Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
brIELLE
“ I t was looking hopeful yesterday, but the winds picked up again overnight.”
Caleb sighs and runs his hand through his hair. I set the phone against my empty mug and curl up in the corner of the living room’s loveseat, burying my face in the hoodie I stole out of Caleb’s hamper this morning. It’s still mostly covered in his scent, and I breathe it in, letting it soothe the ache of his absence.
The small finches chirp just outside the windows, and I take them in for a minute. The sun is already high, casting shadows on the front yard. Caleb had managed to find a couple minutes to call me during his lunch break between flights. I focus on him again.
“So you’re not going to make it home tonight?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’m hoping for the middle of the week at this point. If the winds can stay lower, there’s a chance of tomorrow or Monday. But…”
He trails off, and I offer a small smile. “I get it.”
I can’t quite keep the unhappiness out of my voice, though.
His being gone wasn’t as bothersome when we weren’t living together. Now it’s almost like I can live and breathe and feel his absence. Maybe I should spend the day at Emily’s guest house where I still have my nest set up.
He frowns and murmurs an apology. “I’d hoped to be there yesterday. Did everything… end up all right?”
Between me and Ethan. Between me and the family. Between me and Camden.
Because yesterday had been the anniversary of Kayla’s suicide.
Ethan had woken up before me and had Camden halfway out the door for a day of hiking by the time I’d made a cup of coffee. I hadn’t been invited. Message received.
I’d spent way too long trying to convince myself I wasn’t hurt that he had wanted to avoid me.
“I took a drive up to Jackson,” I offer, shoving the awful feelings away before they show on my face. “Ethan didn’t seem to want any company.”
Given Ethan’s obvious desire to avoid me, I’d intentionally stayed away from the town, from the families. It helped that there’s a winery on the outskirts of Jackson I’d been meaning to explore for most of the summer. Three hours of wine tasting and a light lunch were enough to have the ever growing pit of worry in my stomach subsiding.
Caleb sighs. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs.
Tears well at his easy affection, but I blink them away. I shrug and mess with a strand of my hair.
“It’s okay,” I say after a moment, making sure my voice is calm. “Grief is complicated. I’m not offended.”
Hurt, maybe. But not offended. And isn’t that embarrassing, to be hurt over Ethan grieving his bonded Omega?
“I’m going to take Phoebe out this afternoon,” I offer, changing the subject.
Caleb smiles. “She’ll love that. She missed you last week. Beau said she’s been sassy for him.”
A chime sounds from Caleb’s side of the call. He glances over his shoulder and waves to someone, acknowledging something I don’t hear.
“I’ll call tonight,” Caleb says, focusing on me. “And I’ll take you out dancing as soon as I’m back.”
I nod and offer a quick goodbye.
“I love you,” he tells me, oddly serious.
“I love you, too,” I offer, smiling just a bit. “Be safe.”
When the call ends, I leave my phone on the table and take the mug to the sink. The pans from lunch have cooled, so I fill up the sink and start cleaning them. I’m rinsing the final piece when the front door opens and a single heavy set of steps cross through the living room.
I swallow my nerves and glance over my shoulder, keeping my body relaxed and the worry off my face. Ethan has Camden in his arms, the boy’s head perched on his shoulder. Dirt coats most of his jeans and the boots he slowly toes off and leaves in a heap near the door. Camden’s eyes are half-shut, but he perks up when he notices me. Ethan eases him to his feet, and he slowly crosses the room to me.
“Hi Mommy Bri!” Camden says as he wraps his arms around my legs, grinning tiredly up at me.
Ethan stiffens at the nickname. Has he not heard it before? I could have sworn Camden called me that around him the last couple days.
“How was your morning?” I ask Camden, setting aside the pan in favor of hugging Camden.
“It was so fun,” he says with a yawn. “We spent time with Nyx. But now he needs to nap. Nana had mac and cheese ready. It’s my favorite.” He pulls something from his back pocket, and I can’t help but smile. The white daisy is smashed to bits, but the petals have somehow managed to stay mostly intact. “Nana let me pick this from the garden. She didn’t have any purple ones.”
He yawns again as I take the flower.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
He pulls away from me with another smile and crosses the large open space, sprawling on the couch and grabbing a couple of his trucks from the basket of toys beside it. Ethan settles into one of the island’s chairs, his eyes locked on his phone. Those nerves flare hot again, but I force them down.
“Did you have a good time?” I ask him.
He glances up before focusing on his phone, tapping a couple times on the screen. He shrugs. “It was fine.”
His tone doesn’t invite follow-up questions.
I take a deep breath, trying to hold off the emotions that are wanting to consume me. Maybe it’s heat drop, and it’s just my body trying to rebalance after going through a complete heat cycle for the first time in my life. I can’t remember if that’s something that happens immediately after surfacing, though. It’s not something I’ve ever worried about happening to me.
I turn back to the dishes, drying the pan and then putting them all away. When that’s finished, I clean the sink and then the counters. Anything to keep myself busy. This fear, this unholy concern over Ethan being completely apathetic toward me is probably just me reacting to being so near to both of them all the time now. And there’s probably some shit that Brett’s left behind that makes it more noticeable, too. Like when Caleb got called to the fire Wednesday morning. I’d halfway convinced myself then that Ethan doesn’t really want me here.
A high-pitched whine echoes through the kitchen.
“Brielle?” Ethan’s low voice skates over me, but it just makes the emotions swell higher.
