Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
brIELLE
“ W e’re about ready, little Omega,” Carter says as he presses a kiss to Faedra’s temple. “Much later and we’ll mistime Dahlia’s nap.”
She smiles and looks away from the small embroidery project in her hands, focusing on his retreating form. He cocks an eyebrow as he opens the back hatch of the large SUV and adds another hiking backpack to whatever is already in it.
I tuck the small needle into the corner of the fabric before folding the project around the small hoop. Faedra organizes the various skeins of thread, wrapping them around small flat cards numbered in a thin, scrawling handwriting that is definitely not hers.
“Which colors did you need for yours?” she asks. “Ochre and amethyst, right? And one of the greens.”
She sets the two colors on top of my project.
“I can order some,” I say, pushing them back to her. “It’s not like I’m short on spending budget.”
Faedra’s lip ticks up in a half-smile. “And so can I. Take them. All I have left of this pattern is the cherry red, and your snapdragons don’t use it. The rest will just be taking up space in the backpacks and, honestly, will probably get dirty anyway. Not much tends to survive these long hauls.”
I relent without much fight. “All right.”
She grins and grabs my tote bag off the chair’s back, easing the entire organizer into it along with the extra aida cloth. I tuck the project on top of it all and then hug Faedra, closing my eyes and breathing deep.
“It’s going to work out,” she whispers. “Trust me. If Dominic and his brothers can figure it out, Ethan can, too.”
I can’t help but laugh. Dominic and his brothers are practically infamous for being stubborn and bullheaded. It took a forced heat and a nasty altercation with Violet’s parents for them to figure out their own dynamic several years ago. I’ve only met Dominic in person once, but it was enough.
Before I can dwell too much on the intimidating Italian, Iris and Rose rush onto the patio, their backpacks on and their hair done in identical french braids. Rose has a bow wrapped around the bottom of hers, a happy purple that coordinates with her no-nonsense outfit of dark jeans and long-sleeved flannel.
Both girls hug me before heading to the large car.
“Bye, Aunt Brielle!” Iris says with a wave.
Rose lingers longer, pushing a small card into my hands. “For that little spot next to our pictures in the living room,” she says.
“I’ll put it there as soon as I get home,” I tell her, giving her a smile.
“Rosebug, you ready?” Logan asks, stepping onto the porch. She turns to him and smiles so wide it lights up her entire face.
“Have a good trip,” I say. Logan and Carter nod. “Be safe.”
Faedra squeezes my hand, and then I walk away from them and toward my own car parked a bit farther down the block.
“You in there?” Melissa’s cautious voice cuts across the cabin.
I drop my head into the pillows, closing my eyes and pulling the blanket higher around my body. Caleb’s shirt is sprawled out under me, so close I can practically taste the cinnamon of his scent. It does nothing to ease the ache in my chest or the morose mood that’s clung to me the last several days since Faedra and her family left on their weeks-long trek through Yellowstone.
The front door slams closed, and I sigh.
“Brielle?” This time it’s Emily.
Damn it .
Melissa might just let me stay here in my nest surrounded by every single piece of clothing I’ve pilfered off of Caleb over the last couple weeks. But Emily? No way in hell she will.
There’s a gentle rap of knuckles against the doorframe of my bedroom.
“The parade’s starting soon,” Emily says. Her voice is softer than before. “We thought you might want to come.”
Surrounded by people and loud noises and prying eyes? Absolutely not. Maybe the overly nosy parts of living in a small town would have started going away if Caleb and I hadn’t started… whatever we’re doing. Dating?
Our dynamic feels too serious to use such a mundane word. He’s my scent match, not some random guy that I may or may not still be seeing in six months. But it’s not like we’re bonded or even living together. The thought has a thrill shooting through me, but I shove it away.
I drop my head into Caleb’s shirt.
Prying eyes sound miserable right now when my skin is crawling with the need for a knot in a way I’ve never felt.
Before I can decide how to tell Emily to fuck off, Melissa says, “Hudson gave me a bag with strict instructions to not open it.”
Oh, hell yes .
It had taken me two full days to admit I needed something other than Caleb’s cinnamon. When he’d come into the Rustic Roast to get a drink for Olivia, the request had just dropped out of my mouth. Hudson, to his credit, didn’t even blink an eye. He just nodded, grabbed Olivia’s caramel macchiato, and assured me he’d get something to help.
I sit up, shedding the blanket. “When did he give it to you?”
“This morning,” she says. She takes a step into the room, and panic seizes me.
“ Don’t .” I scramble out of the bed and cross the room before she can get any closer and mess up Caleb’s scent. I snatch the bag from her and rip it open.
Ethan’s mint hits me in a single wave, and I groan. The flannel is soft and warm and smells faintly of the barn underneath his mint. I let my eyes close and breathe it in. That bone deep ache dulls into something manageable at last, and my head clears.
“You all right?”
