Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Grady
“Fish!” Kyle’s voice booms through the cabin door before it opens.
The screen strikes the siding, and he stomps into the house, arms wrapped around a foam cooler that carries the briny, sweet-fish scent of a fresh catch.
I freeze with a pair of socks balled in my fist, half-folded, the rest of my clothes laid out in neat rows on the couch in front of me.
Kyle sets the cooler on the kitchen counter with a heavy thud. Water sloshes over the lip, dripping onto the linoleum. “I got lucky with three rockfish and two ling cod.”
His grin spreads beneath his close-cropped beard, satisfaction radiating from him. “We’re eating like kings tonight.”
“I didn’t expect you back so early.” I stuff the socks into the side pocket of my suitcase and smooth the collar of a folded shirt.
Kyle cracks the cooler lid, and a stronger wave of fish and brine rolls out. “Jared’s covering the evening water taxi runs.”
My fingers pause on the zipper of the suitcase. “He’s running the taxi alone again?”
“Yep. Full runs. First week since everything hit the fan.” Kyle fishes a knife from the drawer and sets it on the counter with a clack. “I’d say he’s back in business full time now.”
Happiness for my friend fills me with warmth. Jared’s social media nightmare last year cost him the water taxi gig for months. Some tourist’s online posts had gone viral, painting him as a predator.
The video went viral before anyone could fact-check it. Jared had been trying to keep the woman from falling into the water, but the angle turned a rescue into an attack.
Kyle pulls the first fish from the cooler, a heavy rockfish with mottled brown skin and a spine that could put out an eye. He sets it on the cutting board with the confidence of a man who’s done this a thousand times.
His hand stills when he turns and finally registers my suitcase. “You’re packing?”
I zip the side pocket. “My flight is on Friday. Figured I’d start getting things together now.”
His knife pauses above the fish. “You sure about this?”
“I’ve been on your couch for almost a year, Kyle. You’ve been patient well past the point of sanity.”
“I like the company.” He slices the belly of the rockfish in one clean motion. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”
“Thanks, but it’s time.”
Kyle scrapes the guts into a plastic bag. “Emily’s been dropping by a lot.”
The observation hangs between us as I fold another shirt, slower this time. “She checks in.”
“She brings you food and seeks out your company.” Kyle’s eyes flick to mine. “There’s a difference.”
Heat crawls up my neck as I set the shirt down and move to the kitchen, settling onto one of the two mismatched stools at the counter. My knee protests, and I stretch the leg out until the ache subsides.
I watch Kyle work the fillet from the spine with practiced ease. “Do you ever feel left out? Being on the outskirts of the Wrights’ whole thing?”
“I’ve got an open invitation.” He shrugs. “They’ve asked. More than once.”
My eyebrows lift. “You turned down an official spot in the Wright Pack?”
“Yep.”
“With their resources? Their backing?” I shake my head. “That’s... generous of them.”
“More than generous. Not a lot of millionaire packs are offering to take on new members.” Kyle wipes his knife on a rag. “But joining a pack means giving up some of the quiet. I like my quiet.”
My brow furrows. “Do you think they’d expect you to move into the Homestead?”
He snorts. “Hell, no. Holden doesn’t want me in his kitchen, making a mess.”
“Then why not join?” I ask, baffled. “They could give you so much.”
“I could turn that question around on you.” The fish comes apart under his hands, pink flesh separating from silver skin. “Why aren’t you joining? Chloe’s made the offer.”
“She just wants her best friend close by,” I scoff. “That’s not the same as wanting me in her pack.”
Kyle cocks an eyebrow. “You think that cabin she built was about convenience?”
I pick at a loose thread on the cuff of my sleeve. “Honestly, I don’t understand pack dynamics. I was raised in a Beta. We don’t... do that.”
“I grew up in a pack bigger than the Wrights.” Kyle sets the fillet aside and lifts out a second fish. “It was my parents, my mom’s siblings, and their kids. I was the only Beta, and everyone had an opinion on everything I did.”
“Was that hard?”
“It had its ups and downs.” He lifts a shoulder. “More downs, though, which is why I left as soon as I could.”
“You and Jared grew up together, right?”
“Yeah. It was nice having him around. Jared’s scent-blindness made him practically a Beta. He didn’t understand all the fuss about pheromones, either.” His lips quirk at the corners before he sobers. “I felt bad ditching him, knowing the value our family put on secondary genders.”
“Which is why you put in a good word for him when the position opened here.”
