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Her mouth fell open. “Voluntarily?”

“Mom has emergency access.”

“Wow. This is a major development.”

“I’m growing.”

She leaned forward. “I’m proud of you.”

Her positive words still affected me every time.

We spent the next two hours talking about everything except the logistics of our respective daily grinds, sitting at the corner table of a café that smelled faintly of old vinyl and fresh coffee. Sloane was tracing the rim of her mug, her movements unhurried, a huge contrast to the quick, defensive posture she usually had when we were around the rest of my family.

“Your family is incredibly loud,” she said suddenly, a small, tentative smile hovering at the corner of her mouth. “But it’s a specific kind of loud. Like everyone is trying to out-talk the silence before it sets in.”

I shifted my weight against the chair back, my arm resting on the table between us. “That’s mostly years of conditioning. When you grow up in a pack where three different households share a single property line, privacy is a currency nobody has. If you don’t speak up immediately, your opinion gets swallowed by the collective.”

Curiosity glimmered in her eyes. “Does that ever get exhausting? Being the one who has to sift through all that volume to make sure the foundation isn’t cracking?”

The question caught me entirely off guard. Most people looked at me and saw the future leadership, a guy who naturally absorbed the friction because that was simply what a future alpha did. They didn’t ask if it was heavy. They just assumed my shoulders were built for the weight.

“Sometimes,” I admitted, the honesty slipping out before I could dress it up in something more resilient. “But it’s the only way I know how to operate. If I’m not monitoring the structural integrity of the group, it feels like I’m dropping the ball.”

“You’re allowed to just sit at the table without being the pillar that holds up the roof, Hudson,” she said softly, placing her hand in mine. Her thumb moved across the back of my hand, a tiny, warm pressure that went straight to my chest.

I let out a low, quiet laugh, shaking my head. “I’m not entirely sure I know how to do that. The instructions didn’t come with a pause button.”

“Then we’ll practice,” she said, her fingers curling slightly into mine. “You’ve already turned notifications off. So for the next two hours, you aren’t responsible for anyone’s property lines, anyone’s crisis, or anyone’s expectations. You’re just a guy having awful coffee with a girl who has a terrible habit of over-ordering appetizers… and not thinking about anything pack-related.”

A relaxed grin took over my face, the lingering gravity of the pack completely vanishing into the space between us. “Deal. But since this coffee is too sweet, I reserve the right to file an official grievance.”

“Denied,” she teased. “We are entirely useless to society right now, remember? No paperwork allowed.”

By the end of the third week, I’d adjusted enough responsibilities to have one free evening every week.

It required a lot of effort. I stopped accepting non-urgent requests on Thursdays. I moved routine contractor calls to mornings. I asked Mom to cover one council update and told Trevor that no project consultation would occur after five unless something was actively burning.

He asked whether smoke counted. I said no. He then asked whether sparks counted. I said yes. Progress required detailed definitions.

Our weekly schedule didn’t always involve formal dates.

Sometimes I drove to the city and sat in Sloane’s apartment while she finished a project, provided she stopped within the agreed time. Sometimes she came to the hall for dinner and stayed afterward to help Caldwell draw or argue with Patty about fictional character arcs.

One evening, we went to the movies with all three of my brothers. Julie insisted it would be fun. Jason picked an action film about martial artists fighting a criminal syndicate on a moving train. Byron criticized the physics before the opening scene ended. Caldwell sat between Sloane and me, holding a bucket of popcorn large enough to conceal his torso.

Halfway through the film, Jason leaned across Byron. “That kick is easy.”

“No way,” Byron said.

“I’ve done it,” Jason insisted.

“You’ve not done it on the roof of a train traveling eighty miles per hour.”

“The train speed is irrelevant to body mechanics.”

“It’s relevant to wind resistance,” Byron argued.

Sloane leaned across Caldwell. “Do they do this at home?” she whispered, her breath brushing my ear.