14. Shay
Shay
The knot finally starts to ease, and I hate that my first reaction is relief.
It’s not because I’m hurt. I mean, I am, a little.
Declan’s never exactly subtle, and my body’s still clenching around him in these weak, stupid little pulses like it didn’t get the memo that we’re done.
But mostly, it’s because being tied to him like this—his chest at my back, his breath on my shoulder, the weight of him everywhere—has become unbearable.
Home.
My brain supplies the word and I want to punch it. Great. Perfect. Love that for me.
I just stare at the bar top under my cheek.
There’s a wet smear of spilled beer near my hand, a crushed gold confetti star stuck to the wood, and one tiny sliver of glass catching the light by the register.
The relaunch was a success. People came, they stayed, they posted the stupid photos Jude made everyone take.
The new menu boards are up. The socials did numbers. Byrne’s was saved.
I was saved.
No. Wrong word.
I made myself useful.
That’s the whole point, isn’t it? I’m good at that. Good at finding the weak spots in a business, in a plan, in a person’s stupid argument. I fix things nobody else wants to touch. Give me enough information and a decent internet connection, and I can build you a way out.
Just don’t ask me to stay once the work is done.
Behind me, Declan shifts carefully. His hand hovers at my waist for a second before he pulls it back like I’m a hot stove.
“Shay,” he says.
My throat closes up.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re about to.”
He goes quiet.
That’s worse. Declan’s silence used to be easy. It used to feel like room to breathe, like he was giving me time to make whatever smartass comment I needed before he said something low and dry that made me laugh in spite of myself.
Now it’s just empty space where a fight should be.
His cock slips free of me with a slick, ugly sound and I flinch. My whole body jerks before I can stop it.
Fuck.
The second it happens, I know he saw it. I don’t even have to turn around. His whole expression goes tight, something flickering behind his eyes, and my stomach twists.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“Don’t.”
“I am.”
“Yeah, well. That doesn’t actually help right now.”
“I know.”
The stupid thing is, he does. He knows exactly when to stop pushing.
He knows when my voice gets too flat. He knows I take my coffee black when I’m stressed and add oat milk when I’m pretending I’m fine.
He knows I hate being fussed over in public but will steal fries off his plate if he leaves them within reach.
He knows me.
That should mean something.
It should.
I push up off the bar before my brain can take that thought anywhere soft. My legs wobble immediately, because apparently the universe has decided I need to be humiliated in every available category tonight. I catch myself on the edge of the counter.
Declan takes half a step forward.
“Don’t,” I snap.
He stops so fast it makes my chest ache.
“I’m not going to touch you,” he says.
“Good.”
His jeans are down around his thighs. My shirt is somewhere behind the bar, my underwear hooked around one ankle. We look ridiculous. Like two idiots in a cautionary poster titled This Is Why You Don’t Fuck During A Workplace Dispute.
I bend to grab my clothes. Every movement pulls at me, reminding me of exactly what happened here, and I keep my face blank because that’s all I have left. My face. My hands. The ability to just follow instructions.
Pick up shirt.
Find jeans.
Do not look at him.
Do not cry in the bar you just helped save.
I’m wrestling my jeans over my hips when Declan says, “You don’t have to leave tonight.”
A laugh bursts out of me. It sounds awful.
“Actually, I really, really do.”
“Shay.”
“I said I’m leaving.”
“I heard you.” His voice stays level, but I can hear the strain under it now. “I’m saying you don’t have to go anywhere tonight. You can sleep upstairs. I’ll sleep down here.”
The upstairs apartment.
Oh, god. The bed with the pile of blankets and his shirts and the towel I stole because I’m apparently a biological cliché with a business degree.
My skin crawls. “No.”
“You don’t have to talk to me. You don’t have to be near me. Just stay somewhere safe.”
There it is.
Safe.
Like I’m not twenty-one years old and capable of crossing town by myself. Like I haven’t been getting myself home since I was fourteen and my mom forgot to pick me up from school because whichever alpha she was with that month had some emergency that somehow became our emergency, too.
“I’m not a lost puppy, Declan.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He scrubs both hands over his face. He’s still half-undressed, hair a mess, beard damp at the edges. There’s a red mark on his cheek from where he must’ve been pressed against the bar when we were knotted. He looks tired. Not bar-owner tired, not end-of-a-long-shift tired.
Broken. He looks broken.
