Page 53 of Keep My Alpha

I lean up and kiss the side of his jaw, right where his pulse still races.

“Yeah,” I say. “Take me home.”

We leave the gallery hand in hand, awards tucked under Wren’s arm, the tree glowing behind us like a beacon. We’ll come back for the birds tomorrow; Kendra wanted the installation to stay up through the weekend. For one more night, Keats sleeps on her branch instead of in my pouch.

Outside, the night air is warm and smells like cut grass and summer. Behind us, Aaron shouts something about Wren owing him a thank-you card, and Ava’s laugh echoes off the buildings.

I don’t look back. I don’t need to. I squeeze Wren’s hand, and he squeezes back, firm and sure—a promise made with his fingers before he can say it out loud. We walk into the warm night together.

Wren

Six Months Later

***

Knox’s bird looks like he took a belt sander to it, then tried to glue it back together without ever actually seeing a bird in real life. Maybe he just got a description over text and went for it.

“It’s a robin,” Knox says, holding it out on his palm like it’s made of glass instead of a chunk of basswood that clearly lost a fight with a pocketknife.

I take it and turn it over. One wing is huge, the other is barely there, and the beak is pointing off at some weird angle like it’s trying to escape. The tail is just a flat chunk, like Knox got bored halfway and said, screw it, good enough.

“Knox.”

“Yeah.”

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever held.”

Benji snorts so hard beer shoots out his nose. Knox just stands there, arms crossed, not even blinking. He shrugs, mouth twitching like he’s trying not to laugh. “I spent four hours on that.”

“You should’ve spent five, man.”

“Oh, fuck you.” But he’s grinning, wide and real.

I close my hand around it, careful not to break off any sad little pieces. “Soren’s going to lose his mind.”

“Good crying or bad crying?”

“With Soren? Both. At the same time.”

Knox claps me on the shoulder so hard my teeth rattle, then Benji grabs him and drags him off toward the grill. Declan’s over there flipping burgers like it’s his job.

The patio at Byrne’s & Thompson’s actually looks different tonight. Someone strung lights through the trees, and there are mismatched lawn chairs everywhere, probably dragged out of storage last minute. The folding table is about to collapse under all of Milo’s side dishes and way too many desserts. Benji went nuts with the signs—he hand-painted them and duct-taped them all over the place. There’s one on the back door that says BONDED PARKING ONLY, and another by the cooler that just says FERAL ZONE with an arrow pointing at Jude, who’s already standing on a bench like he owns the place.

There’s a new sign above the back door, the one Shay had made. The string lights hit it just right. Byrne’s & Thompson, all neat letters on some old wood, and the ampersand is way too big. Declan told me Shay measured where to hang it three times before he let Diego put in the screws. Then he measured it again, just to be sure.

It’s a lot. The noise, the people, the smell of charcoal and cut grass all mashed together. A year ago, I would’ve heard someone shout and bolted straight back to my workshop to sand the same piece of wood for hours. Six months ago, I’d have just stood on the sidewalk, watching the lights from across the quad and pretending I didn’t care about coming in.

Soren shifts against me, settling his weight into my arm like he’s trying to anchor himself. His fingers mess with the little pouch at his hip, turning Keats over and over like it’s a worry stone. He always carries one bird, always Keats. The last one I made for him.

He smells like charcoal and summer, and I let it pull me back down to earth.

“You’re doing the thing,” he says, tipping his face up at me. His eyes are warm and a little glassy from the beer Declan gave him. The bite mark on his neck is healed now, silver-pink above his collar. Mine. My pulse jumps every time I see it. Every damn time. I want to lean over and put my mouth on it right here, in front of everyone, just to see him melt into me. I have to clench my jaw to keep from doing it.

“What thing?”

“The quiet-guy thing. Where you stand really still and catalog structural problems instead of talking to people.”

“The patio railing’s loose on the south side.”