Chapter thirty-eight
Lily
The morning after, the first thing Miles does is tell Gabriel to call Jeremy.
We’re at the kitchen table—all five of us, and right now, I’m not pretending I’m just a guest. Miles is in his usual spot, shirtless, coffee in hand, his foot hooked around the leg of my chair like he’s got to keep me tethered to the table or I might float away.
Gabriel sits at the head. Garrett and Cyrus are across from us, eating eggs and toast and acting like they didn’t find us all tangled up and naked twelve hours ago.
“Call Jeremy,” Miles says, mid-bite. “Tell him Lily’s staying.”
Gabriel puts down his coffee, slow. “Are you sure you want to do that right now? Maybe we should talk about it first—“
“I don’t want to talk about it. I want you to call him and tell him she’s not available anymore. She’s mine. Or ours, I guess. Either way it’s done.”
“Miles, these things usually require a conversation with—“
“Gabriel.” Miles fixes him with that look, the one that means this is happening and it’s not up for debate. “Call. Him. Now.”
The toast goes dry in my mouth. I don’t want Gabriel to call him, but it needs to be done.
Gabriel sighs and pulls out his phone. The table goes silent. I can hear the line ringing over the speaker. Once, twice, three times, and then Jeremy answers, all warm and unsuspecting.
“Gabriel, good morning. What can I do for you?”
“Jeremy.” Gabriel clears his throat. He’s picking his words, like he always does, but Miles is watching him with an intensity that says if Gabriel says the wrong thing, he’ll grab the phone and do it himself. “I’m calling about Lily.”
“Oh?” Jeremy’s voice perks right up. “Has she made a decision?”
“She has. She’s going to be staying with us.”
Silence. Long enough to get awkward, long enough that I start counting how many times I can blink before someone says anything.
“Staying with you,” Jeremy echoes. “I thought the arrangement was temporary.”
“It was. Things have changed.”
“Changed how?”
Miles reaches across the table and takes the phone right out of Gabriel’s hand. Gabriel tries to grab it back, but nope. “Jeremy, it’s Miles. Lily is staying with me. With us. She’s not coming to your pack. I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear, but that’s how it is.”
Another pause. “I see. Does Lily want to tell me this herself?”
Miles looks at me. Holds the phone out. My hands are shaking when I take it, but I do.
“Jeremy, I’m sorry,” I say. “I know your pack has been patient and generous with me. But I’ve decided to stay with the Santos pack.”
“Lily.” It comes out tight. Strained. “We turned down three omegas for you. We’ve been waiting. My pack has invested—“
“I know. And I’m really, truly sorry. But this is where I want to be.”
The silence is heavy. I can almost hear him thinking, sorting out what he’s supposed to say next. When he finally talks, he sounds different. Still polite, but clipped.
“I understand,” he says. “I hope the Santos pack gives you everything you deserve.”
The line goes dead. The silence after sits wrong. Like he’s not done with this.
Miles takes the phone back, sets it on the table, and bites into his toast like it’s any other morning.
“That was a little harsh,” Garrett says.
“Got the job done,” Miles says. “Now she doesn’t have to think about it anymore.”
I should feel better. Part of me does—the part that’s been dreading this.
I’ve known for weeks my heart wasn’t in it.
But there’s guilt, too. Jeremy’s face at the nesting closet.
His voice when he talked about his pack and turning down three omegas.
I led them on. Not on purpose, but it still happened.
Miles reads my face in a second. He leans over, grabs my chin, turns me to look straight at him.
“You belong to me,” he says. “Not Jeremy fucking Carr. Stop feeling bad about choosing where you actually want to be.”
He kisses me, hard and fast, in front of everyone. Then goes back to his toast, like he didn’t just stake a claim in the middle of breakfast.
Garrett mouths “wow” at Cyrus from across the table. Cyrus drinks his coffee, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
After breakfast, Gabriel vanishes into his office. Gone a minute, maybe two, then he’s back, a box in his hands.
He sets it down on the table and slides it over. “What’s this?” I ask.
He nods at it. “Open it.”
I peel back the lid, fingers catching on the edge.
It’s a phone. Brand new, still in the plastic sleeve, like something pulled straight from a storefront window.
I don’t know much about phones but even I recognize the model.
It’s the one from all the billboards, the ads that flash by on the TV when someone forgets to mute it.
I just stare. “Gabriel—“
“It’s set up,” he says, awkward. Like he rehearsed it.
“Your number’s on the back. Mine. Miles’s, Garrett’s, Cyrus’s.
All in there already.” He hesitates, clears his throat.
