“I mean,” Maren starts. “It makes sense. But are you sure that’s theonlyreason you’re hesitating? Because the way I see it, you’d still rather take a pill that quietly shoves your own biology around the calendar just so nobody has to be inconvenienced by the fact that you exist.” She looks sideways at me. “Sounds to me like you’re trying to make yourself small again, and you’re justifying it by deciding that because they love you, their desire to take care of you doesn’t count.”
“When you say it like that it sounds?—”
“It sounds like you’re trying really hard to override your alphas’ judgment,” she cuts in gently. “Look, I’m sure it won’t be easy for them to manage your heat and hit that deadline. But they aren’t stupid, Luna. They’re grown men with experience running a business. Heck, they brought you to a festival today instead of working, didn’t they? They don’t want you to be small. They want you to take up space. That’s what love is. You just have to let yourself accept it.”
That lands somewhere under my ribs and stays there.
The fortune teller comes back at me. She really was good, huh.
“... You make a compelling argument,” I admit.
Maren bumps her shoulder into mine, a light, teasing nudge. “Listen to me. I do this too, all right? I am the reigning, undisputed champion of ‘I’m fine, I’ve got it, don’t worry about me.’ So I get it. I really do. But that also means I am highly qualified to spot the error of our ways.”
“Maren?—Is everything alright with you?”
“Yes.” She waves a hand, then lets it drop, giving a sharp, dry laugh. “I mean, no. Not really. I’ve got a mountain of my own crap right now, but I don’t want to make this about me, babe.”
I look at her intently and she keeps her eyes down on the creek.
“I just mean... I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately,” she says, her fingers coming up to nervously pick at the frayed edgeof her apron ribbon. “It’s been building for months. Ingredient prices are skyrocketing, the bakery’s margins are shrinking, and to top it off, some aggressive corporate holding company keeps trying to buy me out. They send these incredibly polite, suffocating letters detailing exactly how much ‘easier’ my life could be if I just gave up. It’s fine. I’m handling it.”
She stops fiddling with her apron, her hands going still. “But the point is, I didn’t tell you, did I? Not for four months. Because some genius little corner of my brain decided that you already had enough on your plate, and the last thing in the world you needed was my problems stacked on top of yours.”
“Maren. I would have?—”
“I know you would have. That is the entire point, babe.” She finally looks at me, eyes wet, grinning anyway. “That’s the whole thing right there. We do the math wrong. We’re always doing the math wrong. We decide that other people loving us is a bill they can’t afford, so we go pay it ourselves, alone, in the dark, where it costs the absolute most.”
Down below the bank, the creek rushes a steady, cool murmur that feels completely detached from bombs she’s dropping.
“I’m only telling you that yes is a real answer, and you are completely allowed to take it,” she adds. “And honestly, by telling you, I think I’m trying to tell myself, too. Maybe if you find the courage to actually listen to your heat, it’ll give me the courage to stop facing my own problems alone.”
I breathe out. Something I’ve been gripping for a long time eases off a turn.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “Maybe it’s time we both start being a little more brave...”
Maren pulls me in, and I let myself loose, face in her shoulder, arms tight. There she is again with the best hugs...
“Luna.”
The word comes from behind us, and every good thing in my body switches off at once... because I know that voice.
I turn around and see Derek, coming down the slope through the long grass with his hands in his pockets, easy, ambling, smiling.
“There you are,” he says, warm. “You’re a hard omega to find. I’ve been up and down this whole circus twice.”
You really thought you could just leave.
And there it is. The voice in the back of my head, awake now.
My mouth’s gone to chalk. Beside me I feel Maren go very still and alert.
“Hi, Maren,” he adds, pleasant as anything.
I feel myself start to do the thing. My whole body tilts toward smoothing this over, toward keeping my voice light and pleasant and finding the exact words that’ll make him calm.
“Derek,” I say. It comes out smaller than I want. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk. That’s it. You won’t answer your phone, you blocked me, which, fine, you were upset, I get it.” He spreads his hands. Reasonable. So reasonable. “Look, I made a mistake and I really understand you were mad... but it’s getting a little silly now, don’t you think? Come on, let’s get you home and figure all this out.”
