Chapter Eleven
Wolfe
Gotta love waking up pissed off.
What's annoying is it’s not even the loud or smash-something, throw-something, tear-the-world-apart kind of mad.
No, of course, cause life loves to fuck with me, its the worse fucking kind.
The kind that just sits there, heavy in my chest, waiting for me to open my eyes so it can remind me that just because I went to bed and got a solid eight hours of sleep, doesn’t mean it left.
For a second I stay flat on my back, staring up at the dark industrial ceiling over my loft while pale morning light pushes in through the big factory-style windows and cuts across the room in long grey strips. The space around me is all exposed brick, black metal, dark wood, and worn leather.
My bed’s a mess in the middle of it, sheets kicked half off, pillows everywhere, one helmet still on the floor where I dropped it last night like even that felt like too much effort.
The cabin usually feels like an escape. Solid and quiet. Tucked back in the woods far enough that the world can’t get too loud, but still close enough to the ocean that salt hangs in the air if I leave the windows cracked. Most days, that balance does the trick.
Today it just feels too still.
It’s one of those old converted spaces with rough edges that somehow work. The bedroom sits tucked into the back with exposed brick, industrial light fixtures, a low leather bed, dark rugs, and warm wood that keeps the whole place from feeling cold.
The main floor opens into the kitchen and living room. Black cabinets. Metal railings. Brick and dark floors. A beat-up sectional, helmets and leathers on the bench by the door, and enough open space that I can pace when my head gets bad.
It’s not home-home, not really.
But it reminds me of it enough.
The wood. The quiet. The way the place feels grounded instead of polished.
It’s different from the reserve back in BC, different from the house I grew up in with my mom and dad and Wyatt, but there’s something in it that still pulls the same part of me. Something solid and lived-in.
A little rough around the edges. The kind of place that doesn’t ask anything from you except that you show up as you are.
It’s home in the ways that matter.
Usually waking up here resets me.
Usually the quiet helps.
This morning it just gives me too much room to think, and all I can think about is Thorne.
About the way he kissed me back like he meant it, like he’d been holding it in for ages, and then shoved me off yet again, like wanting me is something he should be ashamed of.
That’s the bit that fucking sticks.
Not just the frustration, hell not even the anger.
The hurt.
Because, yeah, sure, I’m angry and frustrated. I’m so tired of him acting like this thing between us only exists when he’s cornered hard enough to stop denying it. But under all that, there’s hurt sat right in the fucking middle of me like a stone.
Because why doesn’t he think I’m not worth it?
That’s the question I keep circling back to, no matter how much I try not to.
Why is wanting me the thing that makes him panic out of everything else in our fucking lives?
Why is it easier for him to let me in it when there’s somebody else in the middle to absorb some of the truth of it?
I can’t stand that one second it’s just us, and out of nowhere he looks at what’s between us and decides it’s too much.
Like it’s too real, and dangerous to touch without burning his own life down.
And sure, maybe that’s unfair.
Maybe it’s not about me, and it’s all his own fear, walls, and bullshit.
But it still feels personal when a man kisses you like that, and then treats the wanting like something he has to run from.
I drag a hand over my face and stare up at the ceiling a second longer, jaw tight.
The worst part is, I know he fucking feels it. That’s what makes all of this so maddening.
If it was one-sided, if I’d imagined the looks, the tension, the goddamn motel room, or the kiss last night in the garage, then fine.
Brutal, but simple. I’d deal with it.
But it’s not simple because I didn’t.
He feels it.
He just can’t stand himself for feeling it, and somehow that hurts worse.
Today it feels like I brought the whole bloody mess home with me.
I sit up with a curse and swing my legs off the bed.
The cabin floor’s cool under my feet. The sheet drags at my hips for half a second before I stand, grab the bottle of water off the nightstand, and down half of it in one go.
“Good fucking morning to me,” I mutter.
The fan keeps turning. Somewhere outside, a mockingbird starts up like it’s got personal beef with silence. A truck rumbles down the road out front. From the kitchen, my phone lights up where I left it charging on the counter last night.
I pad out there in boxer briefs and yesterday’s irritation, push a window open over the sink to let in some air, then grab the phone.
A couple texts.
One from Sayshen in the group chat around midnight that just says
Sayshen: Andre wants everybody in at eleven tomorrow.
