Chapter 6 Elijah
Elijah
The last vase is finished.
I turn it in my hands, checking the grain one more time. Curly maple, same as the others. Three coats of oil, cured overnight between each one. The morning light from the workshop skylights catches the figure, makes it ripple like water.
Good. It’s good.
I set it in the crate with the others and start wrapping them in canvas. Thirty-six vases. Each one carved, sanded, finished by hand. Three weeks of work, ready to be filled with flowers and set on tables where people will barely notice them.
That’s fine. That’s the job. Make something beautiful, let it go.
My workshop is quiet this early. Just the creak of old wood settling, the distant sound of a truck on the main road.
The house behind me is quiet too—has been since Levi moved out last spring.
Before that it was Dean. Our grandparents left the place to me and Levi, and for a while it was full of life.
Three alphas sharing a house that was too big for any of us alone.
Now Dean’s with Lila and her pack. Levi’s with Sadie—signed his share of the house over to me before he moved out. Said he didn’t need it anymore. Said he’d found his home.
And I’m here, rattling around in all these empty rooms, wondering when it’ll be my turn.
Some nights the quiet gets too loud, and I end up out here until dawn, making things I don’t have anyone to give to.
The bench in the corner catches my eye.
Ben’s bench—finished yesterday, ready to deliver to his cabin this weekend. I pull off the drop cloth and look at it again, even though I’ve looked at it a hundred times already.
Black walnut frame, dark as good coffee. Cream cushioning, thick and soft. Cedar-lined compartments in the sides, because cedar holds scent better than anything else. The curve of the arms sweeps up and inward, creating a protected hollow. A cocoon. A place to curl up and feel safe.
A nesting bench. That’s what Ben asked for. “For the future,” he said, like he was embarrassed to want it. Like hoping for an omega to share his life with was something to be ashamed of.
I didn’t ask questions. Just built him the best one I could.
I wonder if he knows why I built it the way I did. If he can see what I was thinking when I added the compartments, when I made the arms curve just so, when I lined everything in cedar so it would hold scent.
I wasn’t thinking about anyone specific. I never do.
But if I’m honest—and I try to be, at least with myself—there’s been someone in the back of my mind every time I build something soft.
Something meant to comfort. Someone with lavender in her scent and exhaustion in her eyes and a stubbornness that won’t let her slow down long enough to take care of herself.
Tessa Lang.
I cover the bench back up and turn away.
The January cold bites when I load the crate of vases into my truck.
Three weeks until Valentine’s Day. Tessa will want to see the finished pieces, confirm everything’s on track.
She always does. Color-coded spreadsheets.
Backup plans for the backup plans. That woman could organize a military invasion and still have time to worry about the centerpieces.
The thought of her makes my chest tight. It’s been doing that for three years now, ever since she moved to town and started running every event like a general commanding troops. I’ve watched her at town meetings, at festivals, at the bar when she doesn’t know anyone’s looking.
She never stops. Never slows down. Never lets anyone take care of her.
I wonder what it would be like to try.
I wonder if she’d let me.
Tessa’s office is in the old brick building on Main Street, her apartment right above it. TESSA LANG, EVENT PLANNING is printed on the frosted glass door in neat letters.
The door is propped open. She’s at her desk, surrounded by paper and sticky notes, phone pressed to her ear.
Her hair is escaping from its ponytail, and there’s a pen tucked behind her ear that she’s probably forgotten about.
She’s wearing a soft gray sweater that’s slipping off one shoulder, and she keeps pushing it back up while she talks, an unconscious gesture that does something to my chest.
She looks exhausted. Beautiful, but exhausted. There are shadows under her eyes that weren’t there last week.
“Yes, I understand the deposit policy, but we’ve been using your venue for three years and—” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Fine, I’ll send the check today. Thank you.”
She hangs up and drops her head into her hands. For a moment she just sits there, breathing, and I can see the tension in her shoulders, the weight she carries.
Then she straightens, squares her shoulders, and reaches for her coffee mug. That’s Tessa. She doesn’t stay down long.
I knock on the doorframe. “Bad time?”
She looks up, startled. For just a second, her face softens—surprise, warmth, a flicker of pleasure at seeing me—before she smooths it out.
“Elijah. No, it’s—come in. Is that the vases?”