“Yep. My aunt had already made it clear he was out once he finished with school. I would have given him my couch, but he’s stubborn and wouldn’t have stayed without work.”
Kyle’s voice softens. “Our pack was all about who could scent who. Who could claim who. The Wrights aren’t like that. Sure, they touch more than I’m used to. But I’ve met touchy Betas, too. It’s not about what you are. It’s about who you are.”
I stare at where water beads beneath the cooler. “My family isn’t touchy. Hugs stopped when I turned twelve. Now, my dad only shakes my hand, and my mom pats my shoulder on holidays.”
“That’s rough.”
“It’s what I was used to, until I went to university.
Then I met Chloe.” The memory of Chloe’s first hug surfaces, awkward, desperate, her small body colliding with mine in the parking lot of a coffee shop after I’d sold her first book.
She’d cried into my shoulder for three solid minutes.
“She was so touch-starved, always needing to cuddle up. We lived in each other’s pockets for years. ”
“And now you miss it.”
The words land with more accuracy than I’m comfortable with. “Yeah. I do. But joining the Wrights won’t give that back to me. She has a pack now.”
Kyle jerks his chin toward the door. “Fish won’t be ready for another hour. You should take another walk over to that cabin. Get a good look at what you’re leaving behind before you head east.”
My throat tightens. “Kyle—”
“Go on.” He waves the knife. “I’ve got scales to scrape.”
I push off the stool and reach for my cane.
At the door, I pause. “Thanks. For everything.”
Kyle continues working. “Just be sure you’re making the right choice for yourself. That’s all.”
The screen door slaps shut behind me, and I step into the cold afternoon air.
The path to the cabin is slick with half-melted frost, the gravel giving way beneath my cane with each step.
Late February on Misty Pines means weak sun and a chill that finds every gap in my jacket.
The thick evergreens block the wind off the water, leaving the air still and cold and smelling of wet bark.
I reach the porch steps, and the cabin door opens at a touch, the lockset not yet fitted, with just a knob and a latch and a hole where the deadbolt will eventually go.
I push it open with my cane and step inside. Fresh paint and raw pine surround me, and underneath is the faint chalk of new drywall. Afternoon sunlight streams through the windows, warming the chill from outside.
My cane taps on the floor as I move through the main room. The pine floors are stained honey brown, and the chemical sweetness of the finish still hangs in the air, not quite gone.
The kitchen counter is pale gray quartz along the back wall, where someone left the overhead lights on. I lean my cane against the counter and flatten my palm on the cool surface.
My parents sent over the itinerary yesterday, with an upgraded ticket to first class, a connecting flight through Chicago, and car service from the airport to their place in Connecticut. The email included a note about dinner reservations already made for Friday night. Caroline will be there.
I didn’t ask for that. They just assumed.
Behind the kitchen, a hallway leads to the bedrooms. I don’t go down it.
Instead, I cross to the living room window. Through the gaps in the trees, I catch glimpses of the water, gray and restless beyond the shore. No one can see in. That was deliberate, too. Chloe knows I like my privacy, or what’s left of it after a year of sharing Kyle’s bathroom.
I rest my forehead on the cold glass. My breath fogs the pane.
Last night at the Homestead, Chloe and I sat at the kitchen table after dinner, and I told her about the flight. I tried to keep it simple, reassuring her that it was just to show my face to my parents and that I’d be back.
She burst into tears.
Not the dignified, understanding kind, either, but the messy, hiccupping, pregnant-hormone kind that turned my absence into Armageddon before I’d even finished the sentence.
Thank goodness Dominic was there in an instant, rubbing circles on the small of her back and murmuring reassurances into her hair. She’d buried her face in his chest and sobbed as if I’d already abandoned her.
I sat there with my untouched tea going cold, watching the way his fingers traced circles between her shoulder blades, the way she leaned into him without hesitation, and a hollow ache opened up behind my ribs.
The same hollow I felt on Saturday, watching Leif reclaim his spot at Emily’s table.
He hadn’t even needed to try. One look from those periwinkle eyes, and Emily’s walls came down as if they were made of tissue paper.
She blushed. She actually blushed, this woman who handles power tools and construction crews without breaking stride, and her focus kept catching on his mouth as if she couldn’t help herself.
And Jared watched it happen with this quiet, certain smile, like he’d been waiting for it. Like the three of them were already a unit, and I was the fourth wheel, observing from the outside.
My mother’s voice slides in, the way it always does when I let my guard down, as clear as if she were standing behind me in this empty cabin.