Chapter 13
Milo
Ican smell myself, and that's a massive fucking problem.
I'm standing outside Byrne's, clutching the door handle, my thickest, most oversized sweater pulled all the way up to my jaw, and I can still smell it.
Callum's scent is layered into mine like someone stitched it there.
Pine smoke and brown sugar woven through my usual baked-goods smell in a way that screams bonded omega to anyone with a working nose.
I've showered twice today. I used my own soap.
I even avoided the nest this morning, which was physically painful and entirely pointless because the scent isn't on my clothes.
It's in me. It's in my skin. It's what happens when you spend weeks sleeping in your alpha's shirts and building dens out of his laundry.
Ava's unanswered text buzzes in my pocket like a tiny, persistent guilt bomb. We should talk soon. I've been staring at it for three days. I've drafted eleven replies and deleted all of them.
One crisis at a time. I push through the door.
The booth is already full. Jude is talking with both hands about something that clearly requires violent gesturing.
Benji has his phone out, scrolling with the bored intensity of someone pretending not to listen.
Shay is leaning back with a whisky, looking like he'd rather be literally anywhere else, and Soren is tucked into the corner with his sketchbook.
Rhys is at the bar—I can see the back of his head, broad shoulders, the calm anchor to Jude's chaos even from twenty feet away.
Normal. Completely normal. My best friends in our usual booth at our usual bar on what should be a usual Thursday night.
Except I'm carrying approximately three massive secrets and the biological equivalent of a neon sign above my head that says Callum Hayes was here.
And I'm about to sit within sniffing distance of Jude Park, who is mated and whose nose has been upgraded to military-grade since he bonded with Rhys.
I'm going to die tonight.
"Milo!" Jude spots me first, because Jude spots everything first. He waves me over with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever who's been told the mailman is coming.
"Where have you been? You look alive! I was starting to think you'd been murdered by Anonymous Alpha and I was going to have to file a report. "
"I had the flu," I say, sliding into the booth next to Soren. He scoots over without comment and gives me a small, knowing smile that I pointedly ignore.
"You've had the flu for over two weeks," Benji says, not looking up from his phone.
"It was a bad flu."
"Must've been." Benji's eyes flick up to mine for exactly one second. "You look...different."
"I don't look different."
"You look different," Shay confirms from behind his whisky, not making eye contact with anyone.
Declan appears at the table with a tray—Soren's tea, Benji's dark and stormy, and something for me that I didn't order. "Your usual," he says, setting down an oat milk latte. I didn't know I had a usual here, but apparently Declan tracks these things.
"Thanks," I mutter.
He gives me the bar-dad nod—the one that says I see you and you're fine and your drink is correct—and heads back toward the bar. On his way past, he sets a drink in front of Shay without stopping.
"I didn't order yet," Shay says to Declan's retreating back.
"You order the same thing every Thursday," Declan calls over his shoulder.
Shay rolls his eyes, takes a sip, and says nothing. I file that interaction away without knowing why.
Rhys materializes with a round of something for the table and slides into the booth beside Jude.
His hand goes to the back of Jude's neck automatically—thumb against the nape, possessive and easy, the casual touch of a mated alpha who doesn't even have to think about it anymore.
Jude doesn't pause his rant about a professor who doesn't understand "creative interpretation" to acknowledge the touch, but he leans back into Rhys's palm.
The sight of them—loud Jude and steady Rhys, the post-mating version that's somehow more chaotic, not less—makes my stomach turn over. I wonder if Callum and I look like that from the outside. If the bond is that visible. If everyone can see it the way I can see it on them.
The conversation rolls on. Benji dissects his KnotMe disaster of the week—a guy who showed up twenty minutes late, ordered for him, and then asked if Benji was "one of those assertive omegas" like it was a disease.
Soren talks about a museum exhibition that just closed.
Shay refuses to engage with any topic that involves feelings.
I laugh in the right places, sip my latte, and angle my body slightly away from Jude because his nose is working even when he's not conscious of it.
A mated-omega radar picking up bond-scent like a satellite dish.
Twenty minutes. I make it exactly twenty minutes before Jude goes still.
