I’m going to hang up, and I do not want you reading into it.”
“That’s an ominous runway, Bob.”
“There’s a relocation program nationwide for omegas who match outside their own district. Job transfers, housing help, the whole works. If a person found her pack a long way from home, and decided she wanted to be where the pack is, there is a paved road for doing exactly that. Most people go their whole lives never knowing it exists.” A beat. “And I’d be a poor excuse for a boss, and a worse one for a friend, if I let you be one of them.”
Bram’s head comes up. Down the couch, Reed’s foot goes still on the armrest.
“I love Lakeview,” I say. Too fast.
“I know you do.”
“I have my job. I have my apartment. I have Harper, and Beth, and Maren—”
“Luna,” he says, gentle. “That is the exact reason I told you not to read into it. I am not running you off. I’m only telling you that the door has a ramp, in case you ever decide you want it. That’s all.” I can hear him smiling. “You take care now. And Luna? I’m real happy for you. I mean that part most of all.”
“Bob—”
“Bye now.”
The line clicks dead.
I sit there with a warm phone and a wet face and, for a second, no idea what to do with either. Then I set the phone face-down on the cushion.
Nobody moves right away. Then Reed’s foot drops off the armrest. Bram lets out a long breath through his nose.
“A full month.” Ash is already pushing up off the island, and the half-smile he’s been wearing finally climbs the rest of the way up his face. He crosses the room, sets the mugs down on the coffee table, and folds himself onto the couch to gather me into his side. “That’s huge, beautiful.”
Bram still hasn’t said anything. He’s gone quiet and square-shouldered, jaw set. But his shoulders come down an inch, and when I catch his eye he gives me a small nod. Reed leans over the back of the couch and presses his mouth to the crown of my head.
And my omega, who has been a smug, boneless puddle since approximately yesterday afternoon, lifts her head and saysgood. More.Greedy thing.
“Okay. But.” I pull a knee up and wrap both arms around it. “I think we should actually talk about the part that comes after this month is up. Because I want to behere. Not eight hours up a highway from here. But I’m not ready for Bob’s ramp either. Lakeview is my home, so I don’t know what we do about that. At the same time, I really, really don’t want you waking up four months of long-distance from now and deciding I’m too much math and quietly letting me go.”
There it is,says the Derek voice, delighted.You’ll wreck it. You always wreck it.
I shut my eyes.
“Sorry,” I say. “That got away from me.”
Nobody rushes to fill the quiet. Then Bram gets up off the hearth and comes to the couch, lowering himself onto the cushion beside me, slow and careful, so the whole thing barely dips under him.
“Don’t you dare apologize for telling us what you feel,” he says, his thumb brushing my knee. “Here’s where we are. None of us has the whole answer yet, and I won’t sit here and pretend we do. But I can promise you the part that actually matters. We are never giving up on you. Whatever it takes to keep us together, that’s what we’ll do, all of it. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and between the four of us there is no shortage of will. We’ll figure this out together.”
Ash shifts closer, catching my eye.
“And here is the part I do know for certain,” he says. “The day those bottles ship, that’s two million dollars. Money like that doesn’t only save the orchard, it buys ushands. People we pay to run the press and walk the rows and load the trucks, so this place stops needing all three of us standing on it every hour of every day just to keep it breathing.”
Reed sits up straight, eyes bright. “Which means we’ll no longer be chained here year-round. Honestly, I’ve wanted to see more of the country for years anyway, and so have the guys. Once we’ve got a year-round manager trained, we can go to Lakeview or really anywhere else. Only head back up to the orchard for the heavy craft windows like harvest and pressing. So don’t worry. Eight hours is a long drive, beautiful, but it’s not a wall.”
“We’ll find the shape of it,” Ash says, drawing me against his chest until his mouth is against my hair. “I promise.”
But here’s the thing none of that touches, so I make myself say it out loud. “But you still have to hit the deadline. And my heat is coming. What if I turn out to be the reason you miss it? And evenif you don’t, even if every bit of this works the way you’re saying, what if not being here is too hard for you and—”
“Give me your hand,” Bram says, gentle.
I give it to him. He flattens my palm against the center of his chest, over the spot where his heart is working, and holds it there under his.