This is harder than he wants it to be. “I should’ve done this before.
When you ran… I didn’t have a way to reach you. I’m not letting that happen again.”
My mouth opens and nothing comes out. I shut it.
“You’re pack now,” he says. “Pack has a phone.”
Like it’s a law. Like it’s carved on a stone somewhere, or stitched on a flag. Pack has a phone. Simple, but solid. Something that’s true because he says so.
I pick it up. It’s heavier than I thought it’d be.
“Thank you,” I manage.
Across the table, Miles watches me, all casual slouch and deliberate boredom. He’s got that look he uses when he cares but doesn’t want me to know it. He pokes at his toast and looks away.
“Call your mom,” Gabriel says, softer. “She’ll want to know.”
I take the phone into the living room. Drop onto the couch, knees folded up, hands clumsy as I tap out the number. I haven’t forgotten it. Not after all these years.
She answers right away. “Hello?”
Her voice. It hits hard, sudden and warm, like opening a window and letting summer in.
“Mom. It’s me.”
“Lily?” She catches her breath. “Honey, how are you?”
“I’m okay. Really okay. This is my new number.” Deep breath. “Mom, I’m staying with the Santos pack. Miles came around and… they’ve decided to keep me.”
The line goes quiet. She’s catching up.
“I’m so happy to hear that,” she says. “There’s nothing better than a scent match. Tell me about them.”
So I do. I tell her about Gabriel. Garrett. Cyrus, silent but kind. I save Miles for last, because he’s the hardest to explain, but the most important. I fumble it, but she gets the shape of things.
“He sounds like a handful,” she says when I run out of words.
“He is.”
“You sound happy, baby.”
I think about this morning. Miles claiming me in front of everyone. The phone in my hand. The fact that I’m calling my mom from a couch in a house that’s starting to feel like mine.
“I think I am,” I say.
She’s quiet, but it’s a good quiet. Then, “Bring them to meet me. When you’re ready.”
“I will.”
“I love you, Lily.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
I hang up and just sit there for a while, phone pressed to my chest. My mom. My pack. And now this phone. Three things I didn’t expect to have a week ago.
Back in the kitchen, Miles looks up from his coffee. He doesn’t ask. He just reaches for me, and I go without thinking, my hand fitting into his like it’s supposed to be there.
***
The next week is the strangest, best, most terrifying week of my life.
Miles shares. Not all at once. It’s still not easy for him, but he makes an effort. He starts pushing the boundaries, seeing what he can handle and what he absolutely can’t.
Monday, he puts me on the couch next to Garrett and sits over with Gabriel in the armchair.
I’m stiff at first, super conscious of how close Garrett is, half-expecting Miles to lose it at any second.
He just watches across the room, hand white-knuckled on Gabriel’s knee.
But he doesn’t say stop. After twenty minutes, Garrett’s arm moves behind my shoulders.
After thirty, I’m leaning into his side.
After an hour, I’m half-asleep against him, his purr deep enough to feel in my chest.
Miles looks uncomfortable the whole time. But he doesn’t crack.
Tuesday, Cyrus makes dinner. Miles tells me to help him.
So I spend an hour in the kitchen with the biggest, quietest alpha in the house, chopping vegetables while he works the stove.
Cyrus doesn’t say much (he never does). But he moves my cutting board closer when I can’t reach.
Hands me a towel when I get sauce on my hands.
When I slice my finger on the knife, he takes my hand, looks at the cut, wraps it with a bandage like it’s nothing.
His scent moves around me while he works—that black pepper and leather that I crave sometimes—and by the time we’re done and dinner’s on the table, the headache I woke up with is gone.
Miles watches from the doorway. I see the tension in his shoulders every time Cyrus touches me. But Cyrus sees it too. He goes to Miles first. Kisses his forehead. Murmurs something just for him. Miles’s shoulders drop and the room relaxes.
They’re learning. All of them. The alphas are careful, always checking Miles’s body language like it’s a weather report.
If he tenses, they back off. If his scent sharpens, they give him space.
If he looks like he’s about to break, someone goes to him.
They ground him first, always first, and only come back to whatever’s happening after he’s okay.
It works. It isn’t perfect, but it works.
Wednesday, Miles has a rough patch. I’m on the floor, painting the city from his sketch—the imaginary city that’s been haunting me—and Gabriel sits down next to me to watch.
His knee touches mine. His scent is strong and my body leans in, not even thinking.
My omega reaching for her match. Pure instinct.
Miles sees it from across the room. His face goes hard. Softness gone, eyes narrowed. He’s about to spiral.