Page 70 of The Rust in Her Hair

I don't remember deciding to gather all of this. My hands have simply been doing it while I wasn't paying attention.

By the time I make it back to the guest room with all my treasures, I can barely see over the top of my armload.

But I don't put any of it on the bed.

I don't know why, but the bed feels wrong. Too high, too open, too exposed on all sides. Looking around the room, my eyes pull to the walk-in closet. Its door is standing open, the space inside small and dim.

There.

I carry everything inside and sink down onto the closet floor, and something in my chest eases the second the walls come up around me. Adrian and Mack's clothes hang above me in two rows, pine and toasted hazelnut settling over me like a hand on the back of my neck.

But it isn't quite right yet.

Something's missing, and I'm moving before I've named it, padding back down the hall to the primary bedroom, gathering a rumpled sage-and-lemon henley of Owen's from the laundry chair as well as a few undershirts from the laundry basket. I hug them to my chest on the way back, like someone might snatch them away any second. My arms relax once I've carried them into the closet where they belong.

Now I have everything.

And then I start to build.

I don't think about it. My hands just know. The heavy blanket goes down first, folded double against the hard floor. The quilt banks up the wall at my back. I wedge the biggest pillow into the corner and pack the smaller ones around it in a curve, tucking, adjusting, pressing them in tight until there are no gaps, until the whole thing curls around me like a cupped palm. Their clothes I layer through it last, Adrian's flannel and Mack's worn hoodie and Nico's gray shirt and Owen's henley, threading all four scents into the walls of the little den until every breath I take is pine and hazelnut and leather and sage.

When it's done, I crawl into the middle of it and pull the last blanket over my legs.

Oh.

Oh, this is perfect.

I have never in my life felt anything like this. Wrapped on every side, walled in soft, buried in the smell of them, the last of the tension finally draining out of my shoulders. Nothing can get to me in here. Nothing can even see me.

This is what heaven feels like.

Suddenly very tired, I roll onto my side, tucking Nico's shirt up under my chin. I snuggle in, curling my legs up. and that's when I see it.

There’s a piece of paper sitting against the dark of the closet floor, wedged into the far corner. It’s a photo, face-up, half-hidden in shadow.

I stretch an arm out and pinch it between two fingers, dragging it toward me. It's too dim back here to make out. So I push up onto one elbow and hold it toward the thin band of light spilling in from the bedroom.

And my brain short-circuits at what I’m looking at.

It's Owen.

The beta has his legs wrapped around a waist that isn't Nico's. Blond hair, broad back, one big hand splayed across Owen's thigh to hold him up.

Mack.

Owen's got both hands buried in Mack's blond hair, and they're kissing like the camera isn't even there, like nothing exists but each other.

I stare at it, trying to will my mind into believing this isn’t what it looks like, but there's no innocent way to read a man kissing someone who isn't his husband with his legs locked around him.

Is Owen cheating on Nico? With Mack?

The thought turns my stomach. Owen isn’t that kind of man. He’s loyal and sweet and good.

There has to be a reason. Maybe they’re ex-boyfriends…or…something.

My head whips around the little space like there might be an explanation hanging on the wall. And that's when I spot the plastic bin on the shelf above me, shoved back against the rod, the lid not quite snapped down. I can see papers and photos, maybe.

Don't do it, Lyra. This is an invasion of their privacy.