I cross the room and set the crate on her desk, careful to avoid the stacks of paper. Her office smells like her—lavender and coffee and printer ink. But there’s another scent underneath, one that makes me go still.
Leather. Musk.
Ben Wilson.
She smells like Ben. Not just a passing trace—this is hours of contact, maybe days. Like she’s been wrapped up in him. Like he’s marked her without meaning to.
I don’t ask. It’s not my place. But my hands tighten on the crate, and I have to force myself to breathe through it. To focus on why I’m here instead of wondering what happened between them. Whether he finally stopped running. Whether I waited too long.
I pull back the canvas, focusing on the vases instead of the jealousy sitting heavy in my chest. “All thirty-six.”
She reaches in and picks one up, turning it in the light the same way I did this morning. Watching the grain shift and ripple. Her fingers are gentle on the wood, reverent, and I’m holding my breath without realizing it.
“These are beautiful.” Her voice goes soft, losing that sharp professional edge. “Elijah, these are really beautiful.”
“They’re just vases.”
“They’re not just anything.” She sets it down carefully, almost reverently, and her eyes meet mine. “You always do that, you know. Downplay your work. But this—” She gestures at the vases. “This is art. Sadie’s going to cry when she sees them.”
Heat creeps up my neck. I’m not good at compliments. Never know what to do with them.
“You okay?” Tessa’s watching me. “You went quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Quieter than usual.” She stands, grabbing her coat from the back of her chair. “I need to get these to Sadie so she can check the fit with the flower arrangements. Walk with me?”
I take the crate. “Lead the way.”
The sidewalks are icy.
I notice it as soon as we step outside—that slick sheen on the concrete where the morning sun hasn’t reached yet. Tessa’s wearing heels. Not high ones, but enough to be dangerous on black ice.
I shift the crate to one arm and move closer to her.
“So the bachelor lineup is finalized?” I ask, mostly to give her something to focus on besides whatever’s making her scent so sharp.
“Seven confirmed. Milo was a lifesaver—he recruited four on his own.” She’s walking fast, the way she always does, like she’s racing against a clock only she can see. “I’ve got you, Milo, Theo, Dr. Price, Sam from the hardware store, and those two college kids—Jake and Asher.”
“That’s seven.”
“I need eight.” Her jaw tightens. “Ben Wilson is going to be the eighth if I have to drag him there myself.”
I don’t miss the way her scent shifts when she says his name. Warmer. Complicated.
“He’s still saying no?”
“He’s still avoiding me. There’s a difference.” She huffs out a breath. “I don’t understand what his problem is. It’s one evening. For charity. He acts like I’m asking him to donate a kidney.”
“Ben’s a good guy,” I say. “He’ll come around.”
“Ben’s a pain in my—”
She doesn’t finish. Her heel catches a patch of ice, and she pitches forward with a sharp gasp.
I drop the crate.
The vases will be fine—they’re wrapped in canvas, they can handle a gentle fall. But Tessa can’t, and my body moves before my brain catches up.
My arms are around her before I think about it, catching her against my chest, one hand at her waist and the other gripping her elbow. She’s light—too light, probably not eating enough again—and she fits against me like she was made to be there.
Her scent floods my senses—lavender and citrus and that trace of Ben underneath, but also something else now. Something sweeter. Her heart is pounding. I can feel it through her coat.
And my body responds. Heat pooling low, blood rushing south. I go hard so fast it almost hurts.
Fuck.
“Got you.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “I’ve got you.”
She’s pressed against me, close enough that I can see the freckle just below her left ear. The shadows under her eyes. The way her lips part slightly, like she’s forgotten how to breathe.
I’ve imagined this. Late at night, in my workshop, when the quiet gets too loud. What it would feel like to hold her. What sounds she’d make if I kissed her.
The reality is better than anything I imagined. And worse, because now I’ll never be able to forget it.
What am I supposed to do with that?
“The vases,” she says finally, barely above a whisper.
Right. The vases.
I ease her upright slowly, making sure she’s steady before I let go. My hands don’t want to leave her.
I step back anyway.
The crate tipped when I dropped it, but the canvas padding did its job. Nothing broken.
“They’re fine.” I pick the crate up, check it over. My voice sounds strange to my own ears—too controlled, too careful. “You should wear different shoes when it’s icy.”