And then social media notifications.
I unlock the screen and start scrolling mostly because I’m trying not to think.
Doesn’t work.
Because nothing works.
A couple sponsor posts. Reign resharing something Lena tagged him in that’s mostly just him pretending he doesn’t like being photographed while she’s kissing his cheek.
Talon posted a practice clip an hour ago with no caption because of course hes up at the crack of dawn thinking about training.
Draygon shared some restaurant story from his parents’ place.
Then I hit Echo’s post.
It’s just one photo, posted a few minutes ago.
No face.
Just her boots kicked out in front of her in pale sand, the edge of a driftwood log, a stretch of early morning water gone all silver-blue under the sun, and the curled corner of a notebook in her lap. Caption’s short.
trying not to become one with the ocean out of spite
That gets a laugh out of me before I can stop it.
And immediately after that, a whole different kind of ache.Because I know exactly where she is.North stretch of the beach, past the public access, where the dunes get taller and the crowds thin out and there’s a half-buried log that washed up after a storm last year and never moved again.
Quiet spot. Good place to think, write songs, or stare at the water until your problems get bored of waiting for you and leave.
I look at the photo for another second.
Then at the time, and then at my own reflection faintly caught in the dark phone screen—bed hair, annoyed mouth, eyes still full of a kiss I didn’t get to keep.
“Fuck it,” I say to no one.
Because I can stay here and think myself into a worse mood, or I can go talk to the one person in this whole mess who might actually say something honest without pretending she doesn’t mean it.
And if I’m being really honest with myself, I want to see her. I toss the phone onto the counter and get dressed quick.
Jeans. White tee. Flannel thrown on open because the morning breeze off the water still has a little cool to it before Florida remembers what state it is. I scrub my teeth, drag a hand through my hair, grab my helmet and keys off the table by the door, and head out before I can overthink it.
The bike starts on the first try, engine rumbling low under me as I pull off the dirt drive and onto the road.
The ride out helps. Something about being on a bike always does.
Even when my head’s a mess, movement gives it somewhere to go.
Trees blur green on either side. The air smells like wet earth and salt.
By the time I cut off toward the beach access and park next to Echo’s bike, I’m still pissed off, but the edges of it have rounded into something I can actually carry.
I kill the engine, swing off, and scan the stretch of sand ahead.
There.
Echo’s exactly where I figured.
Perched on that driftwood log with one knee drawn up, hair down and blowing wild around her shoulders, black bikini top under one and oversized white tee that's knotted on the side so show off just enough of her toned stomach to have you biting your lip.
Little denim shorts riding high on her thighs, and her notebook in her lap.
She looks up when she hears me coming over the sand.
The second she realizes it’s me, surprise flashes over her face.
Then something warmer that gets me right in the chest.
“What are you doing here?” she asks as I get close enough to hear her over the surf.
I stop in front of her and grin despite myself. “Saw your post, thought you could use some company.”
“How did you know how to find me from one pic of the ocean?” she cocks a brow, “Or is there some super stealthy tracker somewhere on me that I don’t know about?”
I smirk, Nah, no tracker, sorry to disappoint,” nodding toward the log half buried in the sand, “That log, gave you away. I’ve been here enough times over the years to know it,”
Her eyes land curiously on the log “Well shit,”
I drop down onto the log beside her, close enough that our shoulders almost touch, and look out at the water for a second before I look at her.
“You all right?”
She lets out a breath that almost passes for a laugh. “Jesus. You and your little wellness checks.”
“What can I say. I’m consistent.”
“That’s one word for it.”
She closes the sketchbook and rests it on her knee.
Up close, I can see she’s tired.
Not wrecked. Just a little worn around the edges. Like the week’s been taking bites out of her one at a time and she’s refused to give it the satisfaction of noticing.
I get that.
“You came all the way out here just to ask if I’m okay?” she asks.
“No.”
Her brows lift. “Oh?”
I watch a wave break, then flatten into the shore. “Mostly because I was getting annoyed at my own thoughts.”
“Oh, well that sounds healthy.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not.”
That gets a smile out of her.
Good.
I tip my head toward the sketchbook. “You working on a new song?”
“Trying to.”
“How’s that going?”
She looks out at the water again. “Badly. Everything sounds so dramatic.”
“Maybe your life’s just dramatic.”