Page 20 of Run Wild Omega

“Moved on,” he repeats softly. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Because from where I’m standing, you’re living in a cabin in the woods with a cat you rescued because you can’t save anyone else. You work until you drop, and you come home to silence.” He takes a sip of his beer. “You haven’t moved on, Wyatt. You’re just standing still.”

“I built a career,” I argue, but the words sound weak. “I have a house. I have the pack.”

“You have pieces.” Dylan stands up, putting his empty bottle on the counter. “I invited her because she’s pack. Even if she doesn’t know it yet. And because you deserve to see her smile at you, not through you.” He grabs his jacket. “Think about that.”

He lets himself out, the latch clicking shut behind him.

I stand in the center of the living room. Pip rubs against my leg, purring, but I can barely hear her.

Have I moved on?

The question echoes in my head, bouncing off the walls of the empty cabin. I sit back down on the couch, staring at the muted TV screen. The beer is warm now, bitter.

I think of Tess on the ridge today, the way the wind caught her hair. The way she looked at me like I was a stranger.

Dylan’s words settle into my chest like a stone. I haven’t moved on. I haven’t moved an inch.

The sun is up, a pale, watery light filtering through the frost on the bedroom window, but my eyes have been open since 0400. I’ve been staring at the ceiling fan, watching the blades rotate in a slow, endless circle.

Pip is curled into the crook of my arm, her tiny body vibrating with a purr that rattles my ribs. Usually, the sound is soothing, a white noise machine of comfort. This morning, it feels like an accusation.

Dylan is an asshole. I know this. We all know this. It’s part of his charm.

But the problem with Dylan is that he’s rarely wrong. He reads people the way I read snowpack—he sees the layers, the weak points, the tension that’s waiting to snap.

You haven’t moved on, Wyatt. You’re just standing still.

I sit up, dislodging the kitten. She complains with a high-pitched chirp, batting at my hand with claws sheathed but ready.

“I know, Pip,” I mutter, rubbing a hand over my stubble. “I know.”

I get out of bed and pad into the kitchen. I start the coffee, needing the caffeine to jumpstart a brain that feels like it’s running on fumes. While the pot sputters and hisses, I lean against the counter and stare at my phone beside me.

I think about calling Miles.

Miles gets it. Before he found us, before he became part of our pack, he was engaged to a woman in the city. It wasn’t a bad breakup in the sense of violence or betrayal—at least, not in the traditional sense. It was a breakdown of souls. She wanted a life in high-rises, galas, and intellectual circles. Miles wanted to be on the ground, touching the earth, reading the wind.

He told me once, late at night in a tent during a blizzard, that she told him he was “too quiet” for her world. That his lack of ambition to climb the corporate ladder made him boring. She left him for a politician. Miles didn’t fight for her. He just packed his bags and moved to the mountains.

He understands the silence that comes after a choice is made.

I pick up the phone, my thumb hovering over his name. I could vent to him. I could tell him that Dylan is pushing, that I’m haunted by a pair of blue-gray eyes, that I feel like a ghost haunting my own life.

But I stop myself.

Miles isn’t the one who pushed away his soulmate because he didn’t think he was good enough. That’s all on me. Miles’s tragedy was incompatibility. Mine was cowardice disguised as nobility.

I drop the phone back onto the counter with a clatter.

I think about the way Tess moves through town now. She’s always working, always moving, always busy. When I see her, she’s alone or with Leo. She doesn’t sit at the long tables at the Bluejay like she used to. She doesn’t come to the town festivals. She’s carved out a life, yes, but it’s a solitary one. A defensive one.

This town belongs to her. It always has. The Hartwells are the heart of Sweet Creek Falls. She grew up climbing these trees, exploring these alleys, ruling this school. She has more right to be here than anyone.

If she’s hiding away… if she’s staying on the periphery because she thinks she has to avoid me…