Crap. It’s me whining again. I swallow the sound and straighten the dish towels draped over the oven’s handle. I wait for the soft footfalls that warn me of Ethan’s approach, but there are none. Inexplicably, I want to cry. Tears line my lashes, but I blink them back. Mostly. One falls down my cheek, and I brush it aside.
“Caleb should be back in a couple days,” Ethan says, his voice suddenly cautious. He’s no closer to me, though.
I breathe carefully through my nose before turning around, trying to keep myself together. Camden’s asleep on the couch, his mouth slightly open and his truck caught under his cheek.
Ethan’s always been about action, not words. Maybe that will be enough between us, like it was Wednesday. Maybe just sitting with him, touching him, will ease the mess that’s happening inside me.
I cross the kitchen and press my forehead into Ethan’s shoulder, leaning into his side until I can smell him over the lingering cinnamon entrenched in the hoodie.
He stiffens. His scent floods the space around us, but it’s stale and sour, carrying his rage and disinterest more succinctly than any word he could utter. I take a step away from him, my heart in my throat.
Just give him time , I coach myself.
His dynamic with Kayla hadn’t been anything like the one I’d had with Brett. Grief is messy and unorganized and every person carries it differently. His resistance to me right now probably has nothing to do with whatever we are.
“I’m going to go to the guest house,” I mutter. I’m nearly positive there’s still something there that smells of him, untainted by his irritation and anger.
His shoulders drop as he sighs, everything about him screaming his relief at my leaving.
Something in me snaps. A piece that had been cracked since he left Melissa’s house the day before I went back to school, a piece that had been frayed and worn by years of mishandling by Brett. A piece that had been slowly healing under Caleb’s attention this summer.
It tastes like bile on my tongue.
“Should I even come back?” I ask. My voice shakes as much as my hands. I press them into my stomach. I take another step away from Ethan, ready to bolt.
He looks up at me, his eyebrows furrowed, but doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t soothe me with his hands or scent or any of the other innate things Alphas have at their disposal when dealing with a skittish Omega.
I back away from him another step, and he grunts.
“Your stuff is here,” he says. “And Caleb will be pissed if you start sleeping at the guest house again.”
Caleb .
Caleb will be pissed. Not him, Caleb .
“Will you?”
His throat ripples, but he doesn’t say anything.
The silence is fucking deafening .
Desperation claws at me.
“I don’t need perfect,” I whisper, the dam inside breaking between one breath and the next. “I lived eight years with a person I thought I had perfection with and it meant absolutely nothing to him. I just need honesty. I just need the person I’m with to want me and not someone else. I…” I swallow down the growing whine. “I need to not be fighting with a ghost.”
Pain flashes through his eyes.
“Not forever. I can… God, I know how much it fucking sucks to lose someone you love,” I say, the words pouring out. “I lost him before he physically died. I cried over him and lost sleep and couldn’t eat. I get it. I can give you time. But eventually, I need to not be competing with her. I need to hear you admit that this thing between us is more than just a physical entanglement because of a genetic mutation that’s marked me as yours.”
He doesn’t move. It’s like he’s become a statue.
Something horrid slides through my stomach and up my throat.
God, I want to throw up.
“Just once. I just need to hear it once, Ethan. I’ll put up with whatever dynamic you want, whatever you’re willing to give me. I just need it once.”
He still doesn’t say anything, though a muscle flexes in his jaw from how hard he’s clenching it.
This time, I can’t swallow the horrid whine. It’s full of grief and devastation. I sob in the next second, but I blink away the tears. He flinches.
“I…”
Hope swells in my chest for a second, so strong it strangles me.
He shakes his head and lets the sentence die off.
And that piece breaks off completely, slicing through every part of my heart. Before I even realize it, I’ve closed the gap between us. My fist hits his cheek with a satisfying crunch that’s almost loud enough to cover the heart wrenching sob that tears through my throat.
He mutters a vicious curse, wiping away a bit of blood that’s pooled on his lip as he stands, towering over me.
“Fuck, I can’t believe I let myself be a goddamn piece of meat again ,” I whisper. I catch the tear before it can fall. I will not cry over him. Not yet, not when he can see. My laugh is brittle, on the edge of manic. “Just like me to be ready to throw away every single warning sign in the hope the bastard will just want me , love me. But I’ve only ever been a replacement, a second-best consolation prize. ”
The color drains from his face.
“Brielle,” he says, rough and anxious. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“That’s all I’ve ever been,” I say.
I blink faster, willing my body to not let the tears fall right now. I wrap my arms around my waist, trying to soothe the awful feeling that’s ripping through me like shards of glass. Crap, I might actually throw up.
“Just the pretty Omega with the good body and enough education to override my shitty childhood to come across as the posh trophy wife.” Ethan’s eyes are wide enough I can see white all the way around. “Fuck, but I just wanted to hear you say it. Just once.”
Ethan’s frozen again.
“Say what?” he asks, dread filling his voice.
“You know damn well what,” I say, my voice cracking. “What I waited three months to hear at nineteen because I was too damn na?ve to realize that the best I could ever hope for was a Beta that liked me just enough to fake a half-decent marriage.”
“Brielle,” Ethan mutters. “Princess, calm down.”
This time, there’s the innate soothing laced in the words. My breathing steadies for a moment. He starts to sit down, his attention sliding back to his phone. The jagged piece cuts through my chest again.
“I deserve to be wanted,” I whisper. “Exactly where and how I am. I deserve to be chosen .”
Ethan flinches.
I swallow the rest of the words building, forcing them to stay hidden away.
Crap, I have to get out of here before I completely lose it.
Another sob boils up my throat, and I don’t bother to quell it. It rips through the room as I grab my purse and rush through the front door.