Page 41 of Keep My Alpha

“I should’ve told you,” I say. My voice comes out rough. “Before the bite. Before any of it. I should’ve just—I thought if I told you, you’d see it was just me. Some guy with a knife and a lot of sawdust, and the birds would stop being magic. They’d just be... weird.”

Because that’s the thing I keep coming back to. Soren loved the mystery. He said it himself: the not-knowing was part of the romance, the fairy tale of being chosen by someone invisible and devoted. I watched him light up over those birds for months, watched him cradle each one like it was a love letter from the universe, and I was so sure that the moment the universe turned out to be me, awkward, quiet, can’t-hold-a-conversation me, the spell would break.

He loved the idea of the admirer. I’m scared he can’t love the guy.

He turns his head. Looks at me with those dark eyes, and there’s so much in them I can’t sort it. Tenderness and frustration and something that might be awe.

His fingers find the bite mark on his own neck. He presses them against it, not flinching, not covering it up. Just holding it, like he’s checking that it’s real.

“I love you,” he says. “That’s not the part I’m confused about.” A beat, his thumb still on the mark. “I just need my brain to catch up, and I can’t think straight when you smell like this and I’m wearing your bite and my whole body wants to climb back on top of you instead of being rational.”

The corner of his mouth pulls, barely. Enough.

His hand finds my wrist. Squeezes once, deliberate, his thumb pressing right into my pulse. Then he lets go.

“I’m not running,” he says. “I just need to catch my breath.”

“Okay,” I manage.

“Okay.”

Getting dressed is a disaster. Takes me three tries to find my shirt because it’s tangled in a blanket, and when I finally get it on, it’s inside out. I don’t notice until I’m in the hallway. I walk shoulder-first into the doorframe on my way out, hard enough to leave a mark. Soren doesn’t laugh, but I can feel him watching me, and I kind of wish he would. At least that would be a sound in the silence.

His apartment door clicks shut behind me. I stand in the corridor for a long moment, hand flat against the cool wall, breathing.

He squeezed my wrist. He said he’s not running. Every instinct I have wants me to turn around, walk back in, pull him against my chest and not let go. But he asked for space, and I keep my promises. It’s one of the few things I’m decent at.

I leave.

***

My phone starts blowing up around noon.

Aaron: how’d it go

Aaron: bro

Aaron: answer your phone

Aaron: I swear to god if you’re sitting in your workshop staring at wood i’m coming over there

I type back: I’m fine.

Aaron: 🤡

Aaron: 🤡🤡🤡

Aaron: did you eat

I look at the protein bar I’ve been holding for twenty minutes without opening. Yes.

Aaron: LIAR. you are literally incapable of lying to anyone except yourself. eat something real or i’m bringing you food and making you talk about your feelings

I put the phone face-down on the workbench and pick up a piece of sandpaper.

Kendra’s festival panel is at three. “Telling the Story Behind Your Work.” Her idea, because of course. She runs the whole schedule like a woman who’s never been told no and wouldn’t hear it if she was. I could skip it. I should skip it. I’m in no shape to talk about my work when my work and the way I hid behind it are why the best thing that’s ever happened to me might be wobbling.

But I go anyway. I told Kendra I would.