Chapter Eleven — Theo
CHAPTER ELEVEN
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THEO
Logan’s phone had grown eyes.
I felt it staring at us from where it sat on the coffee table in the living room. Silent. No texts.
There was a fight on, and we were watching it with half interest, but I knew none of us were really paying attention. And I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Are we all just going to sit here and pretend we’re not waiting for her to text us?”
Bastian huffed out a laugh, and Brooks leaned forward on his elbows. “As much as I’m waiting for that phone to vibrate, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Maybe if yesterday had gone differently. But something spooked her, and it wasn’t us.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He means that she didn’t get out of the pool and leave the second we got there. She waited.”
“As soon as the rest of Cecil’s pack came out, she hauled ass like the ground was on fire,” Brooks said. “So I think it was us, but it wasn’t only us.”
I could admit I hadn’t noticed what brought Trinity out of the pool. Only that she had been coming out of the water in that deep green bathing suit that barely covered her, and I’d been focusing on not getting hard in front of Mama Hart and Trinity’s father.
“She grew up with them, right?”
Logan shrugged. “I assume so. I didn’t want to seem overly interested before we talked to Trinity.”
I looked at the phone again and looked away.
I felt the restlessness that used to plague me when I swam full-time.
The kind of urge to dive into the pool and swim until you were so exhausted you risked drowning.
That might be preferable to waiting. Every instinct I had told me to find her and make sure the scent was ours forever.
Not just the scent. Her.
I could still feel her skin under my fingers as I held her for that punishment, and I wanted so much more.
Clearing my throat, I stood, trying to ease some of the impulse to move. “If she doesn’t text, which I don’t think she will, what do we do?”
They all stared at me, silent with thought.
“Let me put it a different way. If yesterday hadn’t happened, and she hadn’t texted, would we have reached out to Cade in order to find her?”
“Probably,” Brooks said.
“Well, we have an even more direct route to her through Cecil and Liz. Do we use that?”
Logan leaned back on the couch and let his head drop so he stared at the ceiling. “I wish I fucking knew. I want to. Believe me. But I can’t help but wonder if she’s turned off by the idea that I’m Liz’s son.”
“It’s a shock,” I said. “For sure. But Trinity is a smart woman. You didn’t grow up together, and it’s not like anyone can anticipate a scent match.”
Not that she knew about that. Yet.
“She’s skittish.” That was Bastian.
“Maybe,” I agreed, “but I’m not willing to let this drop without telling her the truth. If she goes into heat and finds out that we didn’t tell her? That we chose not to pursue her?”
I didn’t know Trinity yet, but the same instincts that told me to run out the door and track her down told me that if we left this alone until it could occur naturally, she would be devastated. And I already knew that despite this complication, none of us could simply walk away.
“I think we do try to reach out to her,” Logan said slowly, “but I’m not sure that going through Cecil is the way to do it.
On the one hand, it’s the fastest, but might raise questions with Cecil and Mom.
On the other hand, going through Cade might reinforce the idea that we don’t care about the connection.
Maybe we reach out to her at the magazine?
” Then he winced. “Or maybe not. That feels a little stalkery.”
Trinity had a unique name, and it had taken one internet search to find Trinity Rose Crawford that worked at Clarity Magazine.
Her headshot as one of the managing editors showed it was her.
We hadn’t delved deep—we wanted to learn about her from her—but we were all relieved to know who she was.
And that she lived down here in Clarity Coast, not Sunset City.
“Let’s ask Cecil,” Brooks said.
My legs started moving, and I paced along the windows that overlooked most of Clarity. Our large apartment in the small downtown area was a little inland, but it had a hell of a view of both the sprawling city and the ocean beyond.
“How long do we wait? I don’t want her to think we’re hesitating because of it. If she’s skittish, she needs to know.”
Brooks tilted his head and looked at me. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you like this.”
“And I have a hard time understanding how all of you are so fucking calm,” I snapped.
“I’m not,” Bastian said. “I broke a bag earlier.”
“A punching bag?”
He nodded once.
Damn.
The bags were heavy as shit.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Let’s wait through tomorrow,” Logan said. “Give her a day to recover from the weekend. And if we don’t hear from her tomorrow…”
The next day.
I took a slow, shaky breath. “Okay.” The overwhelming need to find her had to be purged, or I wouldn’t make it through tomorrow. “Going to the pool.”
“Don’t drown,” Logan called after me.
My thrown up middle finger made laughter follow me out the door and to the elevator all the way down to the basement. We had lockers down here with the things we might need.
The scent of chlorine settled my mind a bit.
It wasn’t the scent I wanted, but at least it was familiar.
Water parted around my body, accepting me the way it always had.
It didn’t stop the flashes of seeing Trinity—her coming on Logan’s tongue, looking up at us with shock at Cecil’s house, getting out of the pool in that fucking bathing suit.
I would swim until I couldn’t swim anymore, and hope that she texted so I wouldn’t have to do it again tomorrow.