Chapter twenty-five
Lily
Ispend a full hour getting ready, which is honestly a little embarrassing when you remember it’s just a bonfire.
But I want this. That’s the weirdest part.
I catch myself in the bathroom mirror, curling iron in hand, and realize I’m excited.
I’m not just going through the motions and dragging myself through another obligation like I have been for months.
No, tonight feels different. As if it could actually go my way for once.
I curl my hair, loose at the ends, giving myself waves instead of that limp, unbrushed look I’ve been rocking lately. I dab on some makeup. Nothing fancy, a swipe of mascara, a little blush so I don’t look like I’m perpetually sick. I dig out a sweater, soft green.
Standing there, I check myself in the mirror. I look… fine. Not great. Too thin. Pale. Still the omega who’s been falling apart one piece at a time for weeks. But there’s a color to my face that wasn’t there yesterday. Something open. Hope feels strange on me now… but I think I like it.
When I walk out to the living room, Gabriel’s on the couch, eyes glued to his phone.
He looks up and just… stares for a second.
His gaze trails over my hair, my sweater, my face—the whole package—and something changes in his expression.
Like he’s seeing me too late. I can’t even name the look, but I pretend I didn’t see it. I glance away, quick.
“You look nice,” he says.
“Thank you.”
I sit down on the edge of the couch, hands in my lap, and realize the room is too quiet. Gabriel is absorbed in his phone.
That’s when I remember: my mom. I haven’t called her in…
since that first week, when Garrett let me use his phone and stood there awkwardly pretending not to listen while I told her I was alive and nobody had murdered me yet.
I should’ve called again. She’s probably half convinced I’ve been kidnapped and sold on the black market by now.
I clear my throat. “Um, Gabriel?”
He looks up. Cedar and smoke, right to the face. “Yeah?”
“Can I use your phone? I just—I want to call my mom. She’s probably worried. I haven’t checked in.”
He nods, passes it over and hovers. Which is peak Gabriel. Pretending he’s not listening but 100% listening.
I dial. My mom picks up on the second ring. Her voice is warm, sweet, but I can hear the worry underneath. Like she’s bracing for disaster.
I tell her I’m fine. Actually fine, not registry code for “barely hanging on, please don’t send a wellness check.
” I tell her that, and I mean it. I’m fine.
I’m even getting out of the house tonight.
I tell her about the bonfire. About the new pack who wants to see me again.
I don’t say “wants to claim me” because I don’t want her to worry, but she gets it.
Moms always get it. She starts crying happy tears in about three seconds flat.
“Tell me about them,” she says. “Are they nice? Are they good to you?”
“They’re really nice,” I say, which is true. “They remembered I liked painting and sent me art supplies. The date was fun. They’re not weirdos.”
She asks about the lead, his name. I tell her: Jeremy Carr. “That’s a good name,” she says.
“Have you heard from June? How is she?” I ask.
“Oh, honey, your sister is doing so well. Her alphas are just over the moon.” Two minutes of this. Smooth pregnancy. Happy alphas. A plan forming in real time: “When the baby comes, I’ll drive over and pick you up and we’ll go see them before she even leaves the hospital. Won’t that be nice?”
“Sure, Mom. That sounds great.” I even try to put a little excitement in my voice so she doesn’t hear what I’m really thinking, which is: I’d rather eat glass than watch my sister have the fairy tale I can’t even get on a discount.
I’m happy for my sister, of course I am. But it’s too painful seeing someone succeed in real time in every place I managed to fail so miserably.
She buys it. Or pretends to. We hang up after a few more “love you”s.
She says she’s proud of me. I say I’m proud of her too.
It’s all very sweet, very normal. The kind of conversation real omegas probably have with their real mothers, while their real packs hover in the background like a security blanket.
There’s a version of this world that fits them better than it fits me. I just never figured out the coding.
I hand the phone back to Gabriel and try not to look at him.
But of course he’s watching me. Eyes knowing, like he saw every second of that call and knows exactly how I feel about the whole thing.
I want to tell him to mind his own business, but I just sit there, hands folded, trying to look like a person who’s not about to crawl out of her own skin.
He takes the phone, slow. He doesn’t say anything. Just watches me with those observant eyes.
I don’t linger. I head to the entryway and wait for Jeremy’s truck, coat folded over my arm. Every extra minute with Gabriel feels like giving up ground to his gravity, and tonight I don’t want that. Tonight, I want someone new. Someone who doesn’t make me feel like loving me costs something.
