Page 50 of Keep My Alpha

“You told me to stop touching my tree,” I say.

“Also that. The lower left still looks like shit, by the way. You’re going to have to re-bark that whole section.”

“I know.”

“I can help,” Soren says quietly. He says it like he’s volunteering for the long project, not the afternoon, and I can’t say anything to that.

Aaron catches my eye. Doesn’t say anything. His whole face says it: See? You disaster. You absolute disaster. He’s still here.

Ava’s already texting someone while Callum unpacks food from the bag. Soren wanders over to Aaron, and I hear them talking about wood, Aaron making fun of my “sad cave” and Soren actually laughing. Lavender and sawdust, all mixed together. My shop’s never smelled this good.

I pick up the finch with the chewed-up wing and turn it over in my hands.

The grain runs against me on this one. It always will. But I know how to work with wood that doesn’t want to cooperate.

I set it down on the shelf with the others. Flawed birds, all in a row.

They look pretty good together.

Soren

Ikeep reaching for Keats.

I reach into my drawstring pouch, searching for her. But Keats isn’t there tonight. She’s perched on a branch of Wren’s tree, turning slowly under the fairy lights with “First Flight” hanging below her on copper wire.

They’re all up there, sitting on the tree Wren carved, with my words hanging below. My pouch feels strangely empty without its usual companion.

One strand of fairy lights hangs crooked, the left side about three inches lower than the right. I’ve been staring at it instead of the crowd, the judges with their clipboards, or the fact that I’m about to stand in front of everyone and read a poem called “Keep My Alpha” with all my feelings exposed.

“Stop staring at the lights,” Wren says beside me, low and warm in my ear.

“They’re uneven.”

“They’re fine.”

“No, the left side is definitely—“

He puts his hand on the small of my back, broad and steady, his thumb tracing a slow circle through my shirt. The warm pressure calms my nerves. My breathing slows, and my hands relax.

“Better?” he asks.

“Shut up.”

He almost smiles. I can feel the shift of his jaw near my temple, and the pine-and-sawdust scent of him stands out against the gallery’s mix of cheap wine, floor polish, and too many people.

Our installation looks amazing. Every time I see it, I get a little thrill—oh, we made that. Wren’s tree stands at the end of the gallery, spotlit, its carved branches reaching up just like in his workshop. Now the branches are full. He worked until his fingers bled, adding shelves and hooks so every bird has a perch and every perch has a poem.

Stumble sits on the lowest branch, her crooked wing angled at the audience like a shrug. Above her, Button the chickadee and Bronte the bluebird share a forked limb, Button leaning as if she’s sharing a secret. Heathcliff the house finch perches higher, chest puffed and bossy, which always makes me laugh. Near the top, Keats the cedar waxwing, tiny upside-down Fig the nuthatch, and Snowdrop the junco watch over everyone.

My stanzas hang from thin copper wire under each bird, printed on heavy cream paper that Benji helped me set up. The words turn slowly in the air, catching the light.

At the very top, hanging from the highest branch by a single wire, is the newest bird. She’s bigger than the others, wings spread wide as if she’s about to fly into the room, carved from pale maple with the grain showing like tiny veins. I call her Stay. Beneath her is the poem I wrote after seeing his workshop, the one that changed everything.

Keep My Alpha.

“Soren.” Kendra appears at my elbow, clipboard in one hand, mic in the other. Her hair’s in a severe bun and she’s wearing lipstick the color of a fire truck, which feels right. She’s been running this festival like a five-alarm emergency. “You’re up in eight. How are we feeling?”

“Like I might throw up.”