5. Declan #2
A deep, possessive hum starts in my chest, a current of pure, stupid instinct that wants to cross the room and drag him upstairs. Mine. The thought isn’t a word; it’s a physical command. My hands grip the edge of the bar, the wood digging into my palms.
“Jesus, Declan,” Tessa mutters.
Diego takes one look from me to Shay, his eyes wide. He starts backing away toward the kitchen.
“Hey,” he says to Shay, his voice suddenly very soft. “I’m just gonna… I have to check on the limes.”
Shay’s eyes lock on mine. “Good plan.”
Diego is gone before the kitchen door swings shut.
Tessa doesn’t move. She just leans against the back bar, arms crossed, watching.
Shay walks toward me, and every step is deliberate.
He smells like my apartment, like my sheets.
His scent is sharp with anger and the low, electric hum of the bond threading under my skin.
It wraps around me, and something in my chest that’s been clenched tight since I woke up alone finally, painfully, lets go.
He’s here.
He stops at the bar and puts the binder down between us. The slap of plastic on wood echoes in the quiet room. He keeps both hands flat on the cover.
“You have a problem,” he says. Not a question.
I glance at the landlord’s letter. “I’m aware.”
“No.” His gaze is flat. “You’re aware of a rent increase.
Your problem is that your brand is a ghost, your social media is a joke, and your target demographic is aging out.
The regulars keep you afloat, but nobody under twenty-five comes here unless they’re dragged.
That’s not a business plan, Declan. It’s a slow death. ”
Each sentence is a clean, sharp jab. This is the Shay I’ve seen across the bar, the one who talks his friends down from bad decisions with the cold precision of a surgeon.
He’s using that voice on me now, and it’s the only thing holding him together.
I can see it in the rigid line of his shoulders, the way his knuckles are white against the black binder.
He taps the cover. “I can fix it.”
Tessa pushes off the counter.
All I can manage is, “You can?”
“I’m a marketing senior,” he says, his voice tight with irritation. “Not an ornamental plant.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
The word has teeth. I almost smile.
“What’s in the binder?” Tessa asks, her voice quiet.
Shay looks at her, and just for a second, the tension in his jaw eases. “A market audit, competitor analysis, and a three-phase relaunch proposal. I, uh. I haven’t slept.”
My throat closes.
He ran from my bed, terrified. He went home in my shirt with my bite on his neck, and he spent the night building me a goddamn rescue plan.
“You did all this… since this morning?” I ask. The words sound stupid and hollow.
His eyes narrow. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re staring at me like I just offered you a kidney.”
“I haven’t read it yet,” I say. “It might be better than a kidney.”
A sound that’s half-snort, half-cough comes from Tessa’s direction.
Shay ignores her, his focus locked on me.
“You’re ignoring community partnerships.
There are no alumni events on your calendar.
You could do local music nights that aren’t just some sad dude with a guitar.
And for the love of God, somebody needs to take over your social media, because I saw three posts in a row about your wings. ”
“The wings sold,” I say, because it’s the only thing my brain offers up.
“In February.”
“Right.”
His mouth gives a tiny twitch, a flicker of something that isn’t anger. It’s the closest I’ve seen to the omega from last night, the one who was trying so hard to act like he wasn’t falling apart in my arms. I look away before the memory can do any real damage.
Tessa reaches over the bar. “Can I?”
Shay slides the binder toward her without looking away from me. She flips it open. The pages are full of clean charts and blocks of text, with color-coded tabs sticking out from the side. On the first page, Byrne’s is printed in a sharp, modern font.
Tessa turns a page, then another. The silence stretches.
“This is good,” she says finally, her voice low.
Shay shifts his weight. “It’s a first draft.”
“It’s really good.”
A hint of something sweet cuts through the air, unguarded and unexpected, but it’s gone before I can name it. I see the exact moment he catches himself, his jaw going tight again.
“Which brings me to my terms,” he says, his voice flat. He gently takes the binder from Tessa and squares it with the edge of the bar. “This is a business arrangement. I’m a consultant. You’ll pay me a nominal fee for my work, and we are going to pretend last night never happened.”
There it is. He’s standing there in my shirt, offering me a way to save my bar by erasing him. By erasing us.
The urge to say something stupid and honest is a physical pressure in my throat. I’m sorry. Don’t go. I can’t pretend.
Across the bar, Tessa catches my eye. She gives her head the slightest shake. A warning. Don’t you dare. She’s right. This isn’t about what I want; it’s about what he’ll accept. He’s offering a deal, not an opening.
Shay is watching me, his face a careful blank, but his scent is a wire pulled taut.
I look from the binder to the kid who made it. The kid with my mark, angry and red above the collar of my shirt, offering to fix the one thing I thought I had left to lose.
I hold out my hand. The gesture puts my own forearm on the bar between us, his teeth marks livid against my skin.
“Deal,” I say.
His eyes drop. They snag on the bite.
For a single, suspended beat, the fight goes out of him. He doesn’t look like a marketing senior with a binder full of answers. He just looks young, and tired, and caught staring at the proof that he’d wanted it, too.
Then it’s gone, buried so fast I almost think I imagined it. His expression shutters.
He reaches out and takes my hand. “Deal.”
His palm is warm, his grip firm.
He doesn’t look at the mark on my arm again, and I pretend not to notice.