Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
PHOENIX
I snap awake fast enough that it makes my head ache.
Atticus lies beside me, propped against the headboard with a laptop balanced on his thighs.
The blue-white glow of the screen catches the angles of his face, highlighting the concentration furrowing his brow.
He’s wearing reading glasses—actual reading glasses, tortoiseshell frames that sit slightly crooked on the bridge of his nose—and the sight is so aggressively domestic that my brain needs a full five seconds to process it.
He’s still here.
I blink at him, cataloging details through the pleasant fog of heat-induced exhaustion. The next wave will probably be coming soon, but right now I feel a bone deep tiredness that is difficult to fight.
So it’s easy to just lay here and look at him.
He threw on a t-shirt at some point, soft and worn thin enough to see the shadow of his collarbones through the fabric.
His hair is a mess—properly wrecked, not the artful tousle he cultivates for cameras.
There’s a scratch on his neck that I definitely put there, though I can’t pinpoint exactly when.
He hasn’t seemed to notice I’m awake yet. His fingers move across the trackpad, scrolling through what looks like a music production program, and he mouths words silently as he reads something on the screen. Every few seconds he pauses, tilts his head, then resumes scrolling.
“I can practically hear you thinking,” he drawls.
“You wear glasses,” I say. My voice comes out like gravel dragged through sandpaper.
Atticus glances down at me. The corner of his mouth lifts.
“You’re alive.”
“Apparently.” I shift against the pillows, testing the state of my body. Sore in places I forgot existed. Pleasantly wrung out, like a washcloth that’s been twisted and hung to dry. The hollow ache in my belly has dulled to something manageable. “How long was I out?”
“Few hours.” He closes the laptop and sets it on the nightstand. “You talked in your sleep.”
“I did not.”
“You did. Something about Gerald the lobster owing you money.”
I groan and press my face into the pillow. It smells like Mason and Atticus and me, all layered together in a way that makes my heart pound.
When I resurface, Atticus is watching me with an expression I can’t quite read. Patient. Almost careful, like he’s handling something more fragile than he expected.
“You’re still here,” I say, and it comes out smaller than I intended. More honest.
His brows draw together. “Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know.” I pick at a loose thread on the pillowcase, unable to meet his eyes. “Gone, I guess.”
The silence that follows has a texture. Heavy. Weighted with something neither of us has named.
“Let me make sure I’m understanding you.” Atticus shifts onto his side, facing me fully. The reading glasses slide down his nose and he pushes them back up with one finger. “You thought I was going to beat your ass, fuck you, and then just… leave?”
Heat floods my cheeks that has absolutely nothing to do with my cycle. “I didn’t really think about it. But… maybe.”
He stares at me for a long beat. Something moves behind those green eyes—not anger exactly, but something adjacent to it. Sharper. More personal.
“You must be hanging around some real shit alphas, firebird.”
Laurence Starling’s hotel suite. The click of the door locking. The way he smiled after, like he’d accomplished something, and then checked emails his phone while I gathered my clothes from the floor.
The parade of industry alphas since then—directors, producers, executives—who treated omegas like amenities. Like room service. Something you ordered, consumed and forgot about before checkout.
I swallow against the sudden tightness in my throat, too tired to argue the point.
“That’s probably true.”
Atticus turns his head to give me his full attention.
His gaze lingers for a moment on the exposed curve of my shoulder where the sheet has slipped, on the constellation of marks he left across my collarbone, but it returns quickly to my face.
Something almost protective flickers behind those green eyes.
“How are you doing?”
I stretch experimentally, then wince as my backside protests the movement. The memory of his palm connecting with my skin sends a jolt of heat through me that has nothing to do with my cycle.
“Fine,” I say, aiming for nonchalant. “Aside from the bruises.”
“You earned those.”
He says it matter-of-factly. Like he’s commenting on the weather rather than the aftermath of putting me over his knee like a misbehaving child.
God. The memory alone makes my stomach clench.
Atticus’s mouth curves into something that’s not quite a smile. He sits up straighter against the headboard, adjusting the pillow behind him. “You want to soak in that tub? Might help with the soreness. Or I can get you something to eat.”
I push myself up to sitting, wincing again as my weight settles. The sheet pools around my waist, and I’m suddenly very aware that I’m still naked underneath. Atticus’s gaze flicks downward for a split second before returning to my face.
If I wasn’t exhausted, it might be tempting to do something with that.
