Chapter 2 #2
“That sounds exhausting.”
“You get used to it.” I shrugged. “Most scents are background noise. You learn to filter. But strong emotions, physical distress, illness... those cut through. Hard to ignore.”
“And I'm broadcasting physical distress.”
“You're broadcasting a lot of things.” I met his eyes, held them. “None of which say 'I'm fine.'”
Michael held my gaze for a long moment. Then, finally, something in him seemed to give. Not break. Just... soften. Like a door that had been locked for months finally creaking open.
“I'm not fine,” he admitted quietly. “I haven't been fine in a long time.”
“I know.”
“But I'm still standing.”
“I know that too.”
“And I don't need to be rescued, Daniel. I'm not some damsel waiting for the big bad Alpha to swoop in and fix everything. I just need...” He stopped. Started again. “I don't know what I need. That's the problem.”
“Maybe you need to eat something that isn't liquid.”
Michael laughed. Surprised and genuine, like it had escaped before he could catch it. “That's your solution? Food?”
“Food, sleep, and someone to hold the trim while you nail it. Not necessarily in that order.”
“You want to hold my trim?”
“That's what I said.”
“That's...” Michael's mouth curved. Not quite a smile, but closer than anything I'd seen from him in months. “That sounded dirty.”
“It wasn't meant to.”
“It sounded dirty anyway.”
I felt heat climb the back of my neck. My wolf was doing something complicated in my chest, something that felt like pleased and embarrassed and hungry all at once.
“Are you going to let me help or not?”
Michael studied me for a long moment. His eyes were still shadowed, still carrying that bone-deep exhaustion, but there was something else there now. Something that looked almost like curiosity.
“Why do you care so much?” he asked. “And don't give me the 'that's what pack does' line again. I'm not pack. I'm human. I'm the guy whose wife died because she got caught in the crossfire of your supernatural war. By all rights, you should want nothing to do with me.”
“By all rights, you should hate us,” I countered. “Hate me. For what happened to Anna, for dragging your family into a world you never asked to be part of. But you're still here. Still in Hollow Pines. Still rebuilding this house instead of running as far and fast as you could.”
“This is my home.”
“And maybe that's why I care.” I took another step closer, close enough now that I could see the individual flecks of gold in his brown eyes. “Because you stayed. Because you fought. That's not nothing, Michael. That's everything.”
“I couldn't save her.”
“No. But you tried. And when it was over, you didn't break. You held your son while he fell apart, you made arrangements, you buried your wife and then you got up the next morning and you kept going.” I held his gaze.
“That's strength, Michael. The kind most people never have to find out if they have. You found it. You're still finding it.”
Michael's eyes went bright. Not tears, not quite, but close.
“I don't feel strong,” he said. “I feel like I'm holding myself together with duct tape and spite.”
“That's what strength is. Holding on when everything in you wants to let go.”
The air between us felt thick. Heavy with things neither of us was saying.
I should step back. Should give him space, give us both breathing room. This was too close, too much, too dangerous.
Instead, I heard myself say: “When did you last eat?”
Michael blinked at the subject change. “What?”
“Food. When did you last put something in your body that wasn't beer or coffee?”
“I had toast.”
“When?”
“...Yesterday?”
“Yesterday.”
“It might have been the day before.”
“Michael.”
“I know, I know.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I keep meaning to go to the store, but then I look at the lists Anna used to make and I can't... I don't...”
“Okay.” I pulled out my phone. “What kind of soup do you like?”
“What?”
“Soup. Martha's has tomato, chicken noodle, loaded potato, and whatever the special is. What kind?”
“You don't have to...”
“What kind, Michael.”
He stared at me for a moment. Then something in his shoulders loosened, and he looked almost amused.
“You're really going to stand there and order me food.”
“I'm going to stand here and make sure you eat something before you collapse. The method is negotiable.”
“Tomato,” Michael said finally. “I like tomato soup.”
“Good. Sit down.”
“I don't need to...”
“You're swaying. Sit down before you fall down.”
“I'm not swaying.”
“You absolutely are. I can see it. Wolf eyes, remember? I can see your heartbeat in your throat and the way your balance keeps shifting because your blood sugar is probably somewhere in the basement.” I pointed at the couch. “Sit.”