Emily’s voice has gone cautious, just like Melissa’s. I focus on her without pulling the stolen shirt away from my nose. Her frown is nearly identical to her brother’s.
“Yeah?” It comes out as a question.
She purses her lips and leans against the doorframe.
“If we leave now, we’ll still be able to get decent seats for the parade. The sunshine will be good for you,” Melissa says. She retreats as she talks, edging behind Emily in the doorway. When I frown, she raises an eyebrow and pushes up her glasses. “You can go right back to nesting as soon as the fireworks are over. And with any luck, Caleb will be back by Wednesday and you’ll have the real deal again.”
One of them, at least. I swallow the groan that thinking of Ethan draws from the depths of my chest. I need to feel his beard again, need to feel it against something other than my lips and cheeks. Lavender bleeds out from me.
Crap.
Melissa’s right. If I stay here for much longer, I’m going to drive myself crazy.
With a sigh, I drop Ethan’s stolen shirt to the bed and disappear into the closet.
“All right. Give me about ten minutes.”
It won’t be enough to fully erase my obsessive nesting the last couple days, but at least it won’t be so obvious that I might as well hold a flashing sign over my head proclaiming I’m out of fucking control right now.
Emily’s voice is lighter. “We’ll hang out on the porch.”
The parade is more enjoyable than I expected. Joan’s coffee shop has a spot in the procession along with Misty Mountain Ranch. Camden cheers especially loud for the ranch’s trail horses, each of them decorated with more red, white, and blue carnations than I think I’ve ever seen in one place before.
By the time we’ve all settled in for the fireworks at the county’s fairgrounds an hour or so south of Creek Falls, my body nearly feels like my own again instead of a primal thing controlled by scents and knots.
The sunset sheds bright golden light over the mountains in the distance, and small lamps are situated every few hundred feet as a guide for the observers. I brush a bit of dried grass off the large blanket Melissa had pulled from her car.
Camden sits down next to me, a funnel cake perched precariously on a thin paper plate that looks moments away from collapsing.
“Do you like fireworks, Bri?” he asks. “They have those in your city, right?”
“Yes, Denver has lots of fireworks for lots of different occasions. And yes, I do like them.”
I steal a bit of the funnel cake, grinning when he narrows his eyes at me.
“Do they have a parade?” he asks before shoving a bit of funnel cake into his mouth. Powdered sugar falls down his shirt, but he doesn’t notice.
When I shake my head, he frowns.
“There’s a lot of parties, though,” I say. “Last year we went to the baseball game and got to watch their fireworks when it was over.”
Logan, thanks to his training of two of the team’s stars, had gotten us a suite behind home plate. Not that we needed the discount, but the view was perfect for the fireworks afterward. Brett had spent most of the night with his hands all over me, enough that I don’t actually remember most of the game.
The thought sours my stomach, but I try to keep it off my face. My stomach clenches for an entirely different reason, though, when Camden’s father settles in on his other side.
“Here you go, kid,” he says before setting a glowing wand at Camden’s feet. “And I got that bear you wanted.”
Camden drops the funnel cake, a small implosion of powdered sugar covering us both, and grabs the small stuffed animal. It’s a marbled red, white, and blue with a black cowboy hat and black shirt that says the county and year in the same alternating red, white, and blue theme.
“Thanks, Daddy!” he says, climbing onto his knees.
I grab the funnel cake before he can stick a knee into it and focus on the open field around us as Camden cuddles Ethan. Ethan’s low chuckle sends a bolt through me, and I clench my legs. Oh god. I need to figure out a way to put at least one more person between me and Camden because there’s no way I can handle sitting within two feet of Ethan during this entire event.
The universe doesn’t seem to hear my silent pleading, though. Olivia and Hudson sit behind us, chatting with his parents, while Beau and Emily sit on the other side of Ethan. Her parents settle on a blanket to her other side. Melissa perches next to me before I can ask her to switch, to give me just a bit of space within the confines of our group.
An expectant wave of quiet sweeps through the crowd. Camden giggles and eats another bit of his funnel cake.
And then, as if it isn’t enough to be forced so close to Ethan when I want to climb him like a damn tree, a man I don’t recognize comes up to the group.
“There room for one more?” he asks. He feels familiar, but I can’t place him.
“Of course, Triston,” Beau says.
“Here, kid, you’ll need to sit on a lap.” Ethan grabs Camden’s light-up wand along with a couple other small items, clearing the blanket.
“Oh, okay,” he says. And then he climbs into my lap without asking, clutching the bear to his chest as he looks toward the nearly darkened sky.
There’s a long, heavy silence.
And then Ethan sighs and fills most of the spot Camden had occupied, giving Triston just enough room to wedge between Beau and Ethan.
A small breeze picks up in the field and carries that mint I’d know in the middle of a damn crowd right into me. My thighs clench, and a flush heats my chest. I swallow the lump in my throat and keep my body relaxed.
These fireworks can’t end fast enough.