Jeremy’s right on time, six-thirty sharp. I hear the truck before I see it, and I’m out the door before he can make it to the steps. I don’t want him inside this house. I want his scent clean and separate, not all mixed up with cedar and longing.
He’s waiting by the driver’s side, grinning as if I’m the best thing he’s seen all day.
“Hey. You look amazing.”
“Hi.” I’m blushing, I know it, but I don’t bother hiding it. “Thanks.”
He opens the passenger door for me and I hop in. The truck smells like him. Warm and spicy. My omega soaks up the scent and hums. Not the wild, frantic yes I get from the Santos alphas, but a softer one. A gentle, okay, this is nice. Safe.
“Pack’s already at the property,” Jeremy says, backing out of the driveway. “I told them you might want to take it slow tonight, so we’re just hanging out by the fire. Nothing crazy.”
“That sounds perfect.”
He glances over, his eyes that easy green that always makes him look like he’s smiling. “You good? You seem…lighter tonight.”
“I had a rough week,” I say. “I think tonight I just decided I don’t want to carry it anymore.”
“Good. You shouldn’t have to.”
He doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask for details or poke at my wounds. He drives, one hand on the wheel and the other on the console between us, palm up. An open invitation. No pressure.
I slide my hand into his. He squeezes gently and doesn’t let go.
The drive is half an hour of quiet, mostly dark roads.
No forced conversation or awkward filler.
We pass little towns and empty fields, winter closing in around us, and Jeremy holds my hand like it’s nothing new.
As if we’ve always done this. For a second, I feel like I slid into a life already waiting for me. Effortless.
By the time we get there, my headache is basically gone. I don’t know if it’s the smell of him, the way he holds my hand, or the sheer absence of anxiety, but I feel… looser. My shoulders are finally down where they belong.
The place is gorgeous. There’s a cabin at the end of a long gravel drive, trees all around, a bonfire already burning in the fire pit out back. I can see three people out there, laughing, one of them poking at the fire with a stick.
“The cabin belongs to my father. We vacation here sometimes.” Jeremy tells me. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
We walk around to the fire. Leo spots us first and he yells, “There she is! Our favorite omega.”
“Don’t say it like that, you’ll scare her off,” Michael says. His smile is real, crinkling his eyes. “Hi, Lily. Glad you made it.”
Theo’s last to look up. He grins and waves his fingers. His quiet focus mellows me out—the observer of the group, like Cyrus. When Theo looks at me, I feel seen but not judged.
They make a space for me by the fire. Literally. There’s a camp chair with a blanket, pulled up close, right between Jeremy and Michael. They thought about my comfort. They planned this. Nobody’s planned around my comfort in a very long time.
I sink into the chair. The fire’s so warm. The blanket’s soft. Jeremy passes me a mug that has hot chocolate with whiskey in it. I laugh at the first sip because, honestly, this is exactly what four grown alphas would do to impress a girl.
“What?” Jeremy grins.
“Nothing. It’s perfect.”
Leo’s in charge of food. He’s got a bag of marshmallows open beside him and says he’s making “the best S’mores you’ve ever had in your life.
” Michael watches him closely. He’s probably seen disaster before.
Theo’s already roasting his marshmallow on a metal skewer, turning it carefully to get it golden.
“He’s going to set it on fire,” Michael says to me.
“I’m not going to set it on fire,” Leo shoots back.
“He always sets them on fire.”
“I burned it once—“
“Twice,” Theo says.
“Okay, twice, but—“
“Three times,” Jeremy adds.
Leo points the spatula at him. “You’re all going to eat these amazing melted chocolate S’mores and apologize to me.”
I laugh from deep in my chest. All of them look at me when I do, and their faces just… soften, like they were waiting for it.
“There she is,” Jeremy says, quiet, just for me.
I duck my head and sip my whiskey-hot chocolate and try not to cry.
The night moves slow, easy. Nobody pushes me.
Nobody asks for my resume. They tell stories.
Michael talks about a fishing trip where Leo fell in a lake chasing a bass with his hands.
Theo describes Jeremy wrecking a truck engine trying to fix it.
Then Leo’s New Year’s Eve when they all got lost in a corn maze because Jeremy insisted he knew the way.
They’re always teasing, but it’s the loving kind. You can tell by how they touch each other—Leo bumping Jeremy’s shoulder when he laughs, Michael’s hand at the back of Theo’s neck as he passes, all of them orbiting each other without even thinking about it.