Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
ALIX
Coffee. Not the fancy café kind with caramel drizzle and oat milk foam — real coffee. Burnt and black and strong enough to strip paint.
Then came the sound of her mother humming downstairs — some country song from the nineties that had been trapped in Helen Wolf’s rotation since dial-up internet.
Alix rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling fan spinning lazily above her. The bedroom she grew up in looked… wrong. Like someone had taken a snapshot of her teenage rebellion and fed it through a midlife crisis filter.
The posters were gone, of course. The walls were a respectable beige now, and the only thing left of her adolescence was the faint rectangle where she once tacked up a “No Boys Allowed” sign — which, in hindsight, had been more of a signal than a rule.
In its place: a treadmill. A massive BowFlex machine that looked more like a torture device. A yoga mat rolled in the corner.
Cozy. She tried not to think about what it meant that her childhood room had been completely stripped. Her parents didn’t owe her a shrine, but it would have been nice to have something more than a sad daybed covered in Paul’s hair.
She stumbled barefoot to the closet and tugged the door open, looking for her winter coat. Inside: resistance bands, Christmas décor, and a box labeled MATT’S TROPHIES. Not a single article of clothing.
“Matt has trophies?” she asked the empty room. “For fuck’s sake.”
Then she spotted the small attic hatch in the ceiling — the same one she used to climb through to hide contraband cigarettes, her worst poetry, and a small flask filled with Helen’s vodka. The Wolf family had long memories, but apparently short ceilings.
She dragged over the desk chair, testing it once before climbing up. The air that wafted down smelled like dust and insulation and Bath restless Athena; lazy Major; and Rook, the youngest and prettiest, his breath clouding in the air as he snorted at the sight of them.
Grace stopped short, eyes wide. “They’re so beautiful.”
Alix kicked at the snow, teen angst overtaking her body before she could stop herself. “It’s cold.”
Helen handed Grace half an apple.
Grace hesitated until Alix demonstrated feeding Athena — flat palm, slow step, calm voice.
Alix pointed her toward Major. The horse’s lips brushed her hand and she squealed, half-delighted, half-startled.
Helen handed her another apple and pointed toward Lavender.
Grace held out the apple in one hand, and Alix rubbed her hand down Lavender’s nose.
“She likes you,” Helen said warmly. “She bites most people.”
Alix deadpanned, “She bites me like ninety percent of the time.”
Grace grinned. “Maybe she has taste.”
Alix laughed before she could stop herself. Grace sniffled in the cold as her breath puffed white in the air. She was pink-cheeked and glowing, and Alix smiled into the collar of her jacket.
The wind picked up, slicing through denim. She shoved her hands in her pockets and pretended not to shiver.
Grace noticed anyway. “You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Grace unzipped her jacket and stepped closer, her voice gentle but firm. “Here.”
“I’m not taking your coat.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I’d rather take Rook’s blanket, seriously. Grace—”
“Alix.”
The way Grace said her name — steady, certain — left no room for argument. Grace slipped the jacket around her shoulders, fingers brushing the back of Alix’s neck.
Warmth flooded through her instantly, equal parts physical and something else entirely.
It startled her how easily her body leaned toward that heat, as if it had been waiting years for permission.
Beneath the borrowed jacket, her pulse kicked, betraying the steadiness she tried to project.
She told herself it was just the contrast — the cold air, the warmth — but it wasn’t.
It was the way Grace didn’t hesitate, didn’t ask if it was okay, just saw her and fixed the problem like she’d been doing it forever.
Alix’s breath caught, and she swallowed it down, pretending her eyes were just watering from the wind.
Helen called from the fence, “For shame.”
Grace laughed.
They lingered a moment longer, watching the horses kick up snow, until Helen herded them — the humans and the horses alike — toward the barn. “Come on. Let’s all thaw out somewhere that smells like hay and shit.”