Michael sat. Not because I told him to, I could see that in the stubborn set of his jaw. But because his legs probably wouldn't hold him much longer and he knew it.
“Bossy,” he muttered.
“So I've been told.”
I called Martha's and placed an order that was probably too much food for two people. Soup, sandwiches, pie, and whatever else Martha decided to throw in because she had a sixth sense for when someone needed feeding.
When I hung up, Michael was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
“You're different,” he said.
“Different how?”
“Than what I expected. When I first met you, you were all...” He waved a hand vaguely. “Alpha. Commanding. Larger than life. The kind of man who walks into a room and everyone shuts up.”
“And now?”
“Now you're standing in my living room ordering me soup and telling me my shampoo situation is concerning.” His mouth curved. “It's very strange.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“Apparently.” Michael leaned back against the couch cushions, some of the tension finally bleeding out of him. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask. I might not answer.”
“Fair enough.” He was quiet for a moment, choosing his words. “When you lost Claire... how long before it stopped feeling like you were drowning?”
The question hit somewhere tender. Somewhere I kept locked up and guarded.
“It's been thirteen years,” I said honestly. “I'll let you know when it happens.”
Michael's expression shifted. Soft and sad and understanding in a way that made my chest ache.
“So it doesn't get better.”
“It gets different. The drowning turns into... swimming, I guess. You're still in the water. It's still dark. But you learn to move through it instead of fighting to keep your head up.” I paused. “Some days you still sink. But you learn to find your way back to the surface.”
“That's...” Michael shook his head. “That's either the most depressing or the most hopeful thing anyone's ever told me.”
“It's honest. That's all I've got.”
“Honest is good.” He met my eyes. “I'm tired of people telling me it gets better. Like grief has an expiration date. Like one day I'll wake up and Anna will just be a memory instead of a missing limb.”
“Anyone who says that has never lost someone. Or they've lost someone and they're lying to themselves.”
“Claire was your mate. Your... wolf mate. Is that different? Than human grief?”
“Worse, in some ways.” I sat down in the chair across from him, close enough to talk, far enough to breathe.
“The bond doesn't break clean. It tears.
For months after she died, I could still feel the place where she was supposed to be.
Like phantom limb pain. I'd reach for her through the bond and there was just... nothing. A hole where she used to live.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It was.” I held his gaze. “But I'm still here. Still standing. Still holding on with duct tape and spite, to borrow your phrase.”
Michael almost smiled. “We're quite a pair.”
“We are.”
The air between us shifted again. Warmer now. Less charged and more... comfortable. Like we'd crossed some invisible threshold and found ourselves on solid ground.
“The food should be here in twenty minutes,” I said. “In the meantime, show me what needs doing with that trim.”
“You're serious about helping.”
“I don't offer things I don't mean.”
“No.” Michael studied me for a moment. “I don't think you do.”
He pushed himself up from the couch, steadier now that he'd been sitting for a few minutes. I followed him to the far wall where the unfinished trim waited.
“It's supposed to fit here,” Michael said, positioning the piece. “But my hands keep shaking and I can't get the angle right. Every time I think I've got it, the hammer goes sideways and I end up denting the wall instead of the nail.”
“Hold it steady. I'll nail.”
“That really does sound dirty.”
“You're not funny.”
“I'm a little funny.”
He was. More than a little. The realization settled in my chest like something warm.
Michael held the trim in place, hands still trembling but determined. I took the hammer from the windowsill, felt the familiar weight of it in my palm.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready.”
I drove the nail in with one clean stroke. Then another. Then a third. Michael watched with something like wonder.
“You didn't even have to aim.”
“Wolf reflexes.”
“Show-off.”
“You asked for help. This is help.”
“This is you making me look bad in my own house.” But he was smiling now. Actually smiling, small and tired but real. “Do the whole wall. I want to see how fast you can do it.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“It's absolutely a challenge.”
I finished the wall in under ten minutes. Michael watched the whole time, holding pieces in place when needed, handing me nails, making comments that were equal parts impressed and annoyed.
“That's ridiculous,” he said when I drove the last nail. “That would have taken me three hours. Minimum.”
“Probably.”
“You're not supposed to agree.”
“You said you wanted honesty.”
“I take it back. Lie to me. Tell me I'm very competent and manly and good at home repair.”
“You're adequate.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
“You're welcome.”