“I’m too tired to do anything,” I admit, pulling the sheet higher. “I feel like I could just lay here for an entire week.”
“Then go back to sleep.”
“I’m not that kind of tired.” My eyes close despite the words, lids heavy as lead. “My brain won’t shut up.”
The mattress shifts as Atticus settles back against the headboard. I hear the soft click of his laptop opening again, the quiet tap of keys.
I should rest. Should let the exhaustion pull me under, let my body recover before the next wave hits. But something keeps me tethered to consciousness—a restless buzzing under my skin that has nothing to do with heat and everything to do with the man beside me.
I crack one eye open.
Atticus has returned to whatever he was working on, those ridiculous glasses perched on his nose as he scrolls through lines of text.
The screen glow softens the angles of his face, makes him look younger.
More approachable. Less like a rock star and more like someone’s slightly disheveled boyfriend catching up on emails during a lazy morning.
The thought makes something dangerous flutter in my chest.
Hot professor, my traitorous brain supplies. He looks like a hot professor grading papers.
I need a distraction. Desperately.
“What are you working on?” The question comes out before I can think better of it.
Atticus glances up, one eyebrow rising. “Thought you were too tired to stay awake.”
“I’m too tired for moving. Talking requires significantly less effort.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, but turns the laptop so I can see the lines of text filling the screen.
“I’ve been fighting to win the lead role in this project for about six months now.
The director just sent my agent the script so I assume that’s a good sign.
” He scrolls down, showing me more pages.
“It’s this musical romantic drama, but a remake of this famous film from the 1930s.
The production is independent, but they’ve got solid funding. ”
“What’s it about?”
“A musician struggling with addiction falls for a working-class girl whose career he helps launch. She surpasses him. He spirals. It’s devastating and beautiful and exactly the kind of thing that never gets made anymore because studios are too busy churning out superhero sequels.”
I push myself higher against the pillows, interested despite my exhaustion. “That sounds…”
“Depressing as hell?” He grins. “But sort of beautiful, too. It’s serious, you know? The kind of role that actually means something. Part of why I took the bit part in your movie was to sell my ability to work on a screen instead of a stage.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to do serious work in movies,” I admit. “I thought the acting thing was just…dabbling. You know how athletes decide to start clothing lines or everyone puts their name on a perfume.”
He shrugs, but there’s something careful in the gesture. “Music will always be my passion. But acting lets me disappear into someone else for a while. Be someone without all the baggage of being me. It’s a privilege to have the chance to do that.”
I understand that more than I want to admit.
“Sounds like the kind of movie that gets Oscar buzz.”
“That’s the hope. The Academy hates musician crossovers. But a guy can dream.”
“Everyone needs a dream.”
He studies me for a moment, expression unreadable.
“You know,” he says slowly, “a role like this would be a good transition for you.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“The female lead. They haven’t cast her yet.
” He turns the laptop back toward himself, scrolling to a different section.
“Working-class girl who gets discovered singing in a nightclub. Her talent is enough to break through the musician’s self-indulgent haze.
He launches her career, falls in love with her in the process, but it all ends tragically.
This is the kind of role that reminds people you can actually act and you wouldn’t have to be dolled up or in a bikini the entire time. ”
I can’t help but laugh. “Atticus, no one is going to cast me in an Oscar-bait musical drama.”
“Why not?”
“Because I sang on a kids’ sitcom fifteen years ago and I’m not exactly the prestige actress type.”
“You can sing.” It’s not a question. “I’ve heard the recordings from your show. Your voice was incredible even as a kid.”
“That was a lifetime ago.”
“Jesus, Phoenix. You’re twenty-seven, not two hundred.”
“For Hollywood actresses, that’s pretty much the same thing and you know it, Atticus.”
“Look,” he continues, “I’m sending you the script. Read it. Think about it. Maybe have your agent make a call. Doing whatever you want is what you’re best at so I’ll leave it up to you.”
I’m not necessarily happy with the implied censure in his tone, but he says it so sincerely that I struggle to hang onto my annoyance.
I stare over his shoulder at the laptop screen, at the dense blocks of text that represent someone’s vision of a story worth telling that doesn’t require me to debase myself.
It doesn’t feel safe to acknowledge how much I want it.
“I’ll think about it,” I say finally.
Atticus shrugs like it doesn’t matter to him either way, but I don’t miss the hint of a smile that twists his lips as he turns his attention back to the screen.