And my body responds anyway. My omega does this ugly little roll under my ribs, wanting to go to him, wanting his big hands on me, wanting to bury my face in the soft, worn cotton of his shirt and let him tell me I’m okay.
I hate that part of myself so much I could peel it off.
“I need my bag,” I say.
Declan’s face tightens. “Okay.”
“I’m getting my stuff.”
“Okay.”
“And then I’m going home.”
He looks at the floor for a second. When he lifts his head again, his green eyes are wet around the edges.
“Okay,” he says again.
I should be happy. I got what I wanted. No fight, no alpha voice. He isn’t blocking the door or grabbing my wrist or trying to force me to stay, because he knows how badly my body wants him to.
But instead of relief, something raw just scrapes down the center of my chest.
I walk around him.
The bar feels wrong with the lights still on.
Too bright. The dark wood has fingerprints all over it from the party.
There are abandoned napkins and empty glasses, chairs shoved crooked around tables—signs of everybody having a good time while I was busy blowing up the best thing that’s happened to me in years.
I pass the booth where Jude had been hanging off Rhys’s side earlier, grinning like he’d won the lottery.
Milo and Callum had shared one of those disgustingly soft looks across the table when Milo handed him a cookie.
Benji had spent half the night draped over Knox, acting like his alpha’s shoulder was a piece of furniture designed specifically for his ass.
They all looked so sure.
I used to think that was pathetic.
Now I know it’s worse than pathetic.
It’s possible.
The back stairs creak under my feet. The third one, louder than the others. Declan said he’d fix it months ago. Then he said it again last week when I pointed out that customers probably didn’t want an ominous haunted-house sound every time somebody used the staff bathroom.
I pause halfway up.
He’s behind me, but not close. Far enough that I can pretend he isn’t there.
“Why are you following me?” I ask.
“I’m not.”
“You’re on the stairs.”
“You said you needed your bag.”
“I know where my bag is.”
“I know.” His voice catches. “I just… I don’t want you to think I’m letting you walk out because I don’t care.”
I turn around.
He’s one step below me, broad shoulders slumped, shirtless and barefoot on the old wood stairs. There’s a faint bite mark on his forearm—mine, almost healed now. I put that there. I marked him back. I wanted him.
For one stupid second, I want to go down a step and touch it.
“You don’t get points for caring after you fucked me like you were mad at me,” I say.
The words hit him. I see them hit. His jaw works once.
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do.”
“Then why did you do it?”
His eyes shut.
That answer takes too long.
“I was angry,” he says finally. “And hurt. That doesn’t excuse it.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“I should’ve walked away. I should’ve given you space. I should’ve listened when you said you were scared instead of hearing it as you trying to leave me.” His voice gets rougher. “I made it about me.”
I grip the railing so hard my fingers hurt.
He said scared.
Not difficult. Not dramatic. Not cold. Scared.
That’s somehow worse.
“You slammed your hand down,” I say. “You got in my face, and then you…” My voice breaks. I can’t say it. Can’t say I asked for it. Can’t admit I wanted it rough because rough was easier than him looking at me like I mattered.
Declan’s face folds.
“I know,” he says.
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know how to make it better.”
“You can’t.”
The apartment door is open at the top of the stairs. I walk through it before he can answer.
Everything is exactly where it was this morning, which is deeply rude. The couch. The record player. The stupid guitar in the corner. My mug in the sink from earlier, black coffee dried in a dark ring at the bottom.
My presence is tangled into the air itself, woven through his until I can’t tell what belongs to who anymore.
I should’ve been more careful.
I should’ve kept my things separate.
Instead, I walk into the bedroom and find my whole pathetic heart spread across his bed.
The nest isn’t even subtle anymore. It’s a full-blown disaster of feelings.
His shirts are mixed into the blankets. The hoodie I stole after the first night is tangled around one of my pillows.
And the green bar towel is right in the middle, folded under the spot where my cheek goes, like I’ve been sleeping with it on purpose. Which I have.
I just stand there, staring at it.
“Well,” I say, because if I don’t make a joke, I’m going to start screaming. “That’s humiliating.”
Declan stays in the doorway.
“Shay—”
“Don’t.”
He presses his mouth closed.
I grab my duffel from beside the dresser. It’s not even unpacked all the way, which should make this easier. Just gather the obvious stuff. Toothbrush. Charger. The extra shirt I brought over yesterday. My laptop.
My hands move fast. Clean. Efficient.
The toothbrush goes in first.
Then my charger.