It happens mid-sentence. He's in the middle of a rant about his psych project, and his head turns toward me in slow motion. His nostrils flare. The recognition lands on his face like a bucket of ice water.
"Milo." His voice drops from Jude-volume to human-volume, which is how you know something serious is happening. "You smell like bonded alpha."
Benji's phone hits the table with a clatter.
"Oh, thank God someone said it," Benji says. "I've been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to decide if I was imagining it or—"
"We all noticed," Shay says, staring at his drink.
"We were giving you time," Soren adds softly, his fingers finding my arm under the table.
Jude leans across the table, his eyes bright and sharp.
"I have been patient. I have given you space.
I have let you claim you had the flu for weeks even though that's bullshit and you have been dodging group hangs like they're on fire.
But you walked in here tonight smelling mated, and I have earned the right to know who. "
"It's not—"
"Milo." Jude's voice shifts. He's not angry. He's honest, and the honesty is worse than the dramatics because Jude doesn't do honest very often. "You've been lying to us for weeks. That's not you. What's going on?"
Lying. The word lands like a slap. It's accurate, and that's what makes it sting.
I've been telling myself I was protecting people—protecting the secret, protecting Callum's privacy, protecting the group from awkwardness.
But Jude just called it what it is, and the noble framing falls apart.
These are the people who held my phone while I built my KnotMe profile.
They hyped me up and texted me at two in the morning to make sure I was safe. And I've been lying to them.
I look down at my hands. Soren's fingers tighten on my arm.
Jude is leaning forward, eyes fixed on me.
Behind him, Rhys is still and watchful. Benji has stopped pretending to be on his phone, and even Shay has put down his whisky, looking at me with an expression that, on anyone else, would be concern.
"I matched with someone on KnotMe," I say, my voice coming out way smaller than I want it to.
"We know," Jude says. "You told us 'it was really good' three weeks ago and then went radio silent."
"It turned into more than a hookup."
"Obviously."
"We're bonded. He bit me. It's a fated-mate thing." I pull down the neck of my sweater just enough to show the edge of the bite mark, healed now into a reddish scar.
Jude makes a sound that's half gasp, half scream, loud enough that the table next to us turns to look.
"And it's someone you know," I add.
The table goes still. Even Jude.
Benji's eyes narrow. Jude's mouth hangs open. Soren's grip tightens on my arm. Shay sets his glass down slowly, which is how you know he's paying attention.
"It's Callum," I say. "Callum Hayes. Ava's brother."
The silence lasts approximately one and a half seconds before Jude detonates.
"Callum?" He's on his feet. He's actually standing up in the booth, his hands flat on the table, his eyes so wide I barely recognize him. "Ava's Callum? You've been bonded to Callum and you didn't—"
Rhys wraps an arm around Jude's waist and pulls him back down into the seat. "Babe. You're making a scene."
"I'm making a scene because this is a scene-worthy revelation, Rhys—"
"Sit down."
Jude sits, still muttering.
Benji is quiet for a beat—the longest beat of my life—and then he says, flat and certain, "Callum Hayes.
" A pause. "Of course it's him. Of course Milo's fated mate is the most aggressively wholesome alpha on the planet.
" His mouth twitches at the corner. Then, quieter, angling his body toward me, his voice stripped of its usual edge, "Is he good to you? "
My throat goes tight. That's the real question, the one underneath all of Benji's sharpness, and the answer is so big it almost doesn't fit in my mouth. "Yeah," I say. "He really is."
Benji studies my face for another second, then nods once, like I passed a test.
"Called it," Shay says, picking his whisky back up.
"You did not call it," Jude snaps.
"Does Ava know?" Shay asks, cutting Jude off.
"She knows," I say. "Callum told her last week."
"Good. One less thing." Shay goes back to his drink. I'm pretty sure that's the most supportive thing he's ever said about anyone's relationship, including his own theoretical future ones.
And then Soren. Soren, who has been sitting next to me with his fingers on my arm this whole time, who hasn't said a word. His expression goes so soft it's almost unbearable.
"How long have you liked him?" he asks. Not how long have you been bonded. How long have you liked him. Because Soren is the romantic, and he already knows there's a longer story underneath the biology.
"Years," I say, my voice cracking on the word. "Since the first time I saw him."
I have to look away, because if I keep looking at the way Soren's eyes just got bright, I'm going to lose it completely. The evening's vulnerability quota is well and truly met.
"That's so nice," Soren says, his voice thick with the earnestness of someone who believes in fairy tales because he's watching one happen. "That's already a love story."
The energy shifts. Questions come from every direction, but they're different now—excited instead of suspicious. Jude wants the timeline. "The dinner? At Ava's? Was it like a secret sexy hookup, or?"
Benji wants to know practical things. "Can he cook? Does he do his own laundry? Red flags, Milo, I need red flags."
Shay asks about living arrangements with the casual efficiency of someone filling out a lease agreement.
Soren wants to hear about the scent recognition, and I tell him—the bathroom, the cut, Callum's hands on my wrist—and his eyes get bigger with every detail.
"You're telling me he knotted you and you didn't text us immediately?" Jude is outraged on an entirely new level now. "I've texted you within minutes of my knot with Rhys!"
"He's texted during," Rhys says from his side of the booth, dry and unfazed.
I'm laughing. I'm actually laughing, sitting in this booth, surrounded by my friends who are roasting me and celebrating me and asking about my sex life with the complete lack of boundaries that makes the group what it is.
The weight I've been carrying is gone. Not gradually—all at once, like someone opened a valve and the pressure just released.
They're delighted. Jude is already planning a double date. Benji is already composing a list of threats to deliver to Callum in person. Soren is glowing. Shay is pretending not to care and failing spectacularly.
I remember the text from Ava. Benji notices me reaching for my phone and says, sharp as a knife, "Tell me you've answered that girl."
"I'm...going to."
"You're going to right now," Jude says. "You are not ghosting her on top of everything else, Milo Reyes."
"She's not going to bite your head off," Soren says softly.
I pull out my phone. The text is still sitting there—We should talk soon—and the word ghosting echoes in my head because that's exactly what I've been doing.
Not replying. Letting the silence stretch.
Waiting for some perfect version of the conversation to materialize so I don't have to feel the messy, vulnerable one.
It's the exact pattern I'm most afraid of in other people—the disappearing, the avoidance—and I've been doing it to Ava for days.
I'm not going to be that person.
My thumbs hover over the keyboard. For a second, I almost type something easy.
Hey, sorry, been busy, let's catch up! Something breezy and non-committal that would buy me another day of not having to be honest. But I just sat in this booth and told these people the truth, and the world rearranged instead of ending.
Ava deserves the same version of me. The real one. Not the one who hides behind excuses.
I type the honest thing instead.
Hey. I'm sorry I've been weird. Can we get coffee soon? I have a lot to tell you. And I'm sorry.
I hit send. Jude cheers, Benji says "about damn time," Soren squeezes my arm, and Shay gives me the smallest nod I've ever seen a human produce.
The evening winds down. Declan drifts by to clear glasses, catches my eye, and gives me a nod again. Shay is looking at his phone when Declan passes, missing the nod entirely, but he shifts in his seat as the bar owner goes by in a way that he'd definitely deny if you pointed it out.
People start gathering jackets. Jude is yelling something from the end of the booth about a group dinner with Callum. Benji stands, shrugs on his jacket, and pauses near the door. "If he hurts you, I have a shovel and an alibi." He says it flat and sincere, and then he's gone.
Soren squeezes my arm one last time on his way out. His smile is the kind that makes you believe in things, and he doesn't say anything because he doesn't need to.
My phone buzzes.
That works. And Milo? I'm happy for you.
I sit in the booth. The bar is emptying out. The glasses are cleared, Declan is wiping down the counter, and somewhere through the speakers, an acoustic song plays low. I read the text one more time.
I'm happy for you.
Everyone I was afraid of telling has been told, and the world didn't end. It rearranged. And the rearrangement looks like a group chat that's going to be insufferable for the next six months, a coffee date with my best friend, and a booth in a bar that still has my seat.
I put my phone away and sit there for one more second in the quiet, just breathing. The air smells like beer and wood and the fading scent of people who love me. The secret is done, and I feel a